Yesterday was the a beautiful day to go flying and everyone was! It has been a rainy January and I think we were all anxious to hit the skies.
I always say y0u are flying from the moment you take the clipboard from the desk until you pay for the flight. I think you need to be aware at all times not just in the air. As you walk out to your plane are you looking around you for beacons being turned on? listening for "prop clear"?
When you taxi out of your position or out of a hangar you should look both ways for other planes, people and the airport dog (every airport has one as per Federal Regs).
As you taxi out, you listen to other pilots or ground control and keep your head on a swivel for anything in your path. Of course you are taxiing slow enough so that you could stop if something darted from behind a hangar, etc.
Yesterday as I was taxiing out to the active runway I heard an airplane make the announcement that they were taking off of rnwy 32 BUT I saw that same plane roll out onto rnwy 14 with a plane on final on the correct Rnwy 32. There were pointed right at eachother.I told the first plane they were on the wrong runway with another plane on correct final, they quickly got off and everything worked out. But it made me think about something I have often read and that is that most collisions on the ground and air happen in beautifully VFR days. Is it because of complacency? We all make mistakes and fortunately there is someone there to correct us but what about when there isn't.
Being aware of your surroundings in every phase of flight is a habit we all have to have.
