Affordable safety: It's inescapable.

It terrifies me that there are probably a lot of near-misses where they do have that few-second/20ft gap - and they're never noticed, never reported, or possibly just never made public. This one just happened to not have that gap.

I've had one incident in VFR where Melbourne Centre called to say that someone was heading straight towards me at the same altitude (I was heading just about due north at 4500ft, they were heading just about due south at 4500ft). Even after that call I never managed to spot the other plane, so I can't tell how close we were - but without that call it could have been very close indeed.

I dont disagree, there has to be a cost benefit analysis to safety. But many people in this thread seem to want the safety but aren’t willing to accept the cost. It’s about reducing the risk down to an acceptable level. And I would suggest the chances of 2 aircraft colliding in the way these 2 did would have been very slim. In fact I suspect it would be nearly impossible even if you tried to recreate it....

I had a near miss some 8 months ago. 20ft below me, opposite direction, through a CTAF at circuit height, close to Melbourne.

I obtained the rego and track from FlightAware and which clearly showed what happened and sent it to the ATSB. My friend was not far behind and he probably only avoided a midair because I quickly warned him. He also logged it with them.

I got nothing back from the ATSB. My friend called for an update and was advised that it was all about priorities and this wasn’t a priority.

Our own private investigations revealed that the pilot is well into his 90’s and has a history of this kind of flying behaviour and lack of radio use.

All it would have taken was a quick call to CASA to follow up with the pilot for a please explain and the potential to save lives in the future. But... nothing but crickets...

I agree.

Subject to any 'left field' factors coming out of a competent investigation, it will be interesting to see whether anyone has the integrity to say: Infinitesimally low probability events still happen. All the rules, procedures, gizmos, training and experience don't stop the holes in the Swiss cheese lining up forever.

My experience might be out-of-date, but on an IFR renewal (last millennium) I had to fly from MB to Cowes to fly the NDB and then a DME approach back into MB. On the way down to Cowes it was real IFR, there was an aeroplane shooting the NDB, another waiting in the holding pattern, and another aeroplane crossing our tracks from somewhere from the East. That felt like high workload to me, particularly on a renewal flight. Flight services informed us of the other aircraft, and we negotiated our separation with each other. Crossing aircraft flew above us, the guy doing the approach did the missed approach and climbed on the missed approach until he got above us, and I went into the holding pattern above the other aeroplane in the holding pattern and waited for him to fly his approach. Doesn't it work something like this today, even though it's Class G?

Governments these days just don't get that throwing money at problems won't eliminate them.

ATC positioning was not that accurate some years ago in class G. On one IFR night flight, out of cloud east of Melbourne, we were told of traffic that was overtaking us on the port-side. All three pilots were fixated looking for traffic in that direction and after a minute or so, one of the pilots turned to check starboard where we saw an old twin with no strobes approx 400ft diagonally separated on the same heading. ATC was content with this until the PIC asked for greater vertical separation. We had just had a ADS-B/s installed when they were not mandatory and assume this other old twin did not. Does anyone know how accurate the system would have been if we both had newer transponders?

The reason the radar separation standard is 5NM is because it has to allow for the errors in the system. At a guess I would assume the SSR radars are accurate to within 2NM. Therefore at 5NM apart by radar you should still be 1NM apart even if both radar positions are at the extremes of their errors. So yes, I’m not surprised that an aircraft was on the opposite side to what the radar said. The raw RADAR feed that goes into Eurocat actually is quite a mess, it goes through many filters and radar processors before it goes onto the control display.

ADSB would likely be far more accurate, I believe it broadcasts position twice every second. However the position symbol in the control system will still only update once every 5 seconds.

This is the most sensible post in the thread so far.

An analogy is two bullets fired from 2 different guns hitting each other in mid flight. Those four poor souls were just extremely unlucky. I feel very sorry for their families and have remembered them in my prayers.

Any further outrage at how the rules are dangerous is tantamount to the current WHS adage that "every accident is preventable"... with the benefit of hindsight... Utter bull****.

