Collision course, two planes, head on.

Both may be ariliners with IAS 300kn. Approaching each other hea don, both speeds are added. Depending on altitude, IAS (indicated air speed), translates into a GS (ground speed) that is even higher. Without calculating it, let's say yo have a IAS of 300 kn, and a GS of 400 kn. Makes 800 kn, winds being igored.

1 kn is 1 nautical (not statute) mile, translates into 1.8 km.
800 kn is 1440 km per hour then. That is 24 km per minute. That is 0.4 km/400 m per second. That means you sprint 100 meters in one quarter of a second.

If in doubt or if I think wrong about speed ranges for IAS and GS, take the above speeds and divide them by 2. So calculate them with GS being 200 kn. that makes an approach speed for both planes (not landing!) of 400 kn GS. that makes for 720 km/h. that is 12 km per minute. tjhat is 200 m per second. That means sprinting 100 m in half a second.

If you take just one quarter of the speeds I initially mentioned, you still do the 100m in 1 second.

Fast enough to make any collision a lethal one. even when considerign that these are the worst case speed calculation, it gives oyu an image that no matter what the collision angle is, you nevertheless speak about decison and reaction times in the range of several seconds. Thats why you do not wish to pass an airliner at a distance of just 1000m.

Some years ago we had a high altidue crash over the Bodensee, separating the south of Germany and Switzerland. A huge airliner with children from Russia and a large frieghter collided due to failures with ground control. They rammed into each other at 90°-120° angle, so it even was no frontal collision. When the pilots realised that GC was misleading them, next they made visual contact with the other plane - and althoiugh the tried to make emergncy manouver, they slammed into each other - the reaction time left after visual was established was too short. the case made international headlines, alos becasue one of the fathers of the killed children later murdered the ground controller. GC had several devioces turned off for maintencance, and the controller was alone on duty, in violation of rules, because there always had to be at least two persons at the console in question. but his colleague was in the bathroom, or on break. So it was both an individual and an institutional failure.

"Die Welt" referred to the orignal terms as being given by AP and NASA. The paper did not use "near miss" in it's own amateu undersdtanding, but put it in quotes, saying that this is the category name given by the orignal. Ask NASA then what they understand as a near miss. It also quoted the other labels as the original categories as AP found them in the NASA report.


the conclusion is that in a statistical mean, you have 1.8 critical emergency situation of potentially lethal outcome in north American air space per day. Since they questioned six times as many professional pilots than private pilots, every believing of these emergencies caused by private pilots for the most, sounds far fetched with the current information known. the outcome corresponds with the fact that the number of accidents or near accidents during taxiing at large airports and major Hubs with traditonally low rate of private traffic also is increasing, drastically.

the problem is that enormous density of air traffic today. At Frankfurt they tried a new scheme that would have allowed shorter distances between machines on approach, and different touchdown points on runway, by that they wnated to achcieve a higher frequences of landings at the cost of steeper descents, to avoid the turbulences cuased by machines in front of you. they system cuzrrently is suspedned, for safety concerns. The air space was so crowded that communication too often failed, and too many planes started to do the unexpected with this kind of approach.

The air space is too full - that is the simple conclusion.

Thats still way too low for anyone to be concerned about it.

For those of you who have never piloted an aircraft (and I don't mean in a computer flight sim) you might find that several of the piloting forums there are online will give you a better understanding of this matter. The Civil Aviation Authority, Federal Aviation Administration and Federation Aeronautique Internationale and JAR governing bodies, all have (or at one time had) 'no questions asked' reporting forums, where pilots could report stuff, but not in an official capacity, and these are often far more telling if you want to know the stuff behind the statistics. The idea behind this was that it would improve safety and awareness. A search online via their official sites should kick these forums up.

By way of example, most of the flying I do these days is in unpowered gliders, but near the Manchester (EGCC) control zone, so one has to be aware of commercial traffic, rights of way (not to be trusted, incidentally), plus military training flights which take place in the Peak District quite a lot (it's where the Dambusters practiced their raids). I can assure you that I have rarely made a glider flight where there has not been another aircraft in close proximity (often it is reminiscent of a WW1 dogfight with aircraft wheeling around all over the place, one of the reasons why glider pilots wear a parachute), as generally all the gliders are going for the same thermal, and this is even more hectic when being aerotowed by powered aircraft, where there are often both left and right circuits in operation at the same airfield and aircraft landing alongside one another on the same strip, so situational awareness is important for (VFR) glider and towing pilots, and when there is cloud about, it gets even trickier. If I had a quid for every 'near miss' I'd experienced, I'd be pretty rich by now. But I have never reported any of these officially. so it's my guess that there are vastly more VFR 'near misses' than IFR commercial ones, and although it's a guess, it's an educated one.

:D Chock

One week with two news per day of airliners falling from the sky will let you think different. Or one airliner and one private plane. Or even just one airliner per week, and the rest freaky base jumpers. :88) I think the reason behind an alarm is that you wish to avoid the situation triggering it, due to it's potential for a harmful outcome.

I wonder what such a report would have to say about russia! :lol: