PearlPilot

Very sad to happen in the practice area. Whenever ATC informs us of another airplane that is in the practice area, I just can't help but constantly look for traffic. I get extremely uncomfortable...I hope that incidents like this could be avoided and each of us have a personal responsibility to constantly look out and make a simple radio call. Safety comes first. It makes me feel very sad for those who lost their lives. As a student who has not much experience, I feel that there is a LOT of responsibility for pilots to do everything they can to avoid mid-air collisions. Early on we students must work on safety management, not just maneuvering the machine.

USMCFLYR

Great advice Proskuneho. are there many identifiable landmarks around the working area? The area that I generally work in is like Indian Country. We have a controller who is usually very busy. We have LOTS of aircraft doing all sorts of manuvering in the area and transienting the area too and then the bottom of the area is a MOA with civilian traffic coming up and down the valleys! Luckily - we are most all up the same freq so we can hear each other check in and then we'll even make calls on that freq if we feel we should for safety. The area also lends itself to using landmarls to identify where we are working in the area too. Best of luck out there in those busy working areas and keep a sharp lookout!
123.3 - learn it - live it - love it!

USMCFLYR

proskuneho

There are plenty of landmarks. In fact, Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach uses a named grid system. I asked our chief pilot a while ago to get a map of their grid names since they use the frequency more than any other school. I'll just call Flight Safety myself in the morning and have them fax it to us.
Stay safe guys.

trackpilot

That is so sad. RIP

TheGreatChecko

All great ideas, but I don't think they would have helped with this mid-air, it was west of FLL in Alert Area A291-B.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time there's been a midair out there.

Checko

Planespotta

R.I.P. to these men/women who died in pursuit of their dream of flight.

Cubdriver

Technology should gradually make this kind of thing a feature of the past. All but two of my companies trainers are equipped with "TIS"- an ATC radar-based traffic information system a bit like TCAS. It uses the same symbology as TCAS also. When it gets positional data from local ATC radar on other aircraft it sends that data to the aircraft with the system installed via the transponder. It is not all that accurate because the radar only sweeps so fast per cycle and the radar does not see aircraft below a thousand feet or so but it s a great aid to safety.

I keep the TIS display on when I am in the practice area and it really helps not only to make us safer, it helps me know when the danger level is getting high. I am able to put my attention on the other aircraft when I need to then pull it back to teaching my student when everyone is gone again. It's a great thing to have in a training environment.

When ADS-B comes online there will be another big improvement in anticollison systems for trainers. ADS-B combines GPS data with local radar data and beams it up to the aircraft. It sees everything the GPS satellites see which as we know is just about everything up there.

Emb170man

Flight Safety and FIT actually coordinated the grid system that goes from TIX down to Stuart....if you hear them in Bravo, Hotel West, Charlie South...that's them.

To those who have flown west...RIP.

DorkFromFL

Gave me the chills reading that this morning... RIP and god bless.

Let's get some better procedures enacted here... This is not the first time this has happened here. I think there should be a "PUBLISHED" advisory frequency. If you go look at a SoCal TAC, you will see some practice areas with a published frequency, but when you come here to Florida there are none published and there are thousands of training flights a year here. I know this won't prevent all accidents since it is only a voulantary task, but I think it will allow the pilot to become more situationally aware of what is going on in the practice area as well as having "most" on the same frequency.

I am sad to see this happen again, and more lives lost, but come on, let's keep our scan going OUTSIDE as well. Your pretty G1000 is not a TCAS II so you need to see the aircraft visually before you decide to do a see and avoid procedure.

Fly safe all!

Nick

Jon7988

I flew my MEI checkride out of FLL in a seminole, and during my checkride with the DE it was hectic. It would be great if practice area frequency was published, the local DE didnt have a traffic frequency. I remember asking him due to it not being published and not being familiar with the area.

RIP to the four men and women