Close Calls

flyguy said:
... and should at least be monitoring the CTAF even if ATC has not told them to change to advisory.
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Let's put the shoe on the other foot.

When you guys (students and CFIs) are doing approaches to your nearest Class C/B....are you monitoring the tower frequency before Approach changes you over to tower?? Probably not. Try it sometime and see if you can keep track of 5 or 6 planes on tower freq while you are talking to Approach.

That will give you a taste of what jet guys are up against. Then remember that the CTAF we are trying to monitor is used by 2 or 3 other local airports with everyone stepping on each other.
 
flyguy said:
Not trying to flame, I'm just curious, but how strong does the wind have to be before you'll circle? Cause if there's a 10 knot wind down the opposite runway, you can bet than any and all GA aircraft will be using the favored runway, and if the jet pilot checks the AWOS he should expect traffic for the opposite runway and should at least be monitoring the CTAF even if ATC has not told them to change to advisory. If there are several in the pattern are they all expected to depart the pattern to accomidate the jet on the straight in ILS for the oppostie runway, just cause he's a jet?
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10 knots is the max tailwind limit in every Part 25 aircraft I've ever flown - except for the Dash 8 which could go to 20 knots under certain conditions. Circling sucks in a jet, period. I would not circle unless I absolutley had to and then I would seriously consider wether or not I wanted to land there. Even in a straight wing Citation the circling speeds can easily be 125 to 130 knots. Circling at circling MDA's in a Cessna 172 going 70 knots is one thing - doing it in a swept wing jet doing 140 knots borders on dangerous......why do you think the majority of airlines aren't allowed to circle?? At all of the airlines I've flown for require the weather to be 1000 & 3 before we could circle. My CRJ type says "Circling manuevers in VMC only" or something to that effect.

I won't go so far as to say that all circling approachs in jets are dangerous BUT when we're talking about a 180 degree circling manuever, especially at night(which I know this wasn't), you really have to start thinking about what the safest course of action is.

Just out of curiosty - did this airport have weather reporting or was it an 'estimate' of 5 to 6 miles visibility based on landmarks around the airport that locals would be familiar with?? Where was the sun?? Just because departing traffic has 5 to 6 miles in haze doesn't mean that opposite direction traffic had 5 to 6 miles viz. Yes, the Citation crew could probably have done more things to make their presence known but you don't be too quick to judge - you don't know what was happening in the other cockpit. I've been around the block a few times and for every time I've 'dorked things up' at an uncontrolled airport in a jet, I can tell you at least one story of a GA pilot dorking things up.

Not triing to start a war - just food for thougt.

Jason
 
I also have had close calls with our feathered friends. It is so weird to watch a bird from a distance and then see it zip by you. You really don't think you're moving that fast. Especially in a C-172.
 
Jason-you bring up a good point that it's vitally important to look at the other side of things. Thanks- you didnt' sound like trying to start a war, just educate. NJA_Capt also makes a valid point about trying to monitor unicom on a busy nice weekend day. Haven't been in a jet cockpit to date, and I'm now guessing there's a bit more going on than in a piston cockpit, not to mention that extra speed. To give you a bit more info, there is an ASOS on field, and another aircraft had departed before us.
My thought process had been: I assume approach told them about that traffic, I assume they had ASOS, so then they MUST be expecting the possiblity of VFR traffic, and they must have time to make a position report. Maybe a bit too much assumption on my part.
 
