Much to do about, well, nothing really, the Pitts pilot saw an opportunity and took it, maybe should have made a radio call, but hey ho.:rolleyes:

A couple of hours spent watching the Microlight Fly-in arrivals at Popham and you'll learn a lot about relaxing and just getting on with things. There's a group that fly for fun and aren't too put out by one another. Never saw a rule book quoted or anyone pulled up for minor inconveniences, unlike much of the Group A group who seem to want to throw the book at others quite a lot.

GA could learn quite a bit from the attitude of the microlight community.

glush,

Agreed completely.

Ok, somewhere like Bournemouth/Birmingham etc may dictate a different (sensible/logical) approach, but my standard procedure is to use every metre of runway available to me.

I don't have thousands of hours, but have done enough flying to see the difference between what the theory says we should do and what we sometimes ACTUALLY do.

I've beat up runways lower than I should have and other such things, my point being I'm not one of these holier than thou types who doesn't know the difference between legality and safety (not always the same). But I know what it's like to lose power after unstick and needing that extra 50 metres or so.

I wasn't in the OP's shoes and I think it's impossible to judge these situations unless you were there. It doesn't sound unsafe to me - in fact I can imagine everybody was trying to find an opportunity, and I'm sure the Pitts pilot didn't intentionally try to upset you. I'm speculating because I have done 'this' to other pilots before to utilise a spacing opportunity, but only if I was sure it wouldn't inconvenience anyone and I really was ready to roll immediately.

Just a shame you guys were taking off as opposed to landing - then you could have spoken to him and found out what was going on!

:)

Isn't the only issue one of whether the Pitts pilot advised his intentions on the RT? If he did then it would appear to be entirely his own decision as to whether to take off from the intersection as opposed to backtrack. He does not appear to have done anything illegal or dangerous and indeed it sounds safer than having taken off following a slower aircraft which had a inferior rate of climb

I think the question that is missing here really is " did the Pitts pilot , { who nipped in on the quick} have time to have a real lookout before taking off , given his speed of action and the poor lookout available from a biplane configuration ? "
That would be my main concern under those circumstances.

What you should have done was opened up and outclimbed him, rolled inverted 2M above his cockpit whilst simultainiously taking a polaroid with one hand and giving him "the bird" with the other.
(probably wouldn't do much for safety but would ensure a place in any remake of top gun though) ! :ok:

C'mon, I have visited Leics about once or twice a year over the past three years and have nearly always departed Rwy 10.

Our moaning friend says he backtracked......20m to avoid departing with usable Rwy behind.
Take a closer look - the actual available Rwy from the holding point requires somewhere akin to > 250m backtrack to make full use of the licensed paved length.

No further comment.

Glush does seem to be maintaining radio silence.

Was he in a Piper PA28-151?
Was he backtracking 20 or 250 mtrs?
Did he miss the Pitts radio call?

Perhaps, Glush entered the runway for a 250 mtr backtrack and missed the quick radio call from the Pitts who did an intersection departure while G-LUSH was blocking the runway.

G lush may not have been flying G-LUSH. My moniker is Hatz flyer but I haven't flown a Hatz for 6 years or so.

More often than not I find these threads a little strange (and a waste of time) for exactly this reason; the OP proclaims a great injustice but is unwilling to submit to the scrutiny of PPRuNe or answer some of the questions raised.

The danger is we are left wondering whether the injustice was as claimed or the post was made for some other reason.

The OP may have been in error and the back track may have been much longer (or the Pitts expected it to be longer) and / or the OP may having be flying a high perfromance aircraft but we just dont know.

Err... no you were not ready for deeparture... you were ready for a backtrack.

Err....no he wasnt lining up... he was backtracking! You said so yourself!

Perhaps if more accurate RT had been used, indicating what you were actually doing, the Pitts pilot would have been more in the loop. Im sure he didnt expect a mere 20m backtrack!

either the backtracking aircraft missed two radio calls, one from the Pitts requesting an immediate with backtracking in sight and one from the tower then advising of traffic lining up in front, or the pitts was guilty of piss poor airmanship.

Or c), it's an a/g field and he doesn't have to ask 'permission' from anyone, leaving one call to be missed...

common courtesy, safety and good airmanship me thinks

... to have let the Pitts go ahead of you if you were going to backtrack?

absolutely, as long as they had asked, especially with a student pilot, thus demonstrating the real world and the need for situational awareness and at least one ear on the radio. :ok:

It's no good - every time I read the thread title I imagine Jar Jar Binks sitting in the PA28, harumphing away at the impertinence of the Pitts driver.

