patrnflyr

My Feedback: (7)

I know this has been beat to death many times in this forum, but I'd like to rethink it one more time. I went to the North Dallas pattern meet to watch my buds and my son fly this weekend. (My plane isn't ready yet.) Unfortunately, we had a catastrophic midair with the conplete loss of an electric Brio and partial damage to an Icepoint. Isn't there anything we can do to stop this carnage?!? Just a couple of hours before the midair, a friend of mine and I were discussing midairs and he mentioned that there is no "class system" when it comes to midairs. It could be a $6K Beryll and a GP 40 Sportster ARF. Most people just throw up there arms and say it's part of flying pattern. I say BS... There has got to be a way to fix this. I did a search and there's hundreds of midairs taking out VERY expensive planes. How many of these people just throw in the towel and give up pattern? Could this be a contributor to the declining #"s to pattern? I don't know nor do I have a crystal ball, but it certainly has got to hurt...

I haven't flown IMAC in a long time, but they did have a system where you could "bail out" of a maneuver if you were getting too close to another plane. Then, you'd regroup and just start where you left off when things settled down. I don't even know if they do that any more, but why can't we consider that in pattern? Are our scoring systems so stringent that if you bailed, you zero the rest of the maneuvers just to save your plane?

I'm just throwing this out for your thoughts. Please, no flaming me. I just feel bad for all the people who lost a nice plane. I could be one of them myself someday.

John

riot3d

The only way you can eliminate mid air is to fly one plane at a time, and unless you have an extremely low turnout at a particular contest, this will never happen.

It is not a matter of whether we can call a "time out" and restart a maneuver again, we are not sitting inside the cockpit and can spot a potential mid air ahead of time. Unfortunately, our current Tx/ rx does not have an accident avoidance alert system. Until that time, this unfortunate thing will continue to happen.

vbortone

My Feedback: (2)

John,

I am sorry for your lost. I also had a mid air at the Nats this year. I don't think that we can find a good solution. The only one is to fly one line and we know that it is not practical. If you did one line a Dallas you could will do only 3 rounds. I also fly IMAC and they don't have a choice but fly two lines. Even having the system to bail out you really don't have a good system to avoid it. One option is that you direct our caller to let you know and you just bail out. It is better to get a zero than have a mid air. However, I believe it is almost impossible to keep track of the other plane. It is just back luck. We were lucky at the Nats. Both planes were able to land. I just have to get a new wing and the other pilot lost the stab.

Regards and good luck,

Vicente "Vince" Bortone

vbortone

My Feedback: (2)

John,

I forgot, IMAC still allows to bail out. Porbably we could propose a rule change so we feel better but I believe it is not the best solution.

Vicente "Vince" Bortone

patrnflyr

My Feedback: (7)

Vicente,

I didn't lose a plane, a friend of mine did. He spent alot of time on this plane and it is a great loss. The Icepoint was also damaged greatly, but could be repaired.

I just wanted to throw out this topic for discussion and see what comes back. I agree with each of you-- there isn't really a way to solve this problem. I was hoping that somebody came up with an idea we could at least try.

Maybe getting cheap "disposable" airplanes like the combat guys would be a great option... You could buy them by the dozen. Anybody want to produce a 2M Integral for $35.00?!?

John

Divesplat

My Feedback: (7)

Hey guys.

"Avoidance" is what it is called in IMAC.

Our Tx don't have radar but that very quickly becomes the callers responsibility. John's son was calling for me at the Nats in IMAC as I started to do a 1/2 reverse cuban 8 at the end and suddenly he called Avoidance. I didn't understand why but he said I was on a collision course with the other plane if I came out at the altitude the radius made. As a pilot I couldn't see that far ahead and focus on the plane, but he was able to.

At last years N Dallas contest Max Blose and Glen Watson midaired on uplines.

I agree with John that something could be done in this type of prevention.

Ed

handglider

My Feedback: (23)

Guys,

I had two midairs last season, each was a little different.

The first one I had I was flying my beater $300 focus on a practice flight before the first round of the meet. I called my landing after flying for less than 10 mins. I was on my downwind landing approach basiclly hugging the far edge of the runway when a pilot flying a pinnacle hit me going about mach 9. It happend pretty fast and was unusual as he was in that close on an inside line - like less than 40 yards out close. I think he was inverted and pushing when he hit me and well a good bit off his line. I didn't expect it and I don't think anyone saw that coming. What do you do if your on your landing approach. Your kind of hanging out there with a target on yer butt.

The second one I was flying my prototype black magic I was in an up line on the right side of the box doing a humpty when I collided with an agressor. again it happend in such a way that it was hard to see it coming. I don't think any caller could of warned me that it was going to happen.

