Aircraft

Throughout the entire pattern we were ahead of the traffic but he was VERY close to our tail following behind us, with very little spacing. Our traffic alerting system was going off for the entire downwind, base, and final.

When I spoke to the pilot while he was refueling, he insisted I had done something wrong and dangerous. I asked if he wanted to talk about it to see if there was anything to be learned. He was hostile, angry, and said “no” several times, finished refueling and left via 36, again with a tailwind.

Preparation, planning, implementation, and mental focus were lacking in this case.

I had very little control of the plane. I felt like I was in a dust devil or some other type of turbulence.

I’m very disappointed in how the Tower was not helpful in my situation. Even on a normal day, that controller seems overwhelmed and stressed out, spacing airplanes on 5+ mile finals, yelling at planes to widen the base leg to abnormal sizes, then when I experienced my problem, gives me instructions contrary to what I felt was the safest course of action and unhelpful overall.

The improvement I am hoping this report will bring is more vigilance on behalf of the tower controllers at KFCM, as well as all the flight instructors and students. Even in a tower-controlled environment, operational errors are present with the saturation of flight training that occurs at this airport.

Tower angrily informs me that I have cut in front of the above Cessna, who is also on downwind departure. I apologize and said that I was unaware of their position and presumed that I was far behind them.

While on final out of my peripheral a green orb entered. I couldn’t believe my eyes: A multi-engine plane was nearly right on top of me descending down.

When I turned to look the door latch was perpendicular to the door (open position) and the safety latch was engaged. I attempted to push the door latch to parallel to lock the door closed. Upon closing the latch the door disengaged and became removed from the airplane all within a second of closing the latch.