PurpleToolBox

I can't stress this enough, ATC is not responsible for separating IFR and VFR traffic. Even if they give you an avoidance vector, they're not responsible. You are. You always have the final say. Phrases like "not much time" and "controller should have" implies that the ATC controller did something wrong. We will never know if another clearance would have ended in the aircraft missing one another. But it doesn't matter, the pilot's are required to see-and-avoid.

I also think you're being extremely unfair to the Cessna pilot. He took off from a General Aviation airport located close to a major airport, turned away from the airport and associated Class C airspace, and went to the approved VFR hemispheric altitude for his course. Other than failing to see-and-avoid he did nothing wrong. But you keep implying that he did something stupid. I disagree.

To be fair, I think the folks to blame are the DOD. They've never installed collision prevention equipment on the fighters/bombers. I know I know I know, I've heard all of the freaking reasons why "it can't be done." Fighters also have a waiver to fly fast below 10,000ft. I'm not sure if this F-16's speed was above 250kias; however, speed has definitely been causal in many of these types of accidents. Can we really expect a Cessna pilot to see-and-avoid a fast moving fighter? Can we really expect a single seat fighter pilot flying at 300kts to see-and-avoid VFR traffic?

I didn't fly fighters (well I've had lots of rides) but I did spend a career as a tanker pilot. Even flying a big tanker that most would think would be easy to spot in the big sky, I've had numerous close calls with fighters: crazy and reckless rendezvous, near-misses where the fighters passed co-altitude within the wingspan of the aircraft but the pilots thought it was safe because "we had them visual."

I think it's time for a change. I think it's time for fighters to have TCAS installed. If TCAS is not installed then the fighters would be restricted to 250kts or below when below 10,000'. I know this is going to go over like a fart in church. Sigh.

More so, I think everyone should be taught from day one in pilot training that it is your responsibility to see-and-avoid. ATC is not going to save your life. Since this accident happened I've asked 12 pilots if they knew who was responsible for VFR aircraft separation while on an IFR flight plan. All of them except one said ATC. Houston we have a problem. It's time to start looking outside the cockpit and if ATC is nice enough to give you a traffic call, you take it seriously and take action.

USMCFLYR

[QUOTE]What was the altitude of the Cessna when the collision occurred?
Hemispheric cruising altitudes - which I'm pretty sure is what you are referring to in your statement - start at 3,000 I thought.

So I turn it off when ever I'm operating in formation - which is nearly every flight? I turn it off when I'm doing BFM/ACM? I turn it off when I'm operating in the circle-the-wagons bombing pattern?

Crazy and reckless rendezvous? Around the tanker huh> SOunds like cowboy attitudes. I thought that was Naval Aviation . In any case - many times what a person doesn't understand looks reckless to others. I'm curious what these passes are within a wing span of the aircraft…what aircraft. The tanker or another fighter?

250 kts was my gear speed. Are you going to operate your airplane no faster than your gear speed? How about when operating as a formation. You think every plane should be mushing along at 250kts? Do you remember the reasons for having some airspeed on the jet when operating in formation from your training days?

You said earlier in your post:
Many? How many have there been. Either earlier in this this thread or another I read mentioned 3 instances in like 60 years. Not sure if that constitutes "many". Now near-misses (hits)….I've had a few in my days and I currently have to keep my head on a swivel and constantly alert. That see-and-avoid you mention is very important and we have ever increasing availability to tools that increase our situational awareness to other traffic; now if you can just keep pilots to drag their eyes off the TCAS screen and look outside to correlate that displayed traffic!!

This is true.

PurpleToolBox

You're correct, it's 91.129. It doesn't apply to below 3000ft. Thank you. You're never too old to learn something.

In short, yes. There are settings for formations to kill nuisance alerts from your formation partners while getting alerts from others. And you can electronically "see" your formation partner(s). This could be useful in a BFM when you lose sight of each another or go IMC.

Speaking of "turning it off", fighters are notorious about not turning off the transponder within 3 miles of the tanker (as required). So while you're getting your gas, we're getting bombarded with TCAS RAs (until we tag you/turn it off) or getting yelled at by ATC because their software is warning of a collision.

Yes, most of them were Naval aviation ... who knew? I had a pair of F-16s pass directly head on, in tight formation, just over the cockpit and they were close enough to hit our vertical tail. We guess within 25 feet. Luckily we all survived but their excuse was "we had you visual." If so, why so freaking close? And it really was that close. I filed paperwork. It was covered up. End of that story.

At one base I flew an airplane that simulated an adversary aircraft that flies at very slow airspeed. I was the sitting duck for the fighters so they could train these types of shots and intercepts. We had some close calls there as well.