I had my first close call today returning to KGKY. First...I will predict KGKY will be a class C airport within 2 years. We were returning from IFR and were cleared for the GPS 34 approach. We call GKY Tower 6 miles from Wayman. We are told to report Wayman inbound. The pattern was really busy today. We are 1/2 mile from Wayman and decide to speak up ASAP. We call. Tower doesn't hear us, non-stop radio calls. I reach Wayman (FAF) and start descending. Wayman is only 4.2 from the runway with just 2.9 from the VDP. I descend right at blue line (We're in a Seminole) going as slow as possible. We keep calling and calling. Tower never hears us. He does however clear a 172 for a power off 180, another single engine piper in the pattern to follow the 172 and another aircraft inbound for #3. He tells the others that there is a twin inbound....us. I keep descending while scanning for traffic. I then watch another 172 (the #3 for landing) on left base 100 yards ahead of me. The other pilot saw him and asked me to watch him a bit too late. We both realize we have to go missed. I apply full power, raise the flaps and then the gear. I climb at 80 knots to make sure I clear any traffic around TPA, but steer clear of the class B at 3000. We report going missed. Tower asked if we ever called. We called 4 times! He tells us to make a left turn around a point and re-enter downwind and that we are cleared to land. I do another gear down before landing checklist and make an awesome turning descent down. There were more than 6 other planes in the pattern or inbound at the time. Today was the first "nice" day in more than a week. There was only one person in the tower working ground and tower. We are waaay too busy for that. Things were worse before the tower. KGKY is averaging over 380 operations a day for one runway. I can't imagine bringing a jet in on a day like today. Crazy.
 
Jason said:
10 knots is the max tailwind limit in every Part 25 aircraft I've ever flown - except for the Dash 8 which could go to 20 knots under certain conditions. Circling sucks in a jet, period. I would not circle unless I absolutley had to and then I would seriously consider wether or not I wanted to land there. Even in a straight wing Citation the circling speeds can easily be 125 to 130 knots. Circling at circling MDA's in a Cessna 172 going 70 knots is one thing - doing it in a swept wing jet doing 140 knots borders on dangerous......why do you think the majority of airlines aren't allowed to circle?? At all of the airlines I've flown for require the weather to be 1000 & 3 before we could circle. My CRJ type says "Circling manuevers in VMC only" or something to that effect.

I won't go so far as to say that all circling approachs in jets are dangerous BUT when we're talking about a 180 degree circling manuever, especially at night(which I know this wasn't), you really have to start thinking about what the safest course of action is.

Just out of curiosty - did this airport have weather reporting or was it an 'estimate' of 5 to 6 miles visibility based on landmarks around the airport that locals would be familiar with?? Where was the sun?? Just because departing traffic has 5 to 6 miles in haze doesn't mean that opposite direction traffic had 5 to 6 miles viz. Yes, the Citation crew could probably have done more things to make their presence known but you don't be too quick to judge - you don't know what was happening in the other cockpit. I've been around the block a few times and for every time I've 'dorked things up' at an uncontrolled airport in a jet, I can tell you at least one story of a GA pilot dorking things up.

Not triing to start a war - just food for thougt.

Jason
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I can understand if its IMC and you're trying to stay under the soup why you wouldn't want to circle, and in such a situation any departing traffic would need an IFR release which they wouldn't get until after the jet lands, but the situation we are discussing was VMC. Is it that dangerous to just enter the downwind and fly the normal traffic pattern?
 
stillageek said:
I had my first close call today returning to KGKY. First...I will predict KGKY will be a class C airport within 2 years. We were returning from IFR and were cleared for the GPS 34 approach. We call GKY Tower 6 miles from Wayman. We are told to report Wayman inbound. The pattern was really busy today. We are 1/2 mile from Wayman and decide to speak up ASAP. We call. Tower doesn't hear us, non-stop radio calls. I reach Wayman (FAF) and start descending. Wayman is only 4.2 from the runway with just 2.9 from the VDP. I descend right at blue line (We're in a Seminole) going as slow as possible. We keep calling and calling. Tower never hears us. He does however clear a 172 for a power off 180, another single engine piper in the pattern to follow the 172 and another aircraft inbound for #3. He tells the others that there is a twin inbound....us. I keep descending while scanning for traffic. I then watch another 172 (the #3 for landing) on left base 100 yards ahead of me. The other pilot saw him and asked me to watch him a bit too late. We both realize we have to go missed. I apply full power, raise the flaps and then the gear. I climb at 80 knots to make sure I clear any traffic around TPA, but steer clear of the class B at 3000. We report going missed. Tower asked if we ever called. We called 4 times! He tells us to make a left turn around a point and re-enter downwind and that we are cleared to land. I do another gear down before landing checklist and make an awesome turning descent down. There were more than 6 other planes in the pattern or inbound at the time. Today was the first "nice" day in more than a week. There was only one person in the tower working ground and tower. We are waaay too busy for that. Things were worse before the tower. KGKY is averaging over 380 operations a day for one runway. I can't imagine bringing a jet in on a day like today. Crazy.
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You know what GKY stands for right? Go Kill Yourself.