IF you put the pressure on the callers to warn of midairs it going to put a lot of callers in the hotseat. When it happens, it happens pretty quick in pattern. And I forsee alot of hard feelings if callers are supposed to be watching for potential midairs.

You just gotta pick up the pieces and start over.

cheers, dean

f3a05

Back-to-back lines?
Or, one line, start earlier, finish later?---and with the latest, shorter, POs,FOs, seven flights an hour should be poss if the CD is firm-but-fair?

NJRCFLYER2

My Feedback: (42)

Well, I actively flew IMAC from 1998 through 2003 and Pattern from 2004 through 2007 and I have been witness to exactly the same number of midairs at contests: one each for IMAC and Pattern. The first Pattern contest midair I've ever seen was last Sunday. I've also seen about an equal number of aftermaths in each venue. Does that mean that without avoidance I would have seen more in IMAC or had one or two myself. Who knows?

It seems to be generally accepted that Pattern flyers have more midairs because the better flyers tend to stay out about 150 meters most of the time. With IMAC, models tend to be flown with much greater variation in the distance out, probably because it's never been part of the rules to specify an optimum distance. That, combined with an actual aerobatic box with box markers being in use for Pattern would seem to place models at higher risk since they have to be flown in tighter quarters. Also, pattern models tend to be flown somewhat faster and since they are relatively quiet, you don't get the same type of announcement that something is getting in proximty with your model as you do with a big gasser.

Realistically, I doubt that an avoidance rule in Pattern would make much difference, mainly due to how fast things happen. You might get lucky and have a caller spot impending doom, but it's a very difficult call to make accurately and frankly, it tends to be disruptive when a caller tries to warn you off while you're trying to concentrate. I've had it happen while I was flying IMAC and sometimes I followed the advice, other times I thought it was totally unwarranted and just flew on, i.e. I could see that nothing was going to happen. Then, what is the judge supposed to do, tell you to go back and take a Mulligan because the caller reacted and you didn't? It's a tough call to make.

vbortone

My Feedback: (2)

John,

You got me thinking. What is we have a third caller (mid air caller) between both flying lines. This caller has a loud system or alarm to let pilots know if they are risk. The pilot on the right will be instructed to go up and the pilot on left to go down independent of their position. If they are rolling they have to stop rolling and go up or down. The problem will be when one is looping and the other is coming level or both going vertical. In any event, I believe that the caller does not have time to be looking the other plane. He is too busy trying to help the pilot. Probably, make sense to try this method. I don't think this method perfect but at least give the pilots the opportunity to do something when they hear the alarm. The mid-air caller could be one of the pilots that just finish flying and we take turns after flying. Since this independent alarm or decision, judges will allow pilots to reposition and contiue the round without getting zeros.

Regards,

Vicente "Vince" Bortone

Stuart Chale

I believe we do have some sort of avoidance rule in pattern. I am not sure about the specifics. The problem with a third person sounding an alarm is that there are often "close calls" at any pattern contest. Obvioulsly most of these are misses. The person that flinches the least scores better Relying on a third person would likely to result in an alarm or two per round. People would have to get used to this and be able to get back to where they were in the pattern. I think it would be too disruptive and probably not prevent many of the midairs. They often happen too fast. Last weekend I likely witnessed the same midair as njrcflyer2. In fact I was judging as it happened so I was concentrating on one of the hit planes. I did not see it coming and if I was the pilot I certainly would not have been able to avoid it.

Stuart

shepga

I agree with Vince. IMHO a 3rd judge would be in position to observe 2 planes simultaneously and make some sought of an alarm call. In order to be effective the judge would have to react on the conservative side. Yes this would be very diruptive for the pilots and to the flow of the competition but maybe this is the price to be paid to have a greater chance of leaving with a whole aircraft.

Glen
North Dallas RC

vbortone

My Feedback: (2)

Yes, it is better to call it the "avoidance caller". I agree with you, I don't know if make sense. However, we could try and check. The main advantage is that the avoidance caller is not judging or calling for a pilot. He/She has that specific function only. Probably with practice and training could work. I have the feeling that we won't have many alarms in a single contest as we gain experience.

