I suppose it had to happen eventually – little airplane, big sky theory notwithstanding – but your host came more closely than he would have liked to shuffling off this mortal coil at about 1145 this morning. A local family full of birthdays and anniversaries came down to Montgomery from Rancho Penasquitos for to dabble in the world of air combat, 150HP Varga Kachina style. All full of nervous laughter during the brief, and frank relief when we’d returned.
Which was nothing like as certain as we’d have them believe.
It was a weird kind of day for it, and overcast deck at about 2500 feet over the ocean, fair visibility below. The sunlight doing its best to slant down through ephemeral holes in the cloud deck. It’s cooler now than in the summer time, when the sun bakes through the greenhouse canopy and stirs the mad blood. But gray skies and a gray sea merge one into the other leaving the neophyte occasionally topsy-turvy. The inner ear in constant rebellion with the visual receptors as to up and down.
I’d a new wingman aboard, recently joined the company from the paying work. A retired USAF Viper driver whom the naval set will have to hammer in to an acceptable form. Hand signals differing from service to service, and a lamentable tendency to check the formation in on every frequency. Including Tower, which is Simply Not Done in the sea services. Single radio or no.
Had half a mind on him as we motored up the coast in a day that would never quite declare itself. Saw something right ahead at perhaps half a mile, perhaps a quarter. Something without bearing drift.
You see traffic all the time when flying under visual flight rules in San Diego. It’s a lovely place to fly, after all. The weather usually unimpeachable. But today was not that sort of day, and what VFR traffic as could be found was cramped into a narrow sliver of airspace below three thousand feet.
Most traffic moves ever so slightly from left to right, or right to left. Their relative motion on the canopy helps the primitive brain evaluate the threat. Through millenia of hunting and being hunted, the human eye is perfectly adapted to sensing moving threats. We do less well when things come straight at us.
I was cheerfully going through stalls and turns with Mike, the paying passenger of the moment. With half a mind towards Sean, our new hire. When I saw something dead ahead that didn’t really belong there. Growing larger. It took a moment to process.
I’ve had near midair collisions before, of course. You can’t spend twenty years flying fighters and not get rather closer than you’d like to other machines. If I’d been flying a Hornet when I picked up my bogey, and he’d been flying another fast jet there wouldn’t have been time to react. I’ve been told – and believe – that when you think you might survive every synapse fires as you maneuver to avoid. When you know that you will die, you tend to relax. Let it all go.
Forgetting for a moment that we weren’t closing at over a thousand miles per hour, I relaxed prematurely before remembering myself: Even at a quarter mile, I had plenty of time at merely 240 knots Vc. “I’ve got the airplane,” I grunted to Mike, who was all-too-happy to yield it over. Pulled hard to the right and down, and watched the Diamond DA40 pass blissfully unaware down my left hand side.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. The afternoon hack had me flying with Shelly, an exuberantly, abundantly feminine CFI with blond hair, cowboy boots and 26 summers behind her. Blinders might have been appropriate as I helped her strap in to the back seat, if only to keep me attentive to my duties. She’s a lass with a happy smile who has been doing clerical work for the company, but is now decamping for parts elsewhere and this was her last hurrah, like. We had a grand old time flicking the aircraft through its paces while Sean’s second passenger explored the remnants of his luncheon.
There’s a way to tie those two flights together, some larger message in it.
But bless me if I can figure it out.
Glad all that taxpayer-funded training and your natural Naval Aviator instinct was working today, Lex. Keep doing that “looking around” thing, we’d like to hear your ramble for a while more. I expect the family feels the same way, if for other reasons than my rather selfish one.
What’s the old saying? Honor the threat. Glad you did. Don’t want to lose another of my daily reads. Just don’t tell The Hobbit!
Tom
Lex:
I regret to say that so many in the general aviation community don’t look outside the window as much as they should and that most haven’t been trained in how to look. Just happy you do know and are here to tell the tale. BZ. And remember the old saying: “It’s better to be lucky than good.”
VR,
Comjam
It’s not just the GA community. I had a near-miss with a commuter airplane once. Too many pilots have their heads down in the terminal area.
Modern glass cockpits are amazing but you still have to remember to fly the plane. The DA40 pilot was likely focused inside. Not good when VFR.
“…gray skies and a gray sea…”
“Milk Bottle” skies I used to call ‘em. Really disliked them. Even the experienced can lose orientation, let alone the neophyte, that’s for sure. My roomie in pilot tng was from LA and a Loylola Marymount graduate. All his primary ROTC tng in C-172s in LA was done over water. I would not have liked that, though it seemed to be no big deal to him–but then he was a giant of a laid-back LA baby-huey type (Maybe he should have joined the Navy
) It’s nice to have a frame of reference once in a while–especially as a first-time pilot in tng…
VX, Milk bottle/gray skies and a grey sea…with resulting dis-orientation…I recall that similar conditions, a to hot aircraft, and inexperience were listed as the cause of JFK Jr augering in at full speed off the coast of Martha’s Vinyard…
…I think this old dog will stay with his sailboat. Best
PS, Lex glad your safe…please endeavor to keep it that way.
