Report, or let it go?

Coinneach

Coinneach

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Coinneach
Had an unnerving encounter with another plane today. Saw him on ADS-B, my altitude and reciprocal heading, 12 o'clock. I diverted to the right. He followed me. I descended, he descended. I got visual on him, watched him pass close (.5NM according to the gadget) behind at my 8 o'clock, then crank it over and got on my tail. He stayed there for the next five minutes while I maintained heading and altitude, then wandered off. I was on CTAF of the nearest airport and never heard a call from him. TBF, I didn't raise hell on the CTAF either.

When I got home, I looked up his track on Flightaware. He'd been doing random turns (about half of them steep) and altitude changes for a good 45 minutes until he spotted me. His type was masked on ADS-B and all I could see was a basic low-wing silhouette, but his reg show a *much* faster plane than mine, so he had to have been throttled way back to keep waxing my tail, i.e. it was deliberate.

The plane is registered to an LLC, so it would be the work of about 2 minutes to look up his contact info and give him a polite ass-chewing about non-consensual formation flight. OTOH, no paint was swapped. Maybe he just wanted to ride a Cherokee's wake turbulence.

So what sayeth the membership? Do I need to develop more of a sense of humour? Does that guy need to be repeatedly whacked with a clue-by-four? Either? Neither? Both?
 
What reg did he violate?
 
I'd be tempted to see if there are prior tracks for the guy doing the same stupid thing.
 
You can write a nasty gram but as asked above, what FAR was broken?

Unless you call the FSDO or a ASRS report no one is gonna care. Also, major Karen vibe
 
What are you going to report him for if he didn’t break a reg?

not being snarky, it’s a serious question. I don’t think “he got up in my face” is going to mean much to the Faa.
 
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The jinks the pilot made head-on are in opposition of right-of-way rules, 91.113, if he actually saw you or had you on ADS-B. The 180 onto your tail depends on how close he was. If he was a reasonable distance I would say it’s just creepy. If he was smelling your fumes I can see it being an issue. Maybe a wanna be fighter pilot or an ex-fighter pilot that is missing the old days?
 
Is this what the OP is claiming?
crash7, post: 3391491, member: 5493"]
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I once had a Caravan chase me down for unbriefed ACM. I assume they dropped their meat bombs and got bored on the way back down to the DZ...
 
No, Salty, you're living up to your handle as usual. "What reg did he violate" is a cop-out. Some rando on the street comes up to you and takes a swing just to watch you flinch, are you just gonna shrug and say "He didn't violate any laws, so, whatevs LOL"?
 
Salty said:
What are you going to report him for if he didn’t break a reg?

not being snarky, it’s a serious question. I don’t think “he got up in my face” is going to mean much to the Faa.
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I wouldn’t report him/her…I’d try to find contact info to chew his/her $&@ for being stupid and/or an alpha hotel. No reg violation required.
 
You probably won’t get a lot of sympathy here. I had a thread discussing close calls and most here didn’t seem to give a carp about .5 miles
 
Salty said:
You probably won’t get a lot of sympathy here. I had a thread discussing close calls and most here didn’t seem to give a carp about .5 miles
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An inadvertent close call is one thing. This was not inadvertent.
 
Coinneach said:
No, Salty, you're living up to your handle as usual. "What reg did he violate" is a cop-out. Some rando on the street comes up to you and takes a swing just to watch you flinch, are you just gonna shrug and say "He didn't violate any laws, so, whatevs LOL"?
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Sorry, but “bad behavior” isn’t what the Faa cares about. If it’s not a reg violation you are wasting your time. Trust me on that one.
 
You asked for opinions and then get mad at me for asking a question to understand your position better. I guess I should have just given an opinion without understanding your position.

I think you should let this eat at you until you hunt him down and beat him silly for his transgression or report him to the Faa and get even more frustrated when they placate you until you go away.

/my opinion
 
Let it go....

Before ads-b, you probably would never have noticed.

En route to sun n fun this year, I had 2 planes at my altitude cross less than 1 mile in front of me..the more I turned to avoid, the more they turned toward me...never got a visual on either.

It really sucks when this happens, but be thankful no collision..
 
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My Departure from sun n fun

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crash7 said:
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The only there is “close to another aircraft” that leaves a lot of room for interpretation of what defines close.
 
Him screwing around, closest was about .5 away? I have to go with the peanut gallery on this. You could just spy on his ads track for a while, likely never run in again.

Say he was playing fighter pilot behind you, keeping the .5, I don’t see that as a big deal. If I felt a little ‘salty’ I may just turn to meet him.
 
I vote clue-by-four. I'd have been annoyed too. I don't need randos using me as an impromptu dogfight target.
 
.5 mles is in no way close. nobody would ever consider .5 mile even loose formation. in rvsm airspace you have planes doing 500kts in opposite directions at .18 (1000 ft separation) as normal ops and half the time atc never even calls them. he violated no fars, what are you going to report, "hey, faa, this guy ****ed me off"?
 
If half a mile separation and people following are uncomfortable for you, it must be hell being in the pattern on a nice day.
 