Vicente "Vince" Bortone

patternrules

My Feedback: (6)

Well I was flying at the Nats a couple of years ago and someone in the crowd SCREAMED out that we had a midair it was very disruptive to me and broke my consitration, I was so shook I almost crashed, the biggest problem was we didn't have a midair, the planes never touched it just looked close. If you feel you can avoid a midair I think anyone would to save a plane, but then it could get really silly to if anything that looks close which happenes more than midairs everyone makes a move to avoid another plane could even make matters worse if your only close you could move into the other plane.
Steve Maxwell

tommy s

My Feedback: (55)

I have to agree with Steve. So what is this avoidance caller going to do ?
If he yells are the pilots going to pull up, down, right or left ? There is the
chance he might turn a near miss into a mid-air instead of avoiding one.
I can't see any way of eliminating mid-airs completely, they just happen
too fast.

tommy s

jlkonn

My Feedback: (1)

Let me throw something out and then I'll go back to sleep...
[sm=spinnyeyes.gif]
I just checked the NSRCA D5 website, the district I fly in, and the average number of pilots this year attending all contests listed is between 20 and 21.
What if only one flight line was flown.
The goal for number of flights per contest reduced from 6 to 4.
All rounds count.
Fly longer on Sundays and maybe even try to get a round in late on Friday afternoons if everyone agrees to it.
This could also relieve the judging pool issue we have now due to the great numbers of Masters pilots at D5 contests.
Don't know...
Just a thought...
JLK

shomenda

My Feedback: (2)

Although it's a subject we prefer to avoid, given the current field layouts in D3, we don't have much choice unless we fly one line and limit the contest to 3 rounds for each class or extend the contest to 3 days to get in 6 rounds. This subject has come up in the past, especially following a midair. Heck, we had 2 last year at Tangerine. The consensus was to place the flight lines back to back. Onother option would be to possibly place the flight stations at an angle to each other limiting the intersecting airspace to a single vertical line. To enact such a plan would require a much larger flying field, two seperate runways or intersecting runways, new placement of center poles, new placement of box poles, yada, yada, yada. A few years ago I attended a pattern primer in Viera, FL, where I recall they had intersecting flight lines at an angle to each other. Just my $.02

Steve

NJRCFLYER2

My Feedback: (42)

This pretty well sums it up for me. I don't much like the idea of giving control over to someone who may or may not really know the true situation. Believe me, from my IMAC days when we exercised this it didn't seem all that useful in a lot of cases. Not all cases though. On occasion, as a pilot I felt justified in exercising it, but I can't say if I really would have had a midair had I not done the aviodance thing. I've also seen it abused here and there.

The last thing I want is someone with a bullhorn screaming to watch out. I guarantee that won't work and I sure as heck would not want to be the guy with the bullhorn either. Guys that race sometimes hit other planes, yet racing continues on. Pattern planes sometimes hit other pattern planes etc. It's always going to be that way.

flywilly

My Feedback: (121)

Midairs just suck because 2 airplanes are involved and both usually come out on the short end of the stick. However, what is the actual frequency of contest midairs? I'm not sure the overall return would be worth the effort to attempt to minimize the occurence of a midair. Most contests have 2 flight lines sharing one landing strip and as a result are very close. HAve one flight line fly at 150 meters and the other at 175 meters... pretty tough to actually achieve. Top level pilots (Masters and FAI classes) will put the airplane where they want, but the lower classes may not be skilled enough.
I was calling for a gentleman at the '85 Nats. The flightlines were about 2500 feet apart. He was flying Expert class (pre-turnaround) and liked long turnarounds. He had a midair at the extreme end of one of his turnarounds with another pilot doing the same thing. The crash site was over 1000 feet away - very tough to assess the possibility of a midair there. The concept of the 'midair' judge seems good on (electronic) paper, but in practice I have some doubts as it is pretty difficult to try to observe two different airplanes at the same time.
The worst midair I've seen happened at the NERCM contest at the Fitchburg, MA airport. Three flight lines with about 90 contestants (42 just flying novice). The two airplanes in question hit spinner to spinner in level flight at full speed. Both were balsa and foam construction and literally disintegrated upon impact. The silence was deafening. Debris rained down for several minutes. Everything was destroyed (that was found).
The 'best' midair I've seen occurred between Stan Rautkis' Brushfire and Willie Macek's Magic (pre-turnaround era). The were both performing a 1/2 reverse cuban 8 to get set for their next maneuver. The Brushfire was upright and the Magic inverted (and a bit faster) and for a split second you could only see one airplane. They separated and after landing it could be seen that the propeller on the Magic had a bit less diameter and there was a very nice row of prop strike marks on the bellypan of the Brushfire. That's about as close as you can get and not need a garbage bag!
Bottom line: midairs happen and it is almost impossible to prevent. Having a good caller who can suggest you move you flight path appropriately to reduce the possiblity can help.

KeithB

My Feedback: (1)

I'm one of the poor souls that prompted this thread by being party to the mid-air this past Sunday (below is the plane that is no more [sm=disappointed.gif]).

This is my third mid-air in four seasons. My first may have been avoided, but the last two were a complete shock to both me and my caller. In fact, in mid-air #2 my caller said "you're good" (meaning we were not going to hit). The other pilot's caller walked up to me and apologized saying that he told the other pilot that he was in the clear. Therefore, I don't know how effective a third "spotter" sitting between the lines could be.