And then I found this....



Sorry. :\

So in the absence of ATC it's OK to enter and take off from an occupied runway is it?

You learn something every day.

You Tube
 

Following on in this quite fascinating thread, the video wonder You Tube be is full of aviation disasters where two aeroplanes collide on runway, generally resulting in non surviveable incidents.:\

Now we are not privy to ATC Comms on these postings, however, I would hazard a quess that communication, and situational awareness is probably the cause in a lot of them.

There is never any excuse for runway incursion, without adequate and confirmed communications between participating aircraft. End of.

i.e. confirms by the backtracking aircraft that he is happy, and knows about, the others intentions on entering the active. Everyone happy, and safe:D

Apparently it is to be encouraged if it saves a minute or two of waiting at the hold!

Well technically it's not a clearance; Biggin offer them fairly regularly - I've had two myself there that I can remember off the top of my head. On one occasion when waiting at the hold, I observed an American (going by his accent) on short final in a jet being given a land after and he had absolutely no idea what the controller meant. He flew down the runway asking 'land after what?' or words to that effect. Eventually when the other traffic had exited the runway he was cleared to land and then he touched down. He was then asked to contact the tower once he had shut down! Maybe that partially explains the reluctance to use it at other ATC fields?

Seems to me....
 

It seems to me that:
-The pitts pilot was within his rights to take off.
-He should have made a radio call
-Regardless of whether glush was flying a piper or an aircraft with higher performance than the pitts he was wasting time by backtracking 20m when over 250m is available, especially when he is so concerned about runway behind him.
-The pitts pilot probably assumed that when glush started backtracking he would backtrack for long enough for him to take off safely.
-Finally, both pilots were not on top form that day.

Investigation complete
However, I do understand why glush was annoyed

Well said.

I hear that flying is expensive in the UK, and everyone is trying to save a quid, and fly as cheaply as possible, but come on here, isn't courtsey still a hallmark of behaviour in the UK?

I don't think that one can be proud of, or defend, "butting in" the queue, be it at Tescos, or on the runway. If proper radio calls were made and missed, it could be seen from differing perspectives. If no radio calls were made to assure that everyone was in agreement, poor form in my opinion.

I think you have succinctly and accurately summarized the situation.

I think this is an example of a more widespread issue. That is the lack of emphasis flight training organizations place on using runway time efficiently. When things are busy I think good airmanship means not wasting time on the runway. That means not taxing to the hold line until you are in all respects ready for takeoff, not dawdling on the runway when you are lined up, and when landing, exiting expeditiously at the first safe taxiway. If you have to taxi along the runway to get to the next exit than use a high speed taxi until you are near the exit. Finally be predictable, if you are going to backtrack, others will assume you are going to the end, so if that is not the plan clearly describe your intentions.

Hear hear!

To add: High-speed exits can be used at high speeds. For a typical spamcan that's just below stall speed so if you touch down 200-300 meters before a high-speed exit there's no need to brake. Just roll out onto the exit.

And of course, if it's a 1000 meter runway with no intersections, land long.

Backpacker

Greetings; Before landing long, could I just suggest (from personal experience) that it is good to know how long your landing roll is in case of failure of the breaks and touch down at more than that distance ;)


Maybe my English is not quite right, but I do not see any mention of an intersection in glush's first post.

The mental picture I have is that the second aircraft entered by the same place and then took off.

So, if I understand correctly, his first glance of the Pitts might have been at quite short distance.

I make no judgement, but am trying to imagine how things looked.

Joao, the airports that I know only have high-speed intersections, but a normal 90-degree exit at the runway ends. So if you land long, aiming for a high-speed intersection and then find you're confronted with failed brakes, you have an additional few hundred meters to roll out to the end of the runway anyway (or accelerate and climb away).

Backpacker

That works just fine.

I had brake failure on a 800m runway and was amazed how long we rolled for!

However, we did not run off the end.

I've just looked at the AD Chart and satellite photo for Leicester and it looks like the backtrack for 10 is more like 200M than 20M?

Yep. That's why it's so odd to call "lining up" and then do a 20-meter backtrack before actually lining up. It doesn't make sense. Either you need the backtrack and you go all the way, or you don't need it so you line up and depart immediately.

The only logical reason I can think of, is that the take off charts and factors (e.g. CAA) suggest those extra 20m and you decide to play it by the book as it is a training flight.