I'd report it to the FAA. Guy screwing with me that close, especially if I have a loved one in the plane. It's easy to file a complaint and the FAA will investigate. It's one thing if he just happened to be heading where I was going. Quite another to stalk you.

Report it to the FAA. He f***d with you, I'd f**** with him. Guy/girl may have a history of unsafe behavior.
 
Weird, something similar happened to me. After being out practicing VFR maneuvers, I noticed an airplane head on to me. Since it was time to go home, I turned left to go back to the airport and get out of the way, but they turned to match me! I descended, they descended. Weirdest thing that I've seen. After passing him, I turned to follow him so I could make sure I got his tail number. Behavior like this needs to be reported!

OP, you weren't in NC, were you?
 
This seems like the equivalent of a guy revving his engine while your stopped at a stop light. You let him go and hope he gets pulled over down the road. We don't have the fuzz to do that so I might be inclined to report it not because of this incident but perhaps future ones. 1/2 mile separation is a non issue. But it's easy to lose visual when you're going the same direction.
 
Coinneach said:
An inadvertent close call is one thing. This was not inadvertent.
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Right. But this wasn't a close call. Maybe the guy was checking out your airplane. Trying to pace you to see how fast your Barbie dream plane goes. Something like that.

No harm, no foul. Move on.
 
He never closed less than ".5 miles"? That is definite not any kind of "formation flight" , consensual or otherwise. I'd say live and let live. If you and he didn't have ADS-B, you probably wouldn't have ever known he was there. Maybe he thought you were someone he knew.
 
Lndwarrior said:
I'd report it to the FAA. Guy screwing with me that close, especially if I have a loved one in the plane. It's easy to file a complaint and the FAA will investigate. It's one thing if he just happened to be heading where I was going. Quite another to stalk you.

Report it to the FAA. He f***d with you, I'd f**** with him. Guy/girl may have a history of unsafe behavior.
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But, what is there to report?? There’s nothing here that’s reportable other than the OP is a little butthurt about another ship coming within 1/2 mile. They didn’t trade paint, so who cares??
 
Some good news is obviously he saw you, so you had self-preservation on your side.

I bet it was an RV. :)

Hug your wife, your kids, and pet the dog, then put it behind you. Life's too short.
 
Similar happened to me a few months ago. He's in a much faster one, we're both about 15 miles from the airport. I turned to get out of his way. Nope. He follows. Turn/descend/climb, everything I did, the other aircraft did the same. ADSB shows me the N number. Annoying as h*ll. He finally passes me and lands. I took my time back to the airport because I was so mad. Looked him up, he's based at the same airport. No, I didn't make any comment to him nor informed FAA or our tower but I did save the track of the two aircraft.

Now consider the solo student pilot who is nervous enough as it is and has this happen to them.

unsafervguy - this isn't a jet environment, this isn't 500kts in opposite direction, this is an area of training and lots of beginners.

However, if I hear of him doing this again, you betcha the FAA will hear because it shows a habit of possible recklessness.
 
murphey said:
Similar happened to me a few months ago. He's in a much faster one, we're both about 15 miles from the airport. I turned to get out of his way. Nope. He follows. Turn/descend/climb, everything I did, the other aircraft did the same. ADSB shows me the N number. Annoying as h*ll. He finally passes me and lands. I took my time back to the airport because I was so mad. Looked him up, he's based at the same airport. No, I didn't make any comment to him nor informed FAA or our tower but I did save the track of the two aircraft.

Now consider the solo student pilot who is nervous enough as it is and has this happen to them.

unsafervguy - this isn't a jet environment, this isn't 500kts in opposite direction, this is an area of training and lots of beginners.

However, if I hear of him doing this again, you betcha the FAA will hear because it shows a habit of possible recklessness.
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the environment is not the point, the point is, that .5 miles is not a close encounter, not in the FAA's mind, or pretty much anybody elses. point is, there are plenty of karens out there that love to call the FAA over pilots actions, we don't need to have pilots calling the FAA on other pilots unless there really is an issue.

domeinck, could not have been an RV, we never fly that far apart.
 
murphey said:
Similar happened to me a few months ago. He's in a much faster one, we're both about 15 miles from the airport. I turned to get out of his way. Nope. He follows. Turn/descend/climb, everything I did, the other aircraft did the same. ADSB shows me the N number. Annoying as h*ll. He finally passes me and lands.
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He was probably trying to follow so he didn't appear to be cutting the line. All the while he was probably thinking WTF is this idiot doing...
 
FORANE said:
He was probably trying to follow so he didn't appear to be cutting the line. All the while he was probably thinking WTF is this idiot doing...
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Possibly. But 15 miles out really isn't the approach.
 
unsafervguy said:
the environment is not the point, the point is, that .5 miles is not a close encounter, not in the FAA's mind, or pretty much anybody elses. point is, there are plenty of karens out there that love to call the FAA over pilots actions, we don't need to have pilots calling the FAA on other pilots unless there really is an issue.

domeinck, could not have been an RV, we never fly that far apart.
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How many newbie solo students understand distances like this when flying?

Sidenote: Can we please stop using the "karen" as a derogatory term? No one's name should be used like this, regardless of the situation.
 
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