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.
On approach into Runway XX, another aircraft was seen that landed and vacated Runway XY.
A helicopter had been holding short of Runway XY on Runway XX, and once the aircraft landing Runway XY had cleared, the helicopter turned east and moved off the runway. It appeared they were departing to the east.
The approach was continued and landing executed on Runway XX maintaining visual separation with and staying well clear of the helicopter.
My aircraft is a PA-11 with no electrical system, radio, or transponder.
After pushing my aircraft into a hangar, the helicopter pilot came over clearly angry that I had landed with no radio and that he didn’t know where I was.
I had a good discussion with his boss and chief pilot of the flight school, with which he was employed. We discussed no radio procedures at non-towered airports and their perspective from flight training perspective.
I’ve since purchased a handheld radio to use on flights in the future.
Primary Problem: Human Factors
ACN: 2143461
radio or no radio….. there are just as many (more in fact) incidences with both aircraft that had radios. The radio is not the issue. The lack of “See and Avoid” in today’s age of glass cockpits and Ipad flyers that keep their eyes on their displays rather than where they should be, outside….. THAT is the problem.
As a pilot you ALWAYS look at final to see if there is someone there without a radio….. You never know…. could be someone with a radio that they dont know isnt transmitting….. The radio (or lack thereof) is not the issue.
The rules are the rules.
I’m not going to debate the current rules concerning radio use at non-towered airports.
Are they a good idea? Yes…certainly. But this ASRS report is way too cryptic to determine who was at fault, and how much radio communications, or lack of them, were a factor. I’m assuming the helicopter CFI wasn’t relying solely on the radio for his traffic pattern S.A….?
Regardless, the fact that the helicopter driver didn’t know where the PA-11 was, doesn’t mean the Cub was in the wrong place…and it doesn’t relieve him from his duty to “see and avoid”.
The statement “….helicopter pilot expressed concern that the PA-11 was too close to them without communicating’’ could just as easily read “helicopter pilot failed to avoid the flow of fixed wing aircraft, IAW FAR 91.126.”
Good on the PA-11 pilot for initiating a discussion with the flight school…I wonder what their “perspective” was?
Several years ago on a calm blue-sky day, I landed on a 6000-foot runway and as I rolled out and looked up a large turbine powered spray plane had already landed but in the opposite direction. At the fuel pump, I remarked to the pilot that I hadn’t heard him on the radio. No radio, he replied, and I wondered why a million-dollar airplane couldn’t have a radio.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Radios are a nice feature but there’s still plenty of midair collisions where both participates had radios and ads-b. The radio is only as good as the information being transmitted on it.
U have to be nuts not having a radio an adsb on board my radio craped out a couple of years ago and I grabbed my handheld enough said unbelievable 2024 not 1904 !
Yes The FAA does not require a radio landing at non-towered airports. My question is simple……..”WHY THE HELL NOT”
A recent mid-air at Winterhaven airport in Florida IMO could have, might have, would have been averted if the the other aircraft had a radio….
Why doesn’t the FAA move on this?…..
Installing a radio in an aircraft with no electrical system is in expensive and simple…
Yet there are some out here that are against it? …….Why….?
Great purchase.