 Yikes that was close!
I had a similar experience a couple days ago. I was climbing on my
upwind leg after taking off from runway 31. We jog 10 degs to heading
320 for noise abatement. Tower told us to look for incoming traffic on
the 45, so my CFI was looking right. Then just before I was going to
start my right traffic crosswind turn, I noticed a plane coming across
my nose and to the right about 100ft or less away. It was the closest
i've been to another plane in the air. It was close enough where if I
had turned to my crosswind, who knows what would have happened.
The tower came in and said to the other pilot, "What you are doing is
extremeley dangerous. Next time you need to come in on the 45 to the
downwind to avoid a mid-air."
I learned some lessons from it:
1. Even if it's the other guy's fault for the mid-air, you're still
dead.
2. Assume nothing when it comes to traffic. I thought the upwind is a
relatively safe place to assume there is no traffic. I'm going to dance
my tail left right and up to make sure *I* can see traffic all around
me at all times.
Jay
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