Near mid-air tonight. Had cancelled with ARTCC decending out of Class A and was getting ready to call up approach in 15 or so miles. Passed a PC-12 head-on that just went over me as I was descending through 15. He was climbing and I just caught his strobes out of the side windscreen as he passed overhead and slightly offset, where I could see it was a PC-12 by the fuselage.
No harm, no foul. Miss as good as a mile.
And truly, no one's fault (unless an actual midair). From my end, I have viz limitations from the support structure of the forward part of the canopy. I was in a phase of flight where I was momentarily heads down switching freqs on the UHF after having taken a cursory scan outside and noting nothing outstanding. He was backgrounded by a well-lit city., so the strobes didn't stick out as not being part of the city at first (there are other strobes for towers and such in the distant city area). My aircraft only has a lower rotating red beacon, and dim-steady, dark-tinted position lights flush in the wings; not to mention the plane being painted flat black . The position lights can't be seen unless you're almost right above or right below me, and in a descent, the lower beacon light easily gets masked by the fuselage of the aircraft from someone looking level-on or anywhere from above; so he/she had those limitations.
Big sky, little airplanes.
Let's all be careful out there, and keep the head on a swivel.
No harm, no foul. Miss as good as a mile.
And truly, no one's fault (unless an actual midair). From my end, I have viz limitations from the support structure of the forward part of the canopy. I was in a phase of flight where I was momentarily heads down switching freqs on the UHF after having taken a cursory scan outside and noting nothing outstanding. He was backgrounded by a well-lit city., so the strobes didn't stick out as not being part of the city at first (there are other strobes for towers and such in the distant city area). My aircraft only has a lower rotating red beacon, and dim-steady, dark-tinted position lights flush in the wings; not to mention the plane being painted flat black . The position lights can't be seen unless you're almost right above or right below me, and in a descent, the lower beacon light easily gets masked by the fuselage of the aircraft from someone looking level-on or anywhere from above; so he/she had those limitations.
Big sky, little airplanes.
Let's all be careful out there, and keep the head on a swivel.
