Very funny :)

But I am sure you get my point.

Contributers are now aware of UK circuit procedure.

For the case in point, using the debris sites photographs and the low 5 kt wind, a (say) 90kt collision at ~1000 ft. could allow the broken propeller to travel perhaps 1/4 mile.
But the end of runway 20 is at least double that distance away, which implies impact occurred whilst the climbing a/c was already on his crosswind leg.

This suggests the Vans pilot followed correct procedure - taking off he'd turn left at ~500 ft in a climbing turn to continue to circuit height where he could leave (or rejoin the circuit). The joining a/c lost its prop. when striking the Vans from behind in its pilot's blind spot.

Ergo neither pilot was aware of the others likely proximity despite ATC radio ?

Not sure I would turn left at 500ft regardless of whether this puts me underneath crosswind traffic.

Surely, departing traffic should fly on the runway heading, over the numbers, and then a bit further, so it can then continue its climb on an easterly or westerly track without the risk of hitting crosswind traffic from underneath. In such a conflict, neither would see the other.

Fair point about situational awareness by listening to the radio but this is of limited value because

- a lot of pilots misreport their location
- a lot of pilots don't report their location
- often one cannot make a report if somebody is making a long call
- some pilots lie about their position (report a position more advanced than their actual one) to get a clearance to a particular join

Personally, I fly a long way out over the sea, on roughly the runway heading, before climbing anywhere near circuit height.

Some sense at last - well done Jet blu:ok:

I am not going to post what the word is around Shoreham but at least we will find out for sure when the report comes out, because it will be easy to establish where the DA40 was and how high it was. A pity it is going to take a long time.

Jetblu

You'd better explain what blue line means as many of the non MEP rated won't understand Vmca!

But 118 - that is quite a hot-ship.

No comment on the tragic accident at Shoreham, save to say it was tragic.

Stik

Jetblu

You need to clarify to what service you are relating this comment. If an ATC service, then certainly any significant speed difference could be taken into account to get the best overall sequence but very often pilots overestimate their ability to safely overtake slightly slower traffic ahead. I do not understand how you can exclude - i.e. compliment - North Weald in this respect as that aerodrome only provides AGCS.

2 s

memories of px - best glide of an RV-6 is around 80 kts. A bit variable given many variations of engines, props and equipment (ie weights, CofG and drag of props) - though the wings are all the same shape...

In the context of this thread I don't see any difference between ATC and AG/AFIS.

After ATC has cleared somebody to takeoff, and cleared somebody else to join "crosswind", those two planes are on their own.

The former is totally on his own and provided he does not climb too rapidly he can reasonably expect his departure to be below other traffic. ATC can't assist him with that anyway.

The latter is responsible for slotting himself into downwind traffic, and likewise ATC can't assist him with that.

If ATC do more than that (e.g. delaying takeoff clearances to aircraft known to be rejoining the circuit, if somebody is being cleared crosswind) then I stand to be corrected, but I have never noticed anything like that.

I agree that this was an accident waiting to happen because so many people join "crosswind" way outside the upwind numbers, and even a PA28-140 can climb to circuit height in that distance.

IO540, if you know the word on the ground at shoreham, then you know that this discussion has not really got close to why .

Could we take a step back for this?

Blueline = Vyse = best rate of climb single engine
Low speed Redline = Vmca = minimum control speed with one engine inoperative.

I would agree that flying a circuit much below blueline is not ideal, but it is safely possible. If you're flying something fast in the circuit with somethings slow, some adjustment to the circuit is going to be needed. I'm sure it's a no no to pass in the circuit, so, yes, first come first served!

AFAIK the latter is responsible for giving way to all aircraft in the circuit, including the one taking off.

In any case, the way I see it is that the OHJ creates no less than three areas of conflict where you might encounter traffic on a 90 degree or more collision course. First in the overhead itself, then when crossing upwind, and then joining downwind. Any other kind of join only has one - the place where you join the circuit. And considering that the downwind leg is the longest circuit leg, thus giving the best opportunity to spot other traffic and slotting in neatly behind, I know what sort of join I prefer...