That being said, two recent events have given me an idea of how we might be able to greatly improve this problem. The first light bulb was Vicente's suggestion of the spotter that warns the pilots. The second event was my walk out to pick up the fragments of my beloved Brio. As I was walking back I stood for a bit to observe the planes looking down the flight path. It was amazing how clearly you can see each plane as it moves in and out from the flight line.

So here's the idea: What if we sat a spotter at the corner of the box to watch plane separation in the distance out dimension and then had the other spotter sitting between the judges (or even back under the cover) watching in the right to left dimension. These two spotters could use radios with headsets and continually talk to each other. There are many times that planes appear to be close to a mid-air from the flight line viewpoint, however, the number of times that both spotters would be alarmed should be fairly minimal. When this occurs the spotter could sound an alarm (this deserves discussion as to the details) and each pilot could peel off of their course. If one pilot froze the collision may still be avoided by just one pilot taking action. Sure, this could cause a mid-air, but viewing from two dimensions should help in alerting only when an impact is probable.

Some have stated that they've seen very few mid-airs, but my experience in D6 and NATS is that at least 70% (if not more) of the contests I've attended have had mid-airs. I'm not going to run away crying and quit the hobby due to this mid-air, but reducing such losses would be a benefit to us all!

Keith Black

PS. John, thanks for starting this discussion.

f3a05

This is all very remarkable to me here across the pond----in how ever many years it is since turnaround started, the only midair I've seen at a comp(and as far as I know it is the only one,ever), involved a pattern plane ,in the box, and a stray pylon racer,one year at our Nats.

Bob Pastorello

My Feedback: (198)

When I flew Masters, and later FAI, I was terrified frequently because of how close we came. Frequently, Masters were on one line, and FAI on the other, and THAT made it unbelievalby close. Put Masters opposite Advanced, and the same problem. By the time folks are good at Advanced, they ARE on the "right track", and it ain't pretty.

I often wondered if ONE line, and ONE set of judges were setback from the flightline maybe just 25 - 30'.... That's almost 8 meters, and that's four airplane spans. That could save an airplane, no doubt about it. You could let the takeoff and landing remain the same, then have the "setback" pilot move back to the judges he's with. I really think just a VERY small shift could reduce risks significantly.

Keith - I am sorry to read about yours. Sad news, friend.

Walfam

My Feedback: (1)

In thinking about this issue, what one could do is each line fly 90 degrees ( I -------- I ) from each end of the runway, then all you have to do is make sure each take off(s) and landing(s) are done as each pair finishes. This would keep the landings and takeoff s from interfering with the patterns.

I know at most airfields if you fly this way you might have some sun issues, but that can be overcome in most cases. Just a thought.

vbortone

My Feedback: (2)

Keith,

I am sorry for your lost. I was lucky at the Nats and I just need to replace one wing panel. I think we should try the idea of having at least one spotter. I wonder if some CDs start to do it to get some experience. I will keep track and I will try to do it next year when I organize my contest at RC Barnstormers, Paola, Kansas.

Regards,

Vicente "Vince" Bortone

DMichael

My Feedback: (5)

I commented on this on the pattern list so I'll put my 2 cents in here too.

I have flown a lot of IMAC and a little of pattern. I don't know if there are more mid-airs in pattern but it seems like I have read more about it in pattern. IMAC allows you to call avoidance. We talk about it during the pilot meeting. Fact is that most of the time the planes probably wouldn't have collided but the only way to know for sure is to keep flying and listen for the bang - BUT - I see no real good reason to risk my hard earned money and precious time by taking unecessary chances.

At IMAC meets, generally speaking, most flyers avoid if there is any appearance of a potential mid-air. It's not considered a big deal. The benefit, obviously, is that you're going to have less mid-airs. I believe that. My experiences and observations lead me to believe that avoiding does not cause mid-airs either: we generally bail on the manuever before we get close enough for that to happen.

What are the real disadvantages of allowing avoidance? Abuse? Ha! I laugh at that. There is no benefit from calling bogus avoidances. If you have ever competed you know that once you get locked in on the sequence the last thing you want is to break the sequence. I would venture to say that avoiding is a penalty- this is just a guess but is based on my own feelings and from talking to others: you fly worse after avoiding until you get back "in the zone" so to speak. Even if you could prove that someone was calling bogus avoidances because they aren't flying well (and I have never observed any such abuses)- that flyer is almost certainly scoring so badly that they are out of contention anyway.

I am finishing up my first pattern plane now and I have a fair amount of money and time into it. I am not going to be happy if I mid-air because I can't avoid or if I get zeros because I do. This is not a rule that is friendly to potential new pattern participants.

To me this is a no brainer and I see no downside. I can't understand why it wouldn't be allowed.

Dave