RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
A 12th Flying Training Wing safety office representative recently did his part to make the skies over San Antonio safer.
"Look outside, listen to the radio -- and scan, scan, scan," said Lt. Col. Doug Hamlin, 12 FTW Safety office mid-air collision avoidance program manager, to the 100-person- strong audience attending the "Safer Skies Over San Antonio" briefing.
The group of police, fire and civilian air evacuation pilots and air traffic officials gathered at the San Antonio Police Academy April 9 to share ideas on reducing the potential for a mid-air collision by increasing awareness of military flight operations in the San Antonio area.
The colonel's comment followed his presentation to the audience, mostly who flew helicopters, in which he said most mid-air collisions happen in daylight, on the weekends, in warmer months, within five nautical miles of an airport, with 80 percent of the mid-air accidents happening at or below 3,000 feet.
Additionally, the colonel said, 45 percent of those aircraft involved in mid-air collisions were in the approach pattern, with 76 percent of those planes on their final landing approaches.
Colonel Hamlin also said a head-on mid-air collision is rare - in fact, it happens only in five percent of all mid-air collisions. Also, flight time is not a major risk factor. Additionally, ten percent of the pilot population is involved in 35.5 percent of all mid-air collisions, he said.
Furthermore, the colonel said - before briefing the audience on the capabilities and local flight patterns of the T-6 Texan II and the T-38C Talon, which are the two main training aircraft flown out of Randolph Air Force Base - most mid-air collisions mentioned in a National Transportation Safety Board study happen on pleasure flights, with usually no flight plan filed. Plus, they occur usually under Visual Flight Rules.
Also, they occur normally on weekend daylight hours, when a faster aircraft overtakes and strikes a slower one. The colonel added that in the three-year NTSB study, the pilot experience level of the pilots involved in mid-air collisions ranged from an initial solo flight to those with 15,000 flight hours logged. Cetrified flight instructors aren't exempt from mid-air collisions either, he noted - while they constitute ten percent of the pilot population, they are involved in 35.5 percent of those accidents.
Colonel Hamlin, who thoroughly briefed the audience with Power-Point maps about standard military flight routes around San Antonio, also told the audience that before flying, it was important to contact Flight Service. The reason for that, he said, is to check on low-level flights in all military operating areas around San Antonio and in other areas of South Texas where Air Force and Naval Aviators were scheduled to fly.
After covering particulars of typical local F-16 training flights and C-5 Galaxy landings in and out of Kelly AFB, the colonel touched on mid-air collision avoidance tips-- like prioritizing cockpit duties and remaining situationally aware; and making the most effective visual scans, which involves looking 17 out of every 20 seconds outside of the cockpit.
He also added it was important to program the GPS on the ground before takeoff. Finally, he said it was of maximum importance, overall, to maintain aircraft control and to first the skies with your eyes - to see and avoid.
"Scan, scan, scan," he reiterated to his audience, pointing to a Power Point slide of a heads-up display out of the cockpit of an F-16 Fighting Falcon. "There's always something you missed."