Sure glad it turned out that way, Lex. If it happens in the pursuit of freedom, support of our country, that’s one thing. But for recreation?
That’s about the same spot I came the closest to swapping paint with a 172, flying a Travel Air. Never saw him until the pax in the front ‘pit swung the camera up, and I saw tire tread over my head.
I was under his nose, he was above my wing. If we’d both flown level it would have been a non-issue, I suppose. But he was descending.
After that I always (and still do) fly non-cardinal altitudes and far enough off the beach to reach it, but just barely. The gawkers tend to fly down the beach, looking (down) for bikinis or surfers, I guess.
About a week ago I was headed for CRQ from French Valley in that Debonair. Descending at about 180 knots I’d contacted the tower about 15 north and was told to report Squires for a right base. A few minutes later at about 2500′ and about 10 miles I heard a voice say, “Conflict alert ten north of Palomar” and sure ’nuff there was CR22 right to left and except for about a 3G pull we would have become one. Happened too quick to be scared. Until later.
So I went up to visit the folks in the tower and say thanks, see and avoid is nice, it’s a big sky and all, but radar and your vigilance is better. But the controller said she never called traffic, didn’t see it. What was I talking about? Indeed both on duty were women and it was a man’s voice that made the call.
So who did? I’m most definitely not claiming anything mystical, but it does make me wonder about a eye in the sky that may not be widely discussed.
What’s the saying? A normal pilot says, “I’m gonna die in 5 seconds” and a fighter pilot says “I’ve got 5 whole seconds to save the plane!”
Glad you reacted quickly, Lex. I have always heard that civil aviation is not the safest advocation to pursue.
And I assume that since you blogged it, The Hobbit knows. She likely has had many dark thoughts in the past when you were doing traps for our benefit. Military families are something special.
Just keep those reactions and awareness sharp! Your blog family would miss you very much as well.
The photo of the DA 40 must have been the aspect you saw it from. Or maybe not, you said left side, didn’t you. Still, a fright inducing experience, I am sure. Glad you are safe.
1978, Detroit metro area, Night, VFR-CAVU ,C-210, flying levl at 2800 ft agl, just finished a pre-checkride practice precision instrument approach session with a buddy who is taking his CFII checkride the next day. He is in the left seat, me in the right, he has a hood on and down limiting his view to the cockpit, I’m the safey pilot. We had cancelled the IFR after shooting the ILS for 33 at DET and were heading back to PTK about 15 miles northwest of our current position. The night sky was dark above (no moon) with some stars visible but mostly not because of the city lights. The Detroit metro area including Windsor, Ontario and the suburbs is about 60 miles in diameter so looking down, all one can see from that height, horizon to horizon is a million points of colored lights, some moving because they are cars, most stationary street lights, traffic lights, houses, gas stations, commercial buildings, it looked pretty normal.
At 12 o’clock, distance unknown, some lights dissappeard…….a second or so later, another airplane (single high wing with rotating beacon and wingtip position lights) flying in the opposite direction, flew out of the night and ou of sight beneath our nose and was gone in the blink of an eye. I guess he was about 50 feet beneath us. Never heard from him or anybody else on the radio. Momentarily, my blood froze….after I realized I had no control over the past and knew that if I had seen him earlier, I might have had a chance, the knowledge that we had just dodged a bullet and the subsequent understanding that death would have been instantaneous started to subside….we flew it on back to PTK. I learned from that.
1980. Rota, Spain, beautiful afternoon, CAVU. P-3B Buno 152750 in the bounce pattern for to acquire landing and takeoff numbers for some of the lower time PP’s.
I was one of two aircrew assigned to keep an eye on everything back of the flight station. I brought my 35mm along to take some shots of the area, etc.
About the 12th or 13th time around the pattern, I have positioned myself in the flight station, sitting on the forward magnetron cabinet directly behind the left seat. There’s a special optical-glass window there for to take pics from, and lots of other areas to see out of.
Wanting to stay up on things, I’d grabbed a pair of headphones and was listening in the the tower-crew chatter. I picked up on (as did the 2P in the right seat, the call sign of another P-3 inbound to Rota. The controllers were directing him in, and what they were saying somehow didn’t jibe with what we were doing.
As we are on final, just over the numbers, I look ahead and see a set of bright landing lights headed right at us. PPC catches a glint at the same time and hollers for power, and on the radio hollers to the effect “aircraft in pattern, break left”.
Let me tell you, it was some interesting for a few seconds, as two P-3B’s stand up on their port wing tips and pass belly-to belly right by the main hangars and ramp area.
I happened to look down through the window, instinctively, and could plainly see the Maintenance Chief and my DivO standing there, mouths open, staring up at us, knowing full well that if we hit, most of the squadron, as well as VQ-1 and other assorted birds would have been taken out too.