I trained and instructed there for a year with no tower. I'm surprised I survived sometimes. I'm pretty much convinced that ryanMcG is the second coming for having lasted so long there.
 
NJA_Capt said:
You would think that checking the ASOS/AWOS would give a clue to the favored runway.....but not always, including large Class Bs. They will not swap ends until the tailwind exceeds 10 kts.
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If its a towered airport then all the traffic in the pattern will be using the same runway and tower and or approach will advise all traffic of which runway is in use. Come on man, if there's a 10 knot tailwind at a non-towered airport, you KNOW that any GA traffic will be using the other runway.
When you guys (students and CFIs) are doing approaches to your nearest Class C/B....are you monitoring the tower frequency before Approach changes you over to tower?? Probably not. Try it sometime and see if you can keep track of 5 or 6 planes on tower freq while you are talking to Approach.
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If I'm planning on landing on the opposite runway of the active I sure as hell would. However, I don't have to worry about it too much if ATC clears me for the approach, Tower clears me to land, and they are both controlling all the other aircraft. If its a non towered airport and I'm shooting an approach to the opposite of the favored runway, I ALWAYS start monitoring the fequency at least 10 miles out. And what is there to keep track of? I don't care when the cessna is turning downwind or when the seminole is turning final while I'm still on with approach, all I care about is whether or not there is anyone in the pattern and what runway they are using. You made a good point that the last 5 miles come quick in a jet. So with that in mind, why would you assume the pattern is empty if you wait until 5 miles out to even begin listening to the advisory freq? You only have to listen to one call to determine the active runway, but it takes us slow poke GA guys a few minutes to get to each corner, so if you only listen for 30 seconds and don't hear anying, it dosn't mean we're not there, it just means we're still on downwind and not ready to turn base yet. Let us know you are there and we're probably going to be more than happy to extend that downwind so you can land.
 
I was doing touch and goes one night with the instructor at an uncontrolled airport in Florida. Things were going great, I was greasing them on and my instructor was rather impressed. On about the 3rd touch and go, I was cleaning up the airplane to take back off, and just as I put in the power in my light illuminated them... 4 - 5 sandhill cranes standing RIGHT on the centerline!! Even worse, they just twisted their heads around and looked at us coming like "what the *&%&^ are you doing on our runway??!!" I had the airspeed to lift off, so my instinct was to pull up. I pulled back rather hard, probably further than I needed to and I set off the stall horn. The airspeed stabilized around Vx so I continued to climb like that for a hundred feet or so. Once we were a bit higher I let everyone else know about these birds.. turns out the next guy buzzed the runway and scared them off!! Needless to say it shook me up and we called it a night.
 
I almost it a cayote the other night. A couple years ago a jackrabbit darter across the runway right in front of me on my takeoff roll.
 
flyguy said:
Come on man, if there's a 10 knot tailwind at a non-towered airport, you KNOW that any GA traffic will be using the other runway.
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In the last 20+ years I have seen MANY GA pilots takeoff and land against the windsock/ASOS/AWOS. I never assume they will be doing anything.

flyguy said:
However, I don't have to worry about it too much if ATC clears me for the approach, Tower clears me to land, and they are both controlling all the other aircraft.
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Yea, and I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times ATC has tried to mate my airplane with another. I wasn't referring to the process of landing at a controlled airport. I was referring to the challenge of monitoring several freqs at one time. At the distances/times you "believe" we should, we are too far and too high to single out a certain airport's CTAF (you are all talking at the same time and 10 airports are using the same freq). And believe it or not there is just a little more to do below 10K than pull the carb heat and wait for flap speed.

flyguy said:
I ALWAYS start monitoring the frequency at least 10 miles out.
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Easy to do at 100 kts.

flyguy said:
And what is there to keep track of?
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As I said above this has been hashed out many times over on this board.
There is a lot more going on in a jet going into an uncontrolled field than you are grasping. When you have a few thousand hours in the front left seat of a jet doing this yourself, you will understand.
 
