Some years ago I drove through upstate New York on my way to
visit a client in Massachusetts. The road rose and fell as we wove our way
through the Adirondack Mountains and I was amused to see signs like the one
pictured on a regular basis; there were dozens of them. I wondered about them a
fair bit as we drove because really, if you’re driving a car over a mountain
pass with vertical drops on the immediate left and right side of the car and
you see a plane approaching the front windshield, well, what exactly does one
do aside from brace for impact?
Where I live and work there is not a single one of these
signs. There never has been and I dare say there never will be and the reason
is pretty simple: There are no mountains here at all. So even though it is
always good advice to be wary of low flying aircraft, the warning is only
needed and provided when there is an actual risk that there could possibly be
an impact. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