Maybe the OP will inform us.

“The only logical reason I can think of, is that the take off charts and factors (e.g. CAA) suggest those extra 20m and you decide to play it by the book as it is a training flight.

Maybe the OP will inform us.”

He has already told us that his machine had better performance than a Pitts. With a long hard runway no way did he need the extra 20m to comply with the regs. He probably had more than 5 times what he needed.

Rod1

Assuming the aircraft was a PA28-151, take off distance over a 50ft obstacle is 540M.

There is 630M of runway between the intersection and the far threshold - the backtrack doesn't make any sense to me at all?

If it wasn't a PA28-151, and some kind of 'hotter than a Pitts' hot ship, then the backtrack makes even less sense!

glush mentions in another thread that he instructs on a Eurostar - so perhaps that was the aircraft in use on the day?

Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because the OP might have been ill-advised to backtrack does not then legitimise someone else entering the runway unannounced for a sneaky take-off when noone's looking.

If you are at an airfield where there are frequent PPL training flights then it is naive to always expect the standards you would get from experienced pilots. Students are learning and will occasionally make mistakes. We all had to start at the beginning and the vast majority of us weren't particularly brilliant when we started off!

When I flew solo to another airfield as part of my PPL I was taxiing to the hold when I realised I had made a silly error. This threw me and then I became conscious of another bigger aircraft waiting behind me and I panicked - took off without completing a whole section of my checks. I learned a lot from that - namely do not rush and get it wrong.

But what if this had been a solo student? Mr Pitts wasn't to know there was an instructor on board. Already feeling pressurised because of the busy circuit, the student enters the runway, backtracks (rightly or wrongly), turns, applies full power without looking ahead properly (he is trying to save time remember) and then suddenly finds himself taking off alongside another aircraft who entered the runway without telling anyone.

Piss poor airmanship and quite worrying that others regard it as acceptable behaviour (until of course someone does it to them!)

We dont know if he did or didnt (tell anyone).

No excuses for not saying I agree.

If he did say this could be all be a wind up.

Thats it - doesnt seem a lot more to say, other than our OP seems to have got sticky keys.

Excellent points which the OP could have resolved by calling the Pitts through, agreeing to a call from the Pitts indicating his action or being relived that the Pitts took the initiative and went ahead.

....pretty unlikely with a Pitts, you've obviously never flown one.

If the Pitts pilot had been holding behind the PA28 and then the PA 28 had called lining up and proceeded to turn to the left, then its a reasonable assumption that the PA28 was going to backtrack and that could have been up to 200mtrs which would take some time.

The Pitts could then easily depart from the intersection. Generally he would out accelerate and out climb most other piston aircraft and it would be safer to be ahead of a slower aircraft rather than behind because of the limited forward visibility.

Yes, he should have announced his intentions, but maybe he did and Glush missed it. He does seem to have been wrong on the distance to backtrack and the relative performance of the two aircraft.

I'm no lover of Pitts's but this seems a pragmatic and safe way to maximise the use of a busy airfield.

Let's face it, the whole thing is about communications.


"G-ABCD making short backtrack before line up and departure"

"G-EFGH entering behind backtracking aircraft for immediate departure"


Would have probably solved probably the whole misunderstanding.

G

Genghis

Exactly

Hmm, I agree, for an instructor the OP is beginning to look less than like a reliable witness. It is one of those stories that doesnt quite stand up to scrutiny.

Still it has kept us all entertained when we have nothing better to do!

The OP said it was 'rude'. I agree and it was also poor airmanship. Procedures and good habits are put in place to ensure safety. Unfortunately the type of pilot described here will also be likely to nip in front of a student on finals. I have seen this twice and both times the offending pilot took umbrage at being challenged (what about the wobbly student?).

I also don't blame the OP for going quiet. He makes a valid point and members with thousands of posts (and presumably nothing else to do) take over and change the entire emphasis. No wonder people are leaving Pprune.

If it was an F4, it uses a lot of runway before achieving a 48,000 feet rate of climb, which I believe might just beat a Pitt's.

And that answer is about as sensible as yours, as you have no more idea than me of the performance calculations for that aircraft, which might even be simulating an IFR departure in a multi for training purposes.

Possibly not, as G-ABCD was a AVRO 616 AVIAN MK4M, withdrawn from use in 1938 and G-EFGH is a Robinson R22 ;)

Sorry couldn't resist!