I think I can see another positive for ensuring you get the 4G model with any iPad or Android device now. Currently I have a mini as my primary device, but it doesnt have 4G. I pair it to a BadELF for GPS and was thinking of WiFi hotspotting to my mobile to get traffic in via the EFB app. But it looks like most of these, the DRX included, need WiFi to connect to EFB. It does GPS and ADSB so would remove the need for the BadELF for me, but I would lose the iPhone hotspot ability. I then have an iPad Pro 11" with 4G which I main use for planning, and due to size, is the backup device in case anything goes wrong.

I am now regretting not getting the 4G iPad Mini. Until we are all on ADSB this will be a problem with some traffic coming from the EFB apps, and other from ADSB.

There are units available that have ADSB receiver, GPS and AHRS in them all over wifi on the one unit. I got one for US$269 but I haven’t tried it with 4G off on the iPad. On paper, it does exactly what you need.

A couple of years ago at Jandakot a Caravan was on final for the parallel runway 24R. He decided at about 200 feet to do a left orbit instead of going around which put him straight onto a collision course with me on final for 24L so at 200 feet AGL I had to dive to avoid a collision. Witnessed by two ATC, my student and the other pilot admitted it. Reports duly submitted.

ATSB said it wasn't an issue as he had "gone around on Base" which was complete rubbish and proven by Webtrak. CASA? "Nothing to do with us as the AOC holder is over East".

I lost all faith in the ATSB that day, though it wasn't the first time they had changed the facts around I'd never known them to disregard a report from ATC before.

Meanwile recently I was on upwind at a CTAF in VMC when an IFR guy decided to do an instrument approach for the reciprocal to the runway in use. We had to make a steep turn to avoid him on upwind as he came belting down his approach straight towards us. He was using IFR RNAV position reports in a CTAF full of VFR aircraft, skydivers, helicopters and scenic fights so few of us great unwashed VFR people had a clue where he was or his intentions. I didn't even bother putting in a report, there's no point. I would probably just get blamed for it anyway.

One of my studes is a glider pilot, they use a thing called FLARM, anyone here familiar with that?

FLARM is one of several available Personal Collision Avoidance Systems (PCAS).

FLARM is a proprietory position/ALT/speed transmitter and receiver, widely used in the glider community. If two aircraft have FLARM installed, they can both see each other. The FLARM receiver analyses the relative movements of other FLARM equipped targets and accordingly prioritises traffic alerts presented to the pilot.

A newer, and less expensive PCAS is PilotAware. While it too has its proprietary position/ALT/speed outgoing signal (which only other PilotAware users can read), the PilotAware receiver sees other aircraft equipped with ADS-B Out, TPX S, TPX C, FLARM or PilotAware. Similar to FLARM, it can display traffic in various ways (incl on TCAS-style traffic radar screens), filter and prioritise threats, and can also generate spoken, explicit traffic alerts.

20 GA midairs since 2001.Did I read that right?

Can anyone recommend an ads/flarm in solution that works with dynon skyview? .....that doesn’t cost >$1000?

Not quite for Skyview, however something I didn’t know existed until I just googled it.

https://www.ozpilot.com.au/air-avion...SABEgIjKfD_BwE

Andrew R and Leadballoon - do you guys actually fly aeroplanes? "We know aircraft in IMC cannot adequately self separate". I do this stuff every day. How about "mate you maintain 5000 and I'll stay at 4000 until passed." There you go - positive separation. Even if the higher aircraft has to maintain 5000 until over the VOR to ensure a totally accurate position comparison, then so be it.

Flying into Mildura some days would give a reasonable chance of a repeat/inadvertent recreation sadly. I think anyone would be a fool to accept an aircraft with a TCAS MEL into YMIA at the moment. I know I certainly wouldn’t. You need that backup tool for when the circuit tools can’t tell east from west or north from south. “I’m 5miles north tracking south inbound for straight in runway 36” “I’m due west of the field tracking east sorry due east my heading is 090”.

I’m often baffled by how many people struggle with basic orientation stuff. It’s not typically a surprise which general direction you are going to arrive from.