Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 7; Flight Crew Total 470; Flight Crew Type 41
Communication Breakdown; Workload; Confusion
Conflict NMAC; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach
Procedure; Airport
Weather - clear beautiful flying day low wind; great visibility unlimited ceiling. Traffic - heavy traffic converging on un-towered airport from multiple directions and altitudes. Flight situation - initial approach was cautious due to traffic; got in the pattern and extended downwind to space landing traffic. At this point an aircraft (experimental RV-7 I believe) cut in front of me from above with smoke trailing and landed. I offset to the right of the airport flew to mid field turned right and executed a 360 gained 500 [ft.] above pattern and crossed the airport to re-enter the pattern on the other side (for normal left traffic for Runway XX wind calm). I made CTAF announcements when I left final; when I did my 360 and when I crossed mid field stating my intentions to enter a downwind from a 45. As I crossed the runway no traffic was visible in the downwind. After crossing the airport I made a tight right 360 to lose 500 feet and enter the downwind at 2;400 [ft.]. Upon rollout I realized traffic had overtaken me from the left in the pattern during my maneuver. The traffic was directly in front of me and slightly higher. It was at a close but manageable distance. I immediately began slowing down to increase separation. The leading traffic reduced speed faster than I could reduce speed closing our gap to an unsafe distance. I then veered right and descended to avoid the traffic. The leading traffic also veered right and I lost visual tracking of the traffic; and could only see his shadow on the ground. The pilot asked where I was and I told him I had descended and veered right to gain separation. I then veered further right to provide additional separation. The leading traffic was later identified as a C150/152. There was an A36 Bonanza behind me in the downwind at this point. I believed the safest thing to do was to stay to the right of the leading traffic and extend downwind to allow the leading traffic to land. I made additional CTAF announcements to communicate my intentions to the traffic. Contributing factors - loss of traffic awareness due to traffic data loss on GNS530 in our aircraft. Human performance issues - Heavy Workload: Heavy traffic from multiple directions and altitudes; uncontrolled airspace; evading previous potential incident. Human performance issues - Hazardous Attitude: The leading traffic was a student with a CFI. They demonstrated anti-authority attitude and a lack of situational awareness as they cut us off in the pattern. They did not accept that their intention to pass on the left was unsafe.
C172 Pilot reported a NMAC with traffic failing to operate with proper pattern procedure which resulted in taking evasive action.