OkieAviator
Pattern Altitude
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- Aug 17, 2014
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OkieAviator
1st Saturday of every month KPNC (Ponca City, OK) puts on a fly in breakfast on field. It generally has a good turn out with around 40 planes and 250+ people from the surrounding area showing up if the weather cooperates.
The general routine is most planes fly in at the very start so it can be fairly congested on arrival. It's an uncontrolled field so it's left up to self coordination, but in fly in fashion most everyone will fly the full pattern. Flight there was business as usual, I was following a friends Baron there and started monitoring CTAF at about 25 mins out. Like usual there were quite a few planes sequencing themselves in. One of my passengers was a retired F16, C130, 747 driver and found that process interesting.
As the Baron began entering the downwind a Skylane called in that he would go behind the Baron. This is almost the exact scenario discussed in Traffic pattern conflict crosswind vs 45 entry thread. I did as I said I would do in that thread and I slowed down to give way to the Skylane and formed up behind him. At this time no one else was calling in on CTAF so I just let the Skylane lead and asked my passenger to keep his eyes on the plane so I could focus on the task on hand. As the Skylane turned final I went ahead and turned based, then final, making the usual pattern calls. Here's the FlightAware track, can't tell exactly how far that is but maybe a two mile final, longer than I typically do.
The only other traffic I heard at this time was a Cessna flying over midfield for a downwind entry. My thought is good, he's on the radio so he hears my calls. As I'm about a mile out my eagle eye passenger point to my left where I see this Cessna on Base, a bit higher than I am but defiantly coming towards me. A bit off putting I begin to prepare to do a right 360 when I go ahead and announce on CTAF something like 'Ponca City Traffic, Cessna on Base, I'm currently on short final'. I get a response back, can't remember it exactly because I'm staying aligned with the field, watching him and working flaps etc all at the same time. I'm fairly certain his response was that he's turning final and sees me. My response is I'll go long on the runway to give him room.
Landings were without issue and I feel like an accident was avoided, I don't play the 'what ifs' a lot but obviously there was an increased risk. My first lesson learned was even on short final when I'm usually focused on the task of landing, I still need to scan left and right looking for traffic. This is even with full glass, ADS-B (Guess they don't have ADSB-Out) and believing I understand where everyone is in the pattern. I honestly figured he would have been on downwind since I didn't hear a downwind or a base turn call from him. In hindsight knowing it was a Cessna 150 he's probably use to really slow, tight patterns. The part that bothers me is I pride myself on keeping my eyes out of the cockpit during landings and looking around, I guess I didn't realize until now that as soon as I turn final I stop looking around and am focused on the runway.
Aftermath
We get ushered to parking in the order which we landed; Baron, Skylane, My RV-10 and this Cessna 150. As I finish helping my passengers out of the plane one of the guys getting out of the 150 asks who the pilot is. Thinking about about to embark on the usual conversation of 'is that a kit build' 'did you build that' 'how much did that cost' etc I'm surprised after I told him I'm the pilot his response is 'What was that **** about'?...
Disclaimer:
Now one of my biggest aviation pet peeves is when someone tries to tell other people how to fly at uncontrolled airfields. All you can do is worry about yourself and keep yourself safe and hope others will do the same. That's why I didn't have heartache about this guy creeping up on my final with what I would consider a very premature turn to base. I made my decisions to keep myself and my passengers safe and landed. I would have even done a right 360 and allowed him to go in first if he hadn't responded and I felt there risk was getting bigger.
Returning to the event, since he came at my so direct and included cursing I decided to reciprocate the tone with a very well thought out response, 'What ****?'. He then in short order questions why I cut the pattern or didn't fly the pattern or something like that. I in no uncertain terms told him I flew the full pattern sequenced behind the Skylane, called downwind, base and final and he needs to get a clue on what he's talking about before approaching people. I don't know if he was saving face with his passenger, or was trying to be big and bad but I have no time for that nonsense so called him a few choice words and walked off.
The plane they arrived in was a nicely restored 150 and the guy who confronted me I believe was in the right seat so I thought to myself maybe the guy who didn't say a word was the owner and this guy is a CFI. That would make sense on the face saving bit so I decided to do a 5 min stalking session from my phone. The registration gave me a name/location... that got me to Facebook to someone with that name and location. Which ended in a series of pictures that confirmed the owner of the plane was the dude in the right seat, he's not a CFI and has been flying for under 2 years. Maybe he should work on his CFI before he tries to hand out ramp educations.
