Aircraft

After this incident, the pilot of the Bonanza cut off a Diamond DA-20 on final, with an even closer, near miss of what was definitely less than 1,000 feet.

He became so focused on making the runway and saving the engine that he forgot to lower the landing gear.

I began my turn to downwind while looking for the traffic expecting it to be in the upwind. Instead the other pilot had made their crosswind turn closer to the runway and had cut me off while climbing. Luckily they were in a SR22 and at a higher altitude than mine, but they were right in front of me, taking up almost my entire windshield. While they may have been slightly too high for us to collide, I feared for my safety considering how close they were and pulled power to idle immediately and initiated a descent.

It is rather unsettling that the left engine on the aircraft was actively destroying itself and the resulting vibration was mostly imperceptible. I assumed that “thrown rod” incidents would always include a loud bang and a cacophony of noise and vibration.

Immediately after touchdown, the discovery flight customer held the left brake, sending the plane aggressively to the east side of the runway and into the grass.

The second time I touched down and ballooned back up I understand now that this is going to be a very complex situation.

I descended to 2,500 feet and between 30 seconds to 1 minute later the aircraft passed directly over me. ADS-B said 300 feet above. Based on the frantic tone and jumbled radio calls with Tower when they were cleared for takeoff, I believe this was a rusty pilot with poor situational awareness.