poadeleted21
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2011
- Messages
- 12,332
Excuse for what, sir? I'm asking the questions, can I be in charge for a while? Thank you very much. (channeling R Lee Ermy in FMJ)
I already have a handheld. That is tangential to the real issue.
You must know of those radio cowboys who are just compelled to call out every rock and bush in the patt. Or, the yahoo making wildly inaccurate position reports. Look kids, a radio doesn't necessarily add to safety of flight, it may even degrade safety.
Who here when hearing a position report in the patt will concentrate their attention to that perceived point of space and time? Meanwhile, your head swivel grinds to a halt as you burn holes looking for that plane. Only then do you see it out of the corner of your eye at a place different than what you expected.
Like practicing night landings with no landing light maybe y'all should get comfortable flying the patt with no radio. A radio is a tool but it won't cover the deficiency of the nut on the mic.
Once, I was cut off while on base ready to turn final. It was a Falcon 10. His initial call was 35 out from that non-towered field. I had just powered up for the go on a T&G when he made that call. By the time I was base to turn final I noticed him on 3 mile final. I just flowed with it, flew my pattern and went around. At first I was a bit miffed but then realized it was another training opportunity. Change in attitude I guess.
I've been intruded upon lots of times. A couple times I was the culprit. Don't you train for the unexpected?
I train for the unexpected. But would prefer to not have to utilize that skill because some guy is too cheap and lazy to buy a $200 hand held and use it.
If you want to skim the river at 500' AGL in the cub and not make any calls, be my guest. Expecting the 6 people converging on the airport doing 2-10x your cruise speed to see and avoid you is asking a lot, even if the regs say they must and physics don't really care about regulations. A handheld and a wild ass guess of a position report would help. We've all made some boneheaded position reports but knowing your altitude and how far out you are is 1,000,000 times better than nothing. It's cheap insurance, I see no reason not to have and use one other than stubbornness.