#airprox

Airprox drone versus Boeing 781 in Gatwick

Incident date: July 8, 2017

The B787 pilot reports that he was on a Lambourne right departure from RW26L at Gatwick. He had been cleared to climb above the profile and had just levelled at 6000ft. The F/O said “something passing down our left hand side” and he saw a small black spiky object flash past about 30ft below and inside the wing tip. He would guess it was about 18 inches to two feet in…

Chinook and unidentified RPAS, AIRPROX No 2016163

This one is being miss reported in the UK press not only is it being overplayed but the Chinook was recovering to RAF Benson, not RAF Odiham as is being told. I found the Airprox particularly interesting as the precision approach controller (PAR) was aware of the RPA.

It appeared on his or her PAR radar. The PAR sends out two very particular beams that the controller guides the aircraft down in…

An airprox, well, basically its an near miss between two or more aircrafts. In my case, it happened between two aircrafts; me and another Cessna 152 (i'm almost sure...).

I was in my 6th flight, and all of my previous flight were almost all preformed outside the trafic pattern, so, that 6th flight was my first flight doing complete traffic patterns at Cascais (LPCS). 

The controls were mine, and i was being guided by my flight instructor in that flight. I was on the holding point of the runway 35, i did all the take off and emergency briefing, and everything was ready for departure. I advised Ground ready for departure, and then immediately ordered to switch to Cascais Tower (by the time, i was on Cascais Ground freq). Frequency changed, i simply repeated the departure advise  this time to Cascais Tower. Then, instead of the usual "Line up runway 35", the tower advised me that the wind was changing and the runway in use was going to change to the reciprocal one - 17. I looked into my flight instructor, and said that there was no real deal, the wind was fair behind the tail wind limitations of the C152. He confirmed, and i simply advised LPCS Tower that we were going to take off on the 35.

I took off, went to the work area hover Guincho, and did some practice exercises that i'm not remembering right now, but i'm almost sure that was climbs and low velocity flight.

Exercises performed, my instructor decided to get back to LPCS in order to do some traffic patterns, i said there was no problem, and requested it to the tower . The tower ordered me to fly into A point (an holding point right hover a racetrack in Estoril), report reaching it and informed me the QNH and the runway in use, which was, as I expected rwy 17.

Reaching the A point, i was ordered to join the base leg of the traffic pattern. I did all the checklist's, 70knots, flaps 1, and turned to the final for a touch and go. 

Touch and go done, and then i simply cleaned the aircraft, and climbed into the traffic pattern altitude, 1000'(MSL). Crosswind... and i joined the right downwind of the runway 17, i was in the middle of it, and i simply saw an aircraft in the reciprocal heading of mine, approaching me at the same altitude - by the time i had just reported to the tower i was in the left downwind...

Passed like 2 seconds, the tower almost screamed (in Portuguese), "XXXXX, climb immediately to 1500 feet. I repeat climb immediately to 1500 feet.". The aircraft acknowledged and i just saw a Cessna 152 right on my right wing struggling to climb on the higher V/S possible to avoid the worst.

We stayed in our route and altitude, and no instructions regarding that situation was received from the ATC. 

I landed, and then in the debriefing with my instructor, we reached the conclusion that that aircraft didn't heard the information from the ATC regarding the runway in use, and simply compromised the hole traffic pattern assuming one vital wrongly thing - the runway in use.