State your position -- please
"Wauchula traffic, Aztec One-Six-Yankee, 10 southwest, inbound Wauchula."
Now, my apologies to the good folks who live there and love it, but the only time the words traffic and Wauchula are used in the same sentence is when a pilot gives a position report flying into or out of the rural, somnambulant Southwest Florida airport. With an average 22 aircraft operations a day, it's not exactly a busy place.
No matter. It's a public-use airport, a nontowered one, and deserves standard arrival and departure position reports over the published unicom frequency.
My initial arrival report was greeted with...nothing. No acknowledgement, no response. Not a problem. Position reports made in the vicinity of a nontowered airport are just that -- general announcements of location and intentions, broadcast on the local unicom party line for all the world -- or at least that part within range -- to hear.
An unacknowledged position report is not a wasted effort. An attendant may have heard me and decided not to respond because there was no other known traffic. A pilot transiting the area may have been monitoring the unicom frequency and noted my position, but after concluding I posed no conflict, stayed mum. In either case my position report achieved its intended purpose, which was to alert anyone interested where I was and what I planned to do.
Given the informal, honor-system premise of position reports, they work reasonably well for keeping aircraft separated at nontowered airports. That said, it must be recognized that the greatest potential for a midair collision is in the traffic pattern at a nontowered airport. So say the midair statistics.
How can we reduce that risk as much as possible? Seems to me it takes a three-pronged strategy employing equipment, vigilance, and communication.
First, equipment. Anything that makes it easier for other pilots to see your airplane is a big plus. Make it more conspicuous with flashing strobes and glowing landing lights. A pulsing light system makes the airplane even more noticeable in a big sky.
A more recent and most welcome equipment development to aid in collision avoidance is the appearance of new, extremely low-cost electronic collision avoidance devices for light aircraft. They receive and analyze transponder signals from other aircraft and alert you to a possible conflict. We have one, a Monroy ATD-300, mounted in the eyebrow panel. It displays the range of a nearby aircraft, and how many feet it is above or below our altitude. It even has a voice alert piped through the airplane's audio system to warn of close-in traffic.
After using it for about six months, I'm a true believer. When I hear it squawk, "Traffic nearby!" I jerk my head up and look around. And best of all it cost less than $700, plus installation. Other, similar low-cost collision avoidance devices are available in portable and panel-mount configurations. These things have to be the best bargain in aviation.
A second line of defense against midair collisions is vigilance. This means constantly looking for other aircraft and taking measures to avoid any that pose a potential conflict -- see and avoid. It's not the easiest thing to do well, and it is fraught with inherent problems and limitations, but it does work; it is readily available; and the price is right.
See and avoid is probably least effective on departure. When climbing, the airplane is at too awkward an attitude to conduct effective outside scanning. Plus, the pilot is awfully busy configuring the airplane, talking to controllers, and -- worst of all in terms of collision avoidance -- fiddling with the super-sophisticated avionics and displays. The one huge downside to the fantastic capability that computers and GPS have brought to general aviation is that we now keep our eyes fixed on the displays inside the cockpit instead of concentrating on flying the airplane and looking for traffic at the most critical times.
Conversely, see and avoid is most effective on arrival. We're more inclined to be looking around then, with a more expansive view of things than when climbing out on departure. So, if there is work to be done on our see-and-avoid skills, it is when we are taking off and climbing away from the airport.
The third leg of the collision-avoidance stool is communicating position and intentions. The best position reports are strong on content, delivery, and timing. The first rule of content is to be accurate and specific without going overboard. Tie your position to a widely known landmark, or give azimuth and distance from the airport.
Second, be brief. Include only essential information in your report to make it easier for other pilots to hear and comprehend. Recite only the last three letters of the aircraft N-number -- it's much easier for others to remember than the entire number.
Identify the airplane you are flying by model. If I hear "Cherokee" or "Skyhawk" or "Baron," I know what to look for -- low-wing single, high-wing single, low-wing twin. I also know what to expect in terms of your performance, which is important.
Third, listen before making a position report. If there is other traffic, I can glean most of the essential information -- winds, active runway, what the other traffic is doing -- just by listening to the chatter for a few moments. That gives me a mental picture of where and how to enter the pattern, and where to look for traffic.
One important reason to be succinct and precise when using unicom is because it is a party line that may be used by other fields in the area. I was landing at a central Florida airport recently that shares a unicom frequency with a coastal airport about 45 miles to the west. I had trouble making position reports because a couple of pilots at the coastal airport were carrying on an extended conversation on the frequency.
One pilot reported downwind. Another immediately responded with, "Aircraft reporting downwind, where are you?"
"Downwind," seemed to me to be the obvious answer, but the first pilot quickly answered with a more detailed geographic assessment, which drew yet another query from the other pilot, who sounded a bit anxious over the fact that another airplane might actually be within a one-mile radius.
It was a long, confusing, and in my mind needless exchange that only served to distract everyone on the frequency, including the two pilots involved.
We should all strive to give, and get, good position reports at nontowered airports. Be concise, but use descriptive qualifiers such as "midfield 45-degree entry," "close-in downwind," or "wide left base." That gives other pilots in the immediate area the information they need to form a good mental picture of your location. It also helps avoid the kind of 20-questions quiz I heard the other day. Ah well, I can always escape to the frequency solitude of Wauchula.
Mark Twombly is a writer and editor who has been flying since 1968. He is a commercial pilot with instrument and multiengine ratings and co-owner of a Piper Aztec.
Related Articles