Backpacker,

'Normally' it may make a logical - if you ask & it's approved by ATC - alternative. However where lots of traffic it reduces your time to assess traffic & for others already in the circuit to back off to let you barge in.
On non-radio or advisory when say arriving for the Popham Air Fair, everyone is reminded to do the OHJ. It's hairy at times when folk disregard it - and they do - but the bulk of arrivals of all sorts of a/c speeds can & do slot in with adjustments made early enough to accomodate these matters.
OHJ may be flawed but it works when very busy, provided cleverer pilots don't decide to do something else.

This thread started off as a report into a tradgic accident, we have now heard 100's of ways on how to fly the perfect circuit and understand that everyone has seen evidence that this does't always happen.

I have to say that many instructors dont even teach the correct circuit, particulary at Shoreham, I should know as I am a Shoreham instructor and Exaiminer and see examples of this on a regular basis.

Shoreham has a published procedure, guess what, it should be followed.
Do people make up their own instrument approach - NO cause it will kill them, so why are we talking about all the ways we could join a circuit, Shoreham has a published procedure so USE IT, failure to do so may KILL someone.

Now we have people stating that there are rumours abound at Shoreham about what happen, again its an airfield, everyone knows everything, there are far to many bar room experts.

The DA40 survived, they were lucky, lets see what the GPS info provides, lets look at the Gatwick and Farnborugh Radar trace and see what happened, i suspect they already have and know who was in the wrong.

From the Maps and debris shown I think its obvious where the fault lies but I am not a Bar Room Expert.

All I know is accidents never just happen, its a chain of avoidable events, this is why we should teach the PPL students to a high standard and as examiniers be firm in reminding people to LOOKOUT and follow the RULEs. Flying should be fun, it should also be safe, follow the rules and procedures and it will be.

RANT OVER!!!

Happy flying, LOOKOUT, Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

RIP Alan Weald.

This discussion set off on a course drawn by a couple of members quoting a high climb rate for the RV.

Looking at the Shoreham published procedures for a left hand pattern on 20 and the distribution of aircraft parts as recently posted I find difficulty to combine the theory with reality.

Where was that DA40?

Having flown a bit at North Weald I can agree with Jetblu that the a/g operator is very helpful and the circuit is user friendly for various types of aircraft. It's probably more down to the fact that there are regular movements by a wider variety of aircraft than can be found at many other airfields.

I can understand why pilots want to know immediately what the cause of a collision is, but there is really no way to know what actually happened or what state the aircraft involved were in just before it happened; for all we know it may have had nothing whatsoever to do with circuit procedures.

I'm pretty sure lookout is part of aviate but whatever. ;)

Vino - I agree with you.

intresting question your pose bearing in mind they had a flying instructor on board "following" the published shoreham pattern.

where was that DA40

Always highlight the LOOKOUT in any ground brief.

Not being an AAIB expert in these thing but I think JETBLU has a point.

The deris field can not lie.

if the RV was in the climb out and in a left turn then the DA40 would have been covered by his wing. IF he then eneded up lower but climbing and the DA40 on a constaint height and heading the RV pilot would not have seen the DA40 approaching from behind until too late and would ahve hit him from below so the DA40 pilots would not have seen him either.

But if the DA40 had reported X-wind then looking at the standard circuit pattern you wouln't expect it to be over the coast until near the harbour entrace. Odd that the prop landed where it did?

But there I go being a Bar room Expert, which I'm not. Just putting forward one theory which is all it is.

Good to see some balance in the discussion.

The immediate blaming of the RV pilot by a few posters was appalling, particularly as it was based on so little information. Thankfully, the worst of those comments was modified (to some extent) as a result of the perfectly proper protests which have now also been deleted, having served their purpose.

There is always more to aviation accidents than first appears and, of all the aviation accidents in which I've been involved (professionally) over many years, there has never been just one cause.


FL

Romour has it that the DA40 was conducting instructor training on an Aircraft rented from Flying time. There are only two schools at Shoreham that teach instructor training, Sky leisure use their own aircraft.
Wonder who was looking out????

I think it would be fair to say that if the lookout had been different in either aeroplane the iincident may not have happened.

If it was runway 20 with a left hand pattern in use I would be interested to learn from any 'Shoreham-ites' on here a couple of points.

Firstly the Shoreham Airport website has a picture of the preferred tracks of the circuit patterns. How close to these are the pilots supposed to adhere? (There must be a bit of leeway)

Secondly, runway 20L has a noise abatement right turn after take off until reaching the coast. How rigidly is this enforced? Are there any shortcuts?

