Sharing airspace
- Thread starter paulajayne
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Wow! That's incredible. I don't wear a hat, but if I did, I'd be tipping it to all the commercial aircraft pilots and traffic controllers everywhere. 
What's really incredible is that those dots represent only the aircraft under radar control. I don't know about GA flight in Europe, but in the USA there could be up to ten or more uncontrolled (not on a controller's radar scope) aircraft for each dot. And even with all that traffic, midair collisions are exceedingly rare.
This graphic demonstrates that the sky is big. Really big.
This graphic demonstrates that the sky is big. Really big.
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I grew up in Cincinnati Ohio. Where we lived, was in the flight path for CVG.
We could look up in the sky above us and see a dozen or so planes in line preparing to land.
One pattern, has them flying over our house and then turning into the main path.
They sight on the huge water tower just a mile or so from us.
One time when I was working on my radio tower, a big jumbo jet flew over.
I noted he was a tad lower than usual because I swear I could his neck tie!
I tried to get his attention to tell him he better get higher up because if he doesn't, he could hit a hill that's seen a few crashes.
Those crashes were before ILS.
A little story you pilots may find amusing.
Near Oxford Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, is a boy scout camp.
Whilst there one week, we were practicing morse code with flashlights.
Seeing a plane way up in the sky, I pointed my trusty boy scout flashlight at the plane.
Flashed a few rounds of "SOS".
Like he's gonna see that right?
The next morning, as we made our to the mess hall, I saw a guy coming out of the caretaker's house.
He had a nice big smile and laughing.
After we ate, he stood up and said:
"I just got off the phone with the FAA tower at the airport. They said that last night a pilot reported an SOS.
The tower had told the pilot there was a boyscout camp in the area and was probably from there. All I want to know is,
what the heck did you use?"
"Yes sir. That was me. I just used the regular boy scout flash light you give us.".
Believe it or not, given the right conditions, pilots can see little blinking lights.
Perhaps even those from a quad.
We could look up in the sky above us and see a dozen or so planes in line preparing to land.
One pattern, has them flying over our house and then turning into the main path.
They sight on the huge water tower just a mile or so from us.
One time when I was working on my radio tower, a big jumbo jet flew over.
I noted he was a tad lower than usual because I swear I could his neck tie!
I tried to get his attention to tell him he better get higher up because if he doesn't, he could hit a hill that's seen a few crashes.
Those crashes were before ILS.
A little story you pilots may find amusing.
Near Oxford Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, is a boy scout camp.
Whilst there one week, we were practicing morse code with flashlights.
Seeing a plane way up in the sky, I pointed my trusty boy scout flashlight at the plane.
Flashed a few rounds of "SOS".
Like he's gonna see that right?
The next morning, as we made our to the mess hall, I saw a guy coming out of the caretaker's house.
He had a nice big smile and laughing.
After we ate, he stood up and said:
"I just got off the phone with the FAA tower at the airport. They said that last night a pilot reported an SOS.
The tower had told the pilot there was a boyscout camp in the area and was probably from there. All I want to know is,
what the heck did you use?"
"Yes sir. That was me. I just used the regular boy scout flash light you give us.".
Believe it or not, given the right conditions, pilots can see little blinking lights.
Perhaps even those from a quad.
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