NJA_Capt said:

In the last 20+ years I have seen MANY GA pilots takeoff and land against the windsock/ASOS/AWOS. I never assume they will be doing anything.
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So let me get this straight. You don't assume they use the favored runway, but you do assume the pattern is empty because you listened to the CTAF for 30 seconds and didn't hear any calls?
Yea, and I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times ATC has tried to mate my airplane with another. I wasn't referring to the process of landing at a controlled airport. I was referring to the challenge of monitoring several freqs at one time. At the distances/times you "believe" we should, we are too far and too high to single out a certain airport's CTAF (you are all talking at the same time and 10 airports are using the same freq). And believe it or not there is just a little more to do below 10K than pull the carb heat and wait for flap speed.
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All you have to do is give us a call a few minutes before you get to the pattern to give us time to get out of your way. I hear jets give radio calls several minutes out all the time and it makes it much easier. Even if you don't have time to listen to us, if you let us know we can get out of your way. 5 miles at jet speeds isn't enough time for anyone to do anything. I don't think my request is unreasonable because most jets I've dealt with not only announce, but listen. I ask for position reports and they gladly give it. I can usually go a full trip around the pattern from the time they announce, to the time I see them. Plenty of time for me to plan how I'll give them room. But every so often I come across one who thinks that just cause he's in a jet he has a God given right to do anything he wants without even telling anyone. Those are the ones that scare me.

The only other thing I want to say, is nowhere in the regulations or in the AIM does it say that jets get priority. All of the recommended traffic pattern entry procedures, and right of way rules apply to jets too. We usually accomidate you as a professional courtesy, but somtimes it seems that jet pilots take advantage of that. The reason this strikes a nerve with me is a few weeks ago I had a student out on a solo flight. He did everything correctly. He entered the pattern exactly acording to the AIM recommended preocedures. An airliner comming in at the same time however did not use the recommended procedures, and because my student was confused by what they were trying to do, and what they were asking him to do, they had two TCAS deviations. The airline wants to put the blame solely on my student because they seem to think that just cause its a larger faster airplane they can just come in and not worry about the little guys, however as of right now the FAA is on my student's side because he did everyting according to the AIM. Also turns out that my student had the right of way on both of those TCAS deviations according to 91.113, but the airline still think its his fault for not giving up the right of way to the faster airplane. I'm sure my student would have happilty gotten out of the way of the airliner, and he tried to, but with only 20 hours of experience he didn't quite understand what was going on and relied on what he had been taught. Do what you have to do, but please try to understand that we can't read your minds, and even though we fly at such snail paces compated to you, we still need time to get out of your way. Also understand that we all have different levels of experience, an if you choose not to follow recommened procedures, we may or may not understand your intentions. Fly safe.
 
flyguy said:
So let me get this straight.
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To be honest....I didn't bother to read your entire post. You aren't getting the point so why waste my time.

I never said that I personally don't make CTAF calls. I joined this thread to give some examples of reasons why the pilot in the original post either did not hear the CFI takeoff, or why the CFI may not have heard the jet. If you can wrap your mind around this not-so-far-fetched idea, IT CAN HAPPEN.

For the record: I always have and DO make required CTAF calls. I even add things like time to entering the pattern for GA guys that aren’t thinking we are traveling at 200+. I also DO monitor CTAF freq, for several minutes before arriving. At least until it squeals so much it is distracting on the primary freq I am using. And if anything is in doubt, Yes, I use your dreaded "Anyone in the pattern please advise" call.
 
I learned and instructed out of an airport with a ton of fractional/jet operations. NEVER did I have a problem with any of their operating techniques.

The problems I had was with the other flight school, the skydivers, and the banner tow planes.

We go to a lot of uncontrolled fields at the place I am at now and really haven't had a problem, yet.

Remember you might not have the right away, but you can give way. I don't care if I have to fly an extended pattern, much rather do that, get more block time, and I'll let the fractional guy get on the ground, then I'll come in and land.

Oh, I use the term "anyone in the pattern please advise" and will continue to do so.
 
I could see the jet and prop scenario happening like that despite both parties best efforts to stop it. It happens. Sometimes it's nobody's fault no matter how they are operating.
 
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