Pooleys 2011 - Shoreham EGKA
 

Pooley's Guide 2011 - Shoreham EGKA

Extract :-

JOINING : Unless otherwise instructed by ATC, aircraft joining the circuit will overfly the aerodrome maintaining 2000ft aal, until instructed to descend to circuit height on dead-side of runway in use, and join the circuit by crossing the upwind end. Pilots should note that helicopters operate both 'liveside' and 'deadside' in the ATZ up to 600ft aal.

Joining aircraft on the crosswind leg are expected to position ""over the upwind end of the runway in use"", and then fit into the visual circuit.

I cannot see any mention of Noise Abatement proceedures on this particular page.

Is Shoreham a towered airport?

If so were there any instructions/restrictions issued to aircraft to see and avoid each other?

Did someone bust airspace?

Pooleys 2011 - Shoreham EGKA
I found this on the Shoreham Airport website Flying and Pilot Information - Shoreham Airport

DEPARTURE RUNWAY 20 - AIRCRAFT MUST MAKE A 10 DEGREE TURN TO THE RIGHT AT THE RAILWAY LINE FOR NOISE ABATEMENT, UNTIL REACHING THE COAST THEN A FURTHER LEFT OR RIGHT TURN AS REQUIRED.

The pooleys flight guide only give joining and not departure info, I believe the question is did the DA40 join the crosswind in the correct position, I'm guessing not when looking at the debris field.

Interesting that you used the pooleys flight guide to look this up as the romours are that the instructors where from pooleys flight training, stress only a romour.

Since when was Pooley's the ultimate authority? AIP perhaps?

2 s

Im interested to know other pilots opinion on my comment below

As we all know with all circuit flying their are high risk areas that need an extra look out
The main one is joining cross wind and possibly colliding with someone flying circuits who is down wind.
However at Shoreham there is another factor to consider,,,,,
When departing 20 and intending to fly east nearly all pilots turn NOT onto a heading of 110deg but follow the
coastline which is appox 80deg.
So its possible to climb into circuit traffic ?????

Hey Guys

Can someone please explain to me why opinions appear to be leaning towards the da40?
With comments like who was looking out of the da40, the g1000 is like a video game, where was the da40, was he in the correct place doing the correct join?


There are no facts and there wont be until a full investigation has taken place. From looking at the damage on the Da40 I would say after the collision they have done a good job in controlling the aircraft and landing it on a runway.

No one has even asked how experienced they were in the da40?

The answer is very.

I've seen the same aircraft, agreed immediately after the incident I'm sure the pilot used all his experience to get the aircraft back on the ground and well done to him. In a way lucky it was a DA40 and has a good glide on it.

Though with the failure rate of the DA40 I'm sure this is something that all DA pilots have to practises -- glide approaches!

Though in the circumstances they held thier nerve and got it safely on the ground.

Guess you noted where the blue paint was?

I thought that too, until I had to look it up for some reason. But the best glide in a DA40 is 1 : 8.8. Slightly worse than an PA28-161. (All taken from the respective POHs - I haven't tested them against each other.)

Mind you, I'm very impressed with the DA40 airframe (slightly less though with the engines they originally fitted) but the glide performance isn't as stellar as you might expect by looking at the wings and knowing its sailplane heritage.

Should read - DIESEL versions of the DA40.

I have flown the DA40XL which has a Lycoming engine and powerflow exhaust and will cruise at 150 KTAS and has no such engine issues. A beautiful aeroplane especially when equipped with G1000 with Synthetic vision and traffic.

I am not sure there is any evidence there in flight failure rate is any worse that Lycos is there? (Says he who has actually had one fail in flight, but fortunately I had another at the time :)).

It's not statistically waterproof, but in the almost six years that I've been a member of my club, we've had four in-flight failures of the 1.7 Thielerts (three of which ended up in a field) and zero Lycomings/Continentals failures.

At least, those are the in-flight failures that I know about. I've also had a "computer says no" situation with the DA-40 at Duxford, leading to an abandoned flight. But I don't know how many other diesel or avgas flights were abandoned due to start/runup failures or 'computer says no'.

Our fleet consists of 2 Robin Ecoflyers (with the 1.7 Thielert, now all upgraded to the 2.0), 1 DA-40 TDI (with the 1.7 Thielert, now sold, unfortunately), 3 other avgas Robins, 5 avgas PA28-161s, 2 avgas C172s, 3 avgas C152s and a few other, avgas powered aircraft.

