Let's refine the straight-in debate with an example & poll

[Ed Haywood]

Yep. In the Watsonville case, the base traffic reported going around, and in the process started across final, so it appears that he was planning to offset to the right. The final traffic was in a steep right bank at the moment of collision, so he may also have been initiating a go-around offsetting to the right.

From the NTSB preliminary report:

The photo shows the problem. The 152 turned his back to a known traffic conflict, taking away his ability to see and avoid. He also possibly confused the twin as to his intentions, by appearing as if he were landing.

Had the 152 pilot stayed on base, climbed, and repeatedly announced until he got a response, the twin would not have had to bank sharply to avoid him. He could have remained on final with wings level and adjusted his flight path to go over or under the 152.

Honestly this is not as hard as everyone is making it. I've had similar scenarios play out numerous times. NORDO shows up on base or final unexpected. If the NORDO acts like you expect him to act, by staying on defined pattern legs, they are easy to avoid. When people start doing steep turns and inventing new mini-patterns known only to them, that is when everything goes haywire.

 

[Palmpilot]

One time I was about to enter right downwind from the 45 at Half Moon Bay (HAF), and another pilot did an overhead entry, turning from there into the downwind, which put him head-to-head with me. The only collision-avoidance action I could think of on the spur of the moment was a right 360 to reenter the 45. I announced that I was doing this so that a pilot who had announced entering the 45 after me could take appropriate action. (I don't know how he dealt with this.)

The only defined pattern legs available to me at that moment were the right downwind in the normal direction, which had a clear danger of two of us occupying the same space at the same time, and turning away from him to join the downwind in the opposite direction, would could have put me head to head with someone if there had been unannounced downwind traffic to my right. Given position-and-intentions reports I had heard up to that time, I suppose that safer options after beginning the right turn would have been to overfly the runway to join the departure leg and then turning crosswind and downwind as if I were doing pattern work, or to cross the runway and join the upwind on the non-pattern side of the airport, followed by a crosswind pattern entry. What option would have been safest depended on where other traffic was as that moment. When an unexpected conflict like that develops, there just isn't time to ponder the relative merits of different strategies.

 

[dbahn]

The photo shows the problem. The 152 turned his back to a known traffic conflict, taking away his ability to see and avoid.

Of course, turning your back to a faster aircraft on a path the he's predicted to take is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. If he can hit you from behind he can hit you from the side.

Getting out of the way of a faster airplane on a predictable course (at a changing altitude) is a better way to save your own life.

 

[Pinecone]

Again, if the traffic on final is higher than you, but descending, how to you make SURE you deconflict using altitude??

 

[dbahn]

Again, if the traffic on final is higher than you, but descending, how to you make SURE you deconflict using altitude??

And to further clarify, in that situation you are likely to be violating the basic premise of 91.113:

When a rule of this section gives another aircraft the right-of-way, the pilot shall give way to that aircraft and may not pass over, under, or ahead of it unless well clear.

You have be well clear in all three of those parameters.

 

[Pinecone]

Exactly, which is why I would turn from base early and fly parallel to the runway to the left.