The general routine is most planes fly in at the very start so it can be fairly congested on arrival. It's an uncontrolled field so it's left up to self coordination, but in fly in fashion most everyone will fly the full pattern. Flight there was business as usual, I was following a friends Baron there and started monitoring CTAF at about 25 mins out. Like usual there were quite a few planes sequencing themselves in. One of my passengers was a retired F16, C130, 747 driver and found that process interesting.
As the Baron began entering the downwind a Skylane called in that he would go behind the Baron. This is almost the exact scenario discussed in Traffic pattern conflict crosswind vs 45 entry thread. I did as I said I would do in that thread and I slowed down to give way to the Skylane and formed up behind him. At this time no one else was calling in on CTAF so I just let the Skylane lead and asked my passenger to keep his eyes on the plane so I could focus on the task on hand. As the Skylane turned final I went ahead and turned based, then final, making the usual pattern calls. Here's the FlightAware track, can't tell exactly how far that is but maybe a two mile final, longer than I typically do.
The only other traffic I heard at this time was a Cessna flying over midfield for a downwind entry. My thought is good, he's on the radio so he hears my calls. As I'm about a mile out my eagle eye passenger point to my left where I see this Cessna on Base, a bit higher than I am but defiantly coming towards me. A bit off putting I begin to prepare to do a right 360 when I go ahead and announce on CTAF something like 'Ponca City Traffic, Cessna on Base, I'm currently on short final'. I get a response back, can't remember it exactly because I'm staying aligned with the field, watching him and working flaps etc all at the same time. I'm fairly certain his response was that he's turning final and sees me. My response is I'll go long on the runway to give him room.
Landings were without issue and I feel like an accident was avoided, I don't play the 'what ifs' a lot but obviously there was an increased risk. My first lesson learned was even on short final when I'm usually focused on the task of landing, I still need to scan left and right looking for traffic. This is even with full glass, ADS-B (Guess they don't have ADSB-Out) and believing I understand where everyone is in the pattern. I honestly figured he would have been on downwind since I didn't hear a downwind or a base turn call from him. In hindsight knowing it was a Cessna 150 he's probably use to really slow, tight patterns. The part that bothers me is I pride myself on keeping my eyes out of the cockpit during landings and looking around, I guess I didn't realize until now that as soon as I turn final I stop looking around and am focused on the runway.
Aftermath
We get ushered to parking in the order which we landed; Baron, Skylane, My RV-10 and this Cessna 150. As I finish helping my passengers out of the plane one of the guys getting out of the 150 asks who the pilot is. Thinking about about to embark on the usual conversation of 'is that a kit build' 'did you build that' 'how much did that cost' etc I'm surprised after I told him I'm the pilot his response is 'What was that **** about'?...
Disclaimer:
Now one of my biggest aviation pet peeves is when someone tries to tell other people how to fly at uncontrolled airfields. All you can do is worry about yourself and keep yourself safe and hope others will do the same. That's why I didn't have heartache about this guy creeping up on my final with what I would consider a very premature turn to base. I made my decisions to keep myself and my passengers safe and landed. I would have even done a right 360 and allowed him to go in first if he hadn't responded and I felt there risk was getting bigger.
Returning to the event, since he came at my so direct and included cursing I decided to reciprocate the tone with a very well thought out response, 'What ****?'. He then in short order questions why I cut the pattern or didn't fly the pattern or something like that. I in no uncertain terms told him I flew the full pattern sequenced behind the Skylane, called downwind, base and final and he needs to get a clue on what he's talking about before approaching people. I don't know if he was saving face with his passenger, or was trying to be big and bad but I have no time for that nonsense so called him a few choice words and walked off.
The plane they arrived in was a nicely restored 150 and the guy who confronted me I believe was in the right seat so I thought to myself maybe the guy who didn't say a word was the owner and this guy is a CFI. That would make sense on the face saving bit so I decided to do a 5 min stalking session from my phone. The registration gave me a name/location... that got me to Facebook to someone with that name and location. Which ended in a series of pictures that confirmed the owner of the plane was the dude in the right seat, he's not a CFI and has been flying for under 2 years. Maybe he should work on his CFI before he tries to hand out ramp educations.
