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Fly in safety.....temp unicom

gmcjetpilot

gmcjetpilot

Well Known Member
For Fly-In's, my suggestion is a glorified temporary UNICOM, watching and listening for traffic, making "advisories", winds, airplane positions. This is not new or an original idea, but may good for smaller fly-ins.

In light of recent events, I was thinking (be scared) :D when we have a fly-in, homecoming, breakfast whatever, it would be nice to have one or two guys watching the pattern with a radio. Even a big red spotlight might be good as well. We all know what flashing red means, go away come back and try again.

It's not official but a guy can call out traffic advisories like, "white LongEz on short final, Blue RV still on runway". Ideally a current or former FAA tower guy / EAA'er would be nice, but any pilot with some training and good eyes could do it.

Legally, FAA and FCC wise? You have Multi-Com and Unicom.

Multi-com is usually an unmonitored party-line used by many airports in an area. I would think a low power ground transmitter would not bleed over to other multi-com airports.

Unicom bases are usually run by the local FBO. I'm sure if you went to the FBO or local FISDO and told them you wanted to have a ground observer/UNICOM giving advisories for 6 or 7 hours on Saturday, they would not protest. You could have volunteers in hour or two shifts from 9-4. May be you only need it for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon? I'd feel better flying into a busy uncontrolled airport with extra eyes watching my tail.​

I was at a fly-in and almost saw a plane land on another (yes a Piper landing on a Cessna). I was helpless to do anything about it. They missed, but not by much. Just one guy watching the final with a radio or red spotlight might have avoided this near miss. It was close. Both planes where oblivious till they came with in inches on the runway. The departing plane probably never saw it. It was almost no ones fault. A radio is not required.

Even if you just repeated a standard warning: "Fly-in progress, heavy traffic, currently X planes in the pattern, runway X in use, winds, temp". If I heard that, I would turn away for the airport and leave the area for 5-10 minutes. Some times the pattern is full; you have to go away and wait a little while. In a perfect world, all the pilots should make calls, listen and watch out, following the standard pattern. However even when things are done procedurally correct, STUFF happens. :eek:

WHAT YA THINK? :eek:
 
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Been there ..done that ... GOOD IDEA

Title sums it up.

I have been associated with fly ins .. the planning and the operation. At an uncontrolled field, we have set up near the runway with a handheld and a couple of sets of Mark 12 "EyeBalls". We know that we cannot tell pilots what to do but by simply asking "Cessna, do you have the Piper ahead of you turning base?", helps the alertness immensely, I think.

Also, I too witnessed a crash at SnF. I was on the flightline with NO radio (not that I would have been able to use it) when I saw the accident unfolding three planes ahead of the accident. The result was an Extra cutting off the tail of a Navion. From my position it was "facilitated" by actions of the plane AHEAD of the NAVION and you should have heard me yelling (as if though they could hear me) to the Extra pilot to "go around". <<He was in the flair and did not see that all of a sudden the Navion had to put on the brakes due to actions of a plane ahead of him.

Someone with a handheld probably could have helped a lot. (and made the SnF controllers really mad, probably as well)

James
 
jclark said:
Someone with a handheld probably could have helped a lot. (and made the SnF controllers really mad, probably as well)

James
Click to expand...
At Sun-N Fun the transmitter in the tower is keyed continuously so unless you had a VERY powerful radio, you would not have been heard over the tower.
 
Liability?

The idea is a good one but there is one problem with it.

I'm not an attorney but it seems to me you might be taking on some liability if you or the EAA chapter starts playing controller. What if your person on the radio misses some traffic and there is an accident. bla, bla, bla...
 
Good point but whats the right thing to do

N941WR said:
The idea is a good one but there is one problem with it.

I'm not an attorney but it seems to me you might be taking on some liability if you or the EAA chapter starts playing controller. What if your person on the radio misses some traffic and there is an accident. bla, bla, bla...
Click to expand...
Good point but what is the liability of people running onto each other. It would have to be advisory just like a unicom with may be some visual cue "alerts" or questions like Mr. Clark suggested, "Cessna, do you have the Piper ahead of you turning base?"

If you said airplane Z go around, and they say stalled, it would not be pretty liability wise, I agree. There is always the legal or safe thing to do liability wise and than there is the right thing, not always the same. I guess if you go to a flying bring your handheld and if you see a plane about to get creamed, I'm guessing you and I would say something.
 
I've been to fly-ins where this was done, and frankly, I thought that it showed a good concern for safety on the part of the organizers, as well as a bit bit of daring to do it regardless of the potential for "liability". At one airpark, the arrivals and departures had to go in and out on different directions on the same runway, and without a little bit of "non-FAR" organization, it would have been horrifically dangerous.

As long as they run it as an advisory, and as an extra set of eyes, I am for it!

Paul
 
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