This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
Following a short local personal VFR flight I was maneuvering in Class E airspace at 3,000 feet AGL in the vicinity of a popular VFR reporting location in anticipation of an eventual VFR approach and landing at ZZZ. I was monitoring ZZZ Tower in preparation for contacting them for entry into their Class D airspace.
While positioning my Van’s RV-12 for my arrival, my ADS-B suddenly depicted a traffic conflict alert indicating a high-speed target approaching my position. It seems I received very little warning possibly due to the approaching aircraft’s relatively high-speed (estimated at 220 knots) and the 8-nm scale being depicted on my moving map display.
At about this same time the Tower transmitted in the blind to my specific aircraft that they observed a potential traffic conflict requiring my evasive action. Since I was already taking such action I replied that I had the aircraft in sight and was adjusting my course/altitude to avoid conflict.
The A319 passed below and behind me and proceeded to land straight-in.
I subsequently requested and received a Tower clearance for entry into the Class D airspace for landing.
Observations:
- The ADS-B traffic alert system works well and provides very useful traffic positional and alert information.
- The Tower personnel were very observant in providing me with the timely traffic alert — this is particularly true when one considers that I had not yet established communication with them for an ATC clearance into their Class D airspace.
Suggestion: Over recent years ZZZ has experienced a significant increase in air traffic by medium-size air carrier aircraft (e.g., A319, B737, etc.). This increase has been well managed by tower, the airport administration, and the pilot community.
In light of this increased air carrier traffic perhaps we need to reemphasize to the pilot community some of the more frequently utilized low-altitude approach/departure routing flown by these larger aircraft.
Primary Problem: Procedure
ACN: 2121786
Perhaps using Flight following would’ve avoided the entire incident.
Yes. At least monitor the frequencies. Good that he was already on the tower frequency. Also if not already done add the information he suggested to the Chart Supplement.