Near miss?

[PWC]

From Breit Bart today....

"Friday?s near miss occurred two months after an Army helicopter and a commercial jet crashed into each other on January 29 close to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport near Washington, DC, the Associated Press (AP) reported."

Hmmm... Seems to me that a near miss = a hit.

A near hit = a miss. What say you?

[Allen]

Hmmm... Seems to me that a near miss = a hit.

A near hit = a miss. What say you?

Yep, that's what I always said. The place I used to work at ran the term into the ground. A near miss meant (to them) that something almost happened. A miss is a miss but a near miss means it happened---a direct hit or whatever.

As far as the plane incident goes all I saw was a simulated radar map where yes the 2 planes came fairly close but it didn't look like anything to get excited over to me.

I watch a lot of airplane disaster TV shows and in the past some of the collisions or near collisions (better term than near miss) came as a result of the military operating on a different frequency than civilian airplanes/air traffic controllers and thus, not communicating. This problem was supposed to have been remedied years ago with the military still using their own channels but monitoring civilian air traffic too. It seems this would especially be the case near airports where the traffic is heavy.

For security sake I don't think the civilian controllers can view military flights. Things are probably more complex than we can imagine but it looks to me since this may be a continuing problem that's not being fixed the military aircraft need to start using a different airport/runway for military use only, even if a new one has to be built.

[PWC]

Military will always HAVE to intrude into public airspace. But, it appears the area around this airport has become too congested, and a new airport needs to be built further away and the infra structure along with it; (shudder) a high speed rail and highways.

[Allen]

From my experiences, every time an airport is built it IS built far away. This is in part to secure enough unoccupied land for a suitable length runway.

Soon afterwards (as in a few months) people build houses as close to the airports as they can till all the available space is gone, then they complain about the noise of the jets. The commercial plane engine companies spend millions to produce quieter engines which raises the $ of the planes which raises the $ of the tickets. Perhaps they need to go the other direction and make the engines as loud as possible to drive the people away from the airports.

[PWC]

Allen, I think you are on to something here...

USAF base closures lookat $$ savings first then somewhere down the line weather flying days AND community complaints. 43 yrs ago when I came to Luke AFB, AZ there was farm land all around. Now off base housing snuggles within 1/2 MI on one side and HUGE warehouses have come on the other side. Warehouses are OK, but civilian crowding is not. F35's are noisy; I live 23 mi away and hear them as they slow to get in the traffic pattern.

City of Glendale, AZ has said they are willing to do what's necessary to keep Luke AFB open...hope that's true. Tempe/Mesa AZ let Williams AFB pilot training base close and give back to the city, now called Williams Gateway Airport.