Toobuilder
Well Known Member
Axel’s recent poll on radio use brought out some interesting responses, not the least of which was his tale of his latest harrowing experience. Thought it was a shame the thread was closed without exploring/commenting on his near head on.
His incident on reminds me of at least two similar instances I’ve seen in my short flying career. The first was with my instructor practicing landings at an often used, but uncontrolled field. We were on short final after working the pattern for a while, and making all the standard calls. All of the sudden, there’s a Barron coming right at us on a missed approach to the opposite runway. My instructor grabbed the airplane and sidestepped to the right so the Barron could pass us on the left. Never heard a prior radio call, and he never responded to my instructors “animated” query. Our radio was certainly working and properly tuned…
The second was years later in Axel's backyard – Cal City Airport. I refueled and called my taxi from “fuel to runway six” (the seldom used, but this day, favored runway). I completed my runup, cleared the pattern and announced “…entering runway six for departure…” As I lined up and was advancing the throttle, I get a quick call from a light twin on “short final – straight in” to runway 24. This was his one and only call. So I held my position for the 30 seconds it took for the guy to land (downwind) and clear the runway. I had a few quick words about the straight in approach to a downwind landing with an airplane on the roll, but he replied something to the effect “uncontrolled field, deal with it”.
So I guess my point is that we should do our best to communicate clearly, but pushing that transmit button does not relieve you of your responsibility to keep a lookout at all times. I’m of the opinion that somebody is still going to go out of their way to try kill me, no matter how well the radio chatter is going.
His incident on reminds me of at least two similar instances I’ve seen in my short flying career. The first was with my instructor practicing landings at an often used, but uncontrolled field. We were on short final after working the pattern for a while, and making all the standard calls. All of the sudden, there’s a Barron coming right at us on a missed approach to the opposite runway. My instructor grabbed the airplane and sidestepped to the right so the Barron could pass us on the left. Never heard a prior radio call, and he never responded to my instructors “animated” query. Our radio was certainly working and properly tuned…
The second was years later in Axel's backyard – Cal City Airport. I refueled and called my taxi from “fuel to runway six” (the seldom used, but this day, favored runway). I completed my runup, cleared the pattern and announced “…entering runway six for departure…” As I lined up and was advancing the throttle, I get a quick call from a light twin on “short final – straight in” to runway 24. This was his one and only call. So I held my position for the 30 seconds it took for the guy to land (downwind) and clear the runway. I had a few quick words about the straight in approach to a downwind landing with an airplane on the roll, but he replied something to the effect “uncontrolled field, deal with it”.
So I guess my point is that we should do our best to communicate clearly, but pushing that transmit button does not relieve you of your responsibility to keep a lookout at all times. I’m of the opinion that somebody is still going to go out of their way to try kill me, no matter how well the radio chatter is going.
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