Long fall from that turnip truck huh

Dude you're out of your depth here. Just stop. We don't even know where it happened, in what airspace, etc. You clearly have no idea what the capabilities of A/A radar, datalink, JHMCS, etc even are. In the radar/approach pattern a lot of guys don't even have the radar pulled up. Limited digital real estate with lots of higher priority displays for a given situation.

OBTW the F-18 doesn't even have ILS, let alone TCAS/ADS-B.

Given where debris has fallen and where eyewitnesses were located when the accident happened, it appears the aircraft were outside of Charleston's Class D airspace in an area not far from Berkeley County Airport, KMKS when they collided.

A Shaw AFB spokesman has already said the F-16 pilot was on an IFR training flight and was talking to ATC. The F-16 was most likely on vectors or on an instrument approach.

At my last base (McGuire), this was one of if not the top safety issues noted each year I was there (being on an approach outside of Class C or D airspace and a civilian aircraft flies through the approach procedure).

This is consistent with news source reports.

I always perk up when I get the "no known traffic between you and ... switch to advisory." In a way I hope it is not one of those "nobody did anything wrong" situations which scare me daily.

I brought up Shaw METAR at collision time:

KSSC 071458Z AUTO 20005KT 10SM CLR 30/22 A3013 RMK AO2 SLP202 T02950221 50003 $

so viz wasn't a factor. RIP to the two in the Cessna.

Yep. Take it easy though, from his posts I have a good picture of him:

When a single seat military is practicing instrument approaches, are they usually IFR or VFR? Wearing view limiting devices?

KCHS is a used both by military (C17 are based there) and Commercial/GA and is a "continuously" operated Class C.

There is no MOA in play in this accident. PurpleToolBox might be on to something with the approach scenario. It'll be interesting to find out what altitude they were.

The TACAN to 15's procedure turn looks close to the site (minimum altitude on that approach segment is 1600)

RIP.

Not hard to imagine at all with a nose-high F16 at approach speeds descending and a high wing Cessna below radar coverage, or just popping up.

Vision-restricting devices are only used in UPT (basic/advanced Pilot training), and only with an Instructor on-board....who is NOT restricted; he's the safety observer.

An F-16 at approach speed is NOT very "nose up." Unlike your plane, it has both leading AND trailing edge devices. The visibility over the nose at approach speed is better than your 182's at cruise.

That bubble sits high for a reason: to see bad guys.

But on an instrument ride, his primary focus would have been inside the jet.

^ Russian spy fishing for info or a kid with way too much time on his hands...