I understand the issues when flying slow, and yes, 250 is slow for fighters. In one dissimilar formation we planned, we needed an HQ USAF waiver so the F-16 could fly with us below 250kts. I also said if TCAS wasn't installed. The speed reduction wouldn't apply when in a MOA. This is only an idea to help reduce the risk. Maybe the military could lobby for bigger airspace designation or corridors to/from MOAs and bases?

Even in the big airplanes and IFR we routinely exceeded 250kias below 10,000ft due to operational reasons. But we had TCAS to help save our bacon. I couldn't imagine doing a low level today without TCAS while flying real fast. Is it "cool", yes. Smart?

There's probably a lot more (near misses) than we're aware of. How many pilots fess up when they do something stupid -- especially in today's leadership environment? Plus there's more aircraft in the skies. I'm sure we've had close calls and neither pilot knew it.

As for how I've been trained, for a Traffic Alert (TA) you use the scope as a guide to acquire the traffic visually. Once it goes to a Resolution Advisory (RA), you come inside and "fly to" the commands. Once that is satisfied you attempt to acquire the traffic if not visual already.

When dealing with fighters, closure rates are so fast the system can go directly into an RA without a TA.

If anything, this accident is going to shed some light on the differences between practice approach flying between civilian rules and military rules. Civilian pilots are required to have a safety pilot. Single seat fighters can't obviously. So wouldn't it make sense to install TCAS and have something back you up while practicing IFR when single-seat?

It also is going to wake up a bunch of pilots to the fact that when you are VMC, you are the person responsible for the safe separation of aircraft.

USMCFLYR

Civilian pilots are required to have a safety pilot when they are wearing vision restricting devices.
There are civilian pilots out there flying *practice approaches* all the time and they are not wearing goggles or any other device. When military students/pilots DO wear devices (I never wore goggles or a hood but you remember the bags that go over the cockpit right?), then the military IP in the front seat (in the airplanes I flew) were the safety pilots - just like the civilian pilots. Otherwise……we are flying *practice approaches* while IMC or VMC under IFR - just like many civilians do.

Adlerdriver

I spent 2000+ hours in an F-15 and I'm pretty sure it had a fine collision prevention device installed. It was called an APG-63 radar. If used properly there is no excuse for letting a Cessna or any other airborne target get within 10 miles undetected never mind collision distance.

A -152 or the like isn't stealthy and has a easily detectable RCS, so that's not an issue. You just need to put the radar installed in any fighter to proper use. TCAS is redundant. No radar (like A-10 or some other bomber), put TCAS in.

Uh, yeah. See above. Did it all the time for 22 years.

cardiomd

Not exactly. We are only required to have a safety pilot during "simulated instrument flight rules" which is widely interpreted as a vision restricting device. Now, common sense tells you looking down at the controls for long period of time is a bad idea in VMC outside of A/B airspace. Relevant FAR is 91.109


Agree with you there. Hence my post awhile back.

If I flew with a similar response to the outline of the accident, I'd eventually have multiple close calls or a crash. In the first 500 hours of being a pilot and continuing there are many times I couldn't see somebody and can hear the controller's console with the callout, most of the time I see in time but sometimes just take action. Double the closing velocity and it is a bad situation. The tempo of reaction described is consistent with somebody who thought ATC would help or remedy, and the attitudes here reflect that. This is completely different from those of my instructors / flight school, which were all like Purple in attitude and awareness.

USN(Ret)

Does ZAU/C90 mean anything to you? I got a feeling he's forgotten more about ATC than you'll ever know.

PurpleToolBox

You are the perfect yet arrogant example of the normalization of deviance.

Adlerdriver

What?

What deviance is being normalized by 22 years of no mid-airs? My (and most other fighter pilot's) success in this regard isn't luck, big sky theory or in spite of lack of TCAS (the deviance, I guess). We effectively used the tools we already had. How else do you explain that this tragedy is such a rare event.

I actually agreed with you on putting TCAS in some military aircraft whose pilots might benefit from it.

There's nothing arrogant about my statement. You want a piece of equipment installed in fighter aircraft to aid in avoiding mid-airs. I merely pointed out that there already is one that, when compared with TCAS, is more accurate, provides a far earlier warning and works on all aircraft (not just those with proper transponders).

Hoser

When I was at Eglin the fighter wing had a "surge" program where they would recover a mile apart using their radar to follow the preceding fighter, in this case F-15s. ATC has a minimum of 3 miles separation in terminal areas so you can see the advantage of recovering the F-15s to get them back up again as quickly as possible. I don't know if they still use this procedure now. And we only needed 3000' separation on the runway. IOW you could have 2-3 fighters rolling out on the same runway. So Adlerdriver is correct about that radar.