The PPC brought us back around, and we did a full-stop and taxied to the tower where he went in to have words with the folks therein who had brought the other P-3 into the pattern 180 degrees out.
To this day, I can clearly see everything that I described. It was over in a few seconds, but so clearly impressed upon my mind, that, even after all these years I still get a tad sweaty in the palms when I think about it.
Sweet jesus – all your stories have my heart racing. Thank god you all are the best of the best at what you do.
I’m trying to tie these two flights together for you. The yin and the yang? The flight that could have been bad to the flight that was anything but? The deserved break, sweet blonde and all, after the near scare?
Not sure.
Not commenting on the potential near miss. I broke out in a sweat when I started to read it. I’ll leave it at that.
good headwork Lex. Another reminder that no matter the locale, there is always a danger when flying. Got a shock last week. A coworker went to Texas to pick up a plane he just recently purchased and fly it back to VA. Didn’t make his landing. Search parties sent out and he was located almost a week later in WVA. Not a good ending. Glad you came out on top.
The greeting i’ve always used with my aviator friends and coworkers was never have a good flight. It’s always been and is “have a safe flight”, cause a Safe flight is always a good flight. Stay safe.
claudio
Cessna 152 on my 300nm cross country working on my private. About 5 kft over ChesBay in PAX River airspace. PAX Approach calls, “Cessna 93 Lima, traffic F-14 2 miles {HUGE ROAR DOWN THE PORT SIDE CLOSE ENOUGH TO HEAR THROUGH MY HEADSET!!} 1 o’clock.”
I hope his AWG 9 was better than my Mk 1 Mod 0.
And sometimes it’s not as it seems. From my NASA report dated 6-8-89. Boeing 737 at FL 330 at M.74 on a very dark night.
” At approximately 0415Z , eastbound approximately 10 miles west of the Newman VOR (El Paso) at Flight level 330, I observed what appeared to be an aircraft at our altitude with landing lights on. The object looked to be approximately
5 miles away on a collision course and closing rapidly. The visual cues indicated that collision was imminent so I overrode
the autopilot and pushed over just as the object apeared to break up in flaming pieces and pass overhead. We lost about 500 ft in the maneuver and I immediately contacted Albuquerque Center informing them of my actions. At the same time a Southwest aircraft reported taking the same evasive action. Southwest Flt 397 was also astbound and approximately 100 miles east of our position.
The object was apparently a meteorite or some space junk buning up on re-entry, but the visual interpretation was certainly that of a very high speed object with two distinct lights close together at first and rapidly becoming farther apart just as an aircraft with landing lights on would appear.
No one in the cabin was injured although there were a few spilled drinks. I made a PA announcement to the passengers explaining
what had happened and that the maneuver was necessary, in my opinion at the time, for our safety.”
Naturally, someone later lodged a complaint so I was called into the chief pilots office on one of my few days off to defend my actions. That is one of the worst parts of airline flying. You are assumed to be at fault until you convince them otherwise.
A bit of humor, sort of related. Gotta love the South:
Atlanta Airport
Atlanta ATC: “Tower to Saudi Air 511 — You are cleared to land eastbound on runway 9R
Saudi Air: “Thank you Atlanta ATC. Acknowledge cleared to land on infidel’s runway 9R – Allah be Praised.”
Atlanta ATC: “Tower to Iran Air 711 –You are cleared to land westbound on runway 9R.”
Iran Air: “Thank you Atlanta ATC. We are cleared to land on infidel’s runway 9R. – Allah is Great.”
Pause…
Saudi Air: ” ATLANTA ATC – ATLANTA ATC”
Atlanta ATC: “Go ahead Saudi Air 511.”
Saudi Air: “YOU HAVE CLEARED BOTH OUR AIRCRAFTS FOR THE SAME RUNWAY GOING IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS. WE ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE.. INSTRUCTIONS, PLEASE.”
Atlanta ATC: “Well bless your hearts. And praise Jesus. Y’all be careful now and tell Allah “hey” for us — “
Now to grab a Co-Cola and a Slim Jim and watch the fun.
Better an RC Cola and moonpie…..
Oh my yes…. When I was a wee lad of 7 years, I remember my mother walking me down to the corner store to get an RC Cola and a Moon Pie, and sitting on the front porch together afterward enjoying the snack and time together.
Those and Goo-Goo Clusters.
One time, I had just touched down (after making a full pattern with position reports) at an untowered airport when I heard someone calling out landing final in the opposite direction. This guy was landing downwind and never gave a hint as to his location. I pulled as quickly as possible onto an intersecting taxiway. Shortly thereafter, a Cirrus SR20 whizzed by. We missed meeting head on by not more than five seconds.
No, ATC didn’t bring us together. Some pilots completely ignore wind direction as an indicator of landing direction and refuse to fly even a partial pattern.