May 08: Only Seconds To Spare Print E-mail
Close Calls by Anthony Nalli
This month’s Close Call comes to us from the west… the wild west as it turns out, well on that day anyway. Our  pilot begins “My FL210 (True Flight Cheetah) and Zaon XRX saved my rear the other day. It was a beautiful, gorgeous day as I was sliding along in my Cessna T210 on the West side of Seattle. The corridor of airspace under the class Bravo can be quite busy. After a month of rain, weather like this brings out everyone, so flying along at 2000 feet I was picking up traffic all over the place. I had mainly been spotting traffic visually with an occasional glance at the beeping screen in the FL210.”

“Most of the traffic was on my right closer to the Seattle and Puget Sound areas. With quick glances to the left I’d be looking into the blue and white back drop of the Olympic snow capped mountains. All clear that way. My Zaon tracks up to ten targets displaying the three closest threats and at the time all in my alert zone were to the right. It was a zoo over there!”

Our pilot continues “Another glance left still showed me clear, or so I thought. As the targets on my right became history, the XRX gave off another beep.  At just about the same time, my scan to the left picked up a white flicker.”

“To my 11 o’clock appeared a Symphony, all white with small blue striping, emerging at high speed from my Olympic mountain back drop. I instantly leaned right as the other guy, 50 feet higher and maybe 1000 feet to my left, stayed the course. I looked as we passed and surmised that the guy in the Symphony never even saw me. I checked down at my switches and yes my Pulse-lights were on as were my strobes.”

Our pilot could only assume that the Symphony pilot was heads-down, maybe working his panel. Claims our pilot “It would have been a high speed mess of falling airplane parts. My Zaon was the split second warning that save me.”

Our pilot concludes “It was just very bad luck that he was so easily camouflaged by the Olympic white and blue color scheme. To have a small, fast, head-on target – well, that’s just one of the hardest to spot. Thanks Zaon, and my FL210... both paid for themselves in one flight.”

Based on these details it seems apparent that the PCAS XRX was tracking the Symphony as one of its ten targets. As the distance between the Symphony and our pilot’s Cessna was closing, the priority of the Symphony increased until it rapidly became the primary target. With the two aircraft closing in at a rate of approximately 285 knots, there would have been 25 seconds to impact at two miles separation, and just 12 seconds to impact at one mile. In this case, our pilot’s evasive action was the difference between a Close Call and a tragedy. There certainly wasn’t very much time to spare at all.

When it comes to layered flight safety, every little bit helps. Our pilot explained how he used Pulse-lights and strobes, a careful lookout, and collision avoidance technology in combination to avert a potential disaster. Add radio calls and maybe even flight following and you’re doing about as good as can be.

Fly safe®.