Amateur/Home Built/Experimental
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 49; Flight Crew Total 2400; Flight Crew Type 200
Situational Awareness
Conflict NMAC
Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors
Chain of events: After about 2 hours of cruise flight; I arrived at the pattern of 2R4; having communicated with Pensacola Approach to transit through the Navy Whiting Class C area. I arrived from the NNW and made two position reports prior to entering the left downwind for RWY 36; almost directly from my inbound path. Traffic was conveniently spaced at this point that no further maneuvering was desirable or necessary.I called my entry onto the downwind leg; and observed traffic on the upwind just starting their crosswind turn and announcing appropriately. It appeared that they would have no trouble maintaining spacing behind me. There were at least two other aircraft in the pattern; possibly 3. One at this point on short final; and two more ahead of me in the downwind (plus the upwind traffic starting a crosswind turn). The traffic ahead of me extended his downwind leg; and made an announcement to that effect; and it is possible that was due to the traffic ahead of him being either slower or flying a similarly long final. I announced my turn to base after beginning the turn to base leg in order to follow the same flight path as the traffic ahead of me.Nose to tail spacing was about 1.2-1.5 miles initially but as I saw myself overtaking; I slowed; called my position on final; and made a narrow S-turn on final to maintain enough spacing to assure that he could exit the runway on his full-stop landing prior to my touching down. At about a .3-.5 mile final; and between 150-250 feet AGL (not very certain because the glide path is steep due to trees and power lines); I glanced left to find a small aircraft finishing his base to final turn (roughly co-altitude; slightly above and 50-100 feet to my left); and obviously unable to see me through his floorboards. Apparently we both had the same idea of 'safe spacing' behind the traffic ahead of me; but I had failed to look for him when he called his base turn while I was on final approach; and he had failed to see me at that exact same time he started the turn to base. Because he was banked; working on finishing his turn; he was unable to see me. He then announced his position on final while still converging and I keyed the mic and said 'heyyyy there buddy; you're cutting some people off in the pattern; got an [aircraft] short final going around on the right.' I wish I had thought of something wittier and shorter. Knowing he could not see me; acting was the only option; so I initiated a go-around during the transmission with an offset between the runway and parallel taxiway on the east side of RWY 36. In approximate order; I generated lateral separation with a sufficient bank to the right while applying power to accelerate away; then retracted the speed brake as I pitched up to climb since I saw that he had continued his descent. I climbed upwind and banked as necessary to visually confirm that he had made a full stop landing and would not be a factor for my crosswind turn; then turned crosswind and landed on the next approach. Human considerations: we both failed to maintain situational awareness of each other. While I accepted the traffic pattern deviations caused by the aircraft ahead of me (or two; since the one in front of me was deviating due to the guy in front of him) because I only planned a single landing and did not consider 're-forming the pattern properly' to be on my 'to-do list' for a single pattern and landing. I simply maintained safe spacing from the traffic ahead of me and made my approach. Had I looked earlier to verify the position of the traffic following me; I could have easily seen him given where he must have turned to arrive at the point of conflict; but I was concentrating on making sure I was on glide path and that the traffic ahead of me was vacating the runway. This was my first landing back at this airport/aircraft in 11 months with 4 landings in that plane at another airport in the past two months (3 in the past two days); it had just come out of a long period of maintenance. I am ADS-B In/Out equipped and squawking 1200 in Alt mode; but did not recognize receiving any traffic alert for this incident. The timing of his 'turning base' call made perfect sense to follow behind me but also made perfect timing to roll out on final exactly on top of me. Had I recognized that I was on a longer than usual final and looked to the normal base turn spot in the pattern; I could have seen this earlier. Speaking with the other pilot on the ground; he was apologetic for not seeing me when he turned; but I recognize that it is possible that he looked at the extended final (I don't know if he did) and did not see me if my shallow S-turn had me banked away from him at that moment. Additionally; [my aircraft type] is very hard to see from any angle but above/below; so he may not have seen me ahead of him even on downwind. The moral of the story is this: look around constantly; and if something gets non-standard; look out for people who may not recognize how bent out of shape something might be and are doing 'the usual' regardless. If the situation permits; consider changing your own plans to make things get back to standard faster because most others expect standard. Also; 2R4 has a very high volume of student traffic from the civilian schools there as well as Navy student traffic in helicopters. Many times the fixed-wing traffic will use the runway while one or more military helicopters use the parallel taxiways for their traffic patterns. The pressures here are compounded by airspace limitations due to the proximity of class C airspace around the pattern (1NM East; West; and North; also 500 feet above pattern); numerous military outlying Fields; and R-2915A close by. I would recommend that students needing to practice patterns find somewhere else to do so. I rarely do more than one takeoff and departure or one approach to a full stop at 2R4 for this reason.
Experimental aircraft pilot reported an NMAC with a small aircraft in the 2R4 airport pattern.