But the odd thing is that none of the four failures had anything in common. Here's what I remember the failures were:
- 1 failure of an oil spray nozzle leading to a lack of cooling of the piston head.
- 1 failure of the gearbox (slip ring or something like that)
- 1 failure of the electric wiring to the fuel pump
- 1 FADEC test button short-circuiting in-flight, leading to a then-unknown FADEC failure mode, which was reason enough for the pilot to make a precautionary landing at an airfield.

vino collapso - its a training airfield, circuit size varies, sea breezes might dictate the use of 20, when the upper wind suggests 02 - pilots are responsible for visual separation that means lookout. lined up yesterday and watched an aircraft join crosswind, we found it hard to believe you could hit him, at least not in a trainer. back on the ground we watched several aircraft join crosswind, some over the numbers, some wider, and as another mentioned on here, some peoples crosswind climb parallels the coast, if you had a performance SE aircraft, would you fly out to sea if you didnt have to?. like most accidents, it wont be one thing that caused it, but like the swiss cheese, when all the holes line up.........

Leeway on the circuit pattern
 

I've flown at Shoreham for ten years or so and I have heard on a few rare occasions pilots departing on R20 requesting, and being granted by ATC, "an early (or immediate) left turn". I think I have occasionally also heard ATC requesting pilots to do the same thing presumably for assisting with traffic management - but I can't recall specific examples of the latter.

I have never asked for one myself and indeed I've noticed that it tends to be experienced, or confident-sounding, pilots who do and who seem to me to want to be en route east, or north east, from Shoreham as efficiently as possible.

I have sat in the right seat on one such departure where the (experienced) PIC did just this and the track took us past the tower and along the railway line and over the Adur recreation ground, as we turned and climbed eastwards.

The other thing when doing this, which makes sense, is to climb quickly because once over the River Adur (in a matter of seconds on such a departure) you are over a large and densely built up area where a decent height for safety and noise abatement is a good idea. This rational motive for a speedy climb, in my mind, is more likely than some of the the alternatives suggested in this thread.

Finally, it is very easy to envisage the track of such a departure being, for a time, precisely in line with the crosswind leg of an aircraft carrying out an accurately executed crosswind join for R20.

...in which case, ATC would, of course - I trust - be passing traffic information to both aircraft - or not approving it.

2 s

Away with the fairys ?
 

Quote:- Since when was Pooley's the ultimate authority? AIP perhaps?

By default Poolys, is the authoritative document for the average UK GA pilot, some use some lower quality publications and a few use the much better Jepps. However I don't see. Anyone with the UK air pilot in the cockpit.

However this accident has very little to do with documentation and a lot to do with lookout.

Years ago when I was training my instructor was paranoid about lookout, he got the habit making sure that an ME109 was not going to drill 20mm holes in him but as he said hitting another aircraft will make you just as dead as an encounter will the ME109.

I will not try to blame anyone for this collision but can't help thinking that just a little more lookout by all the pilots involved might have turned this into a
non-event.

Over recent years I have noted that an increasing number of aircraft seem to pass me by without even a slight change of course, could this be because of all
the kit that is now fitted to light aircraft keeping pilots eyes in the cockpit rather than looking out?

A and C - With respect, I think that you miss the point. If contributors are going to discuss the published procedures, then the AIP (sic) is the only authority, however good a copy the information in a commercially produced publication may be.

Documentation = published procedures. How do you know that these were not a factor, e.g. compliance or non-compliance, appropriateness, etc?

2 s

A crosswind join should be flown overhead the upwind numbers, not a mile or two upwind of them.

You don't need to read the AIP or whatever to know that.

That's the issue here.

2 sheds
 

This is the difference between picking the knats sh!t out of pepper on a forum and practical aviation, it don't matter diddly squat what is in the AP if it is not the document available to the crew of an aircraft.

All the published documentation in the world will not absolve the commander of an aircraft from ensuring the safety of that aircraft and keeping a good lookout is essential to the safety of the aircraft.

I am not in a position to say if rules were breached (or not) in this case but I do know that if one of the pilots had seen the other it is highly likely that the aircraft would not have hit each other.

The bottom line is that good airmanship is the back stop that ensures safety when all the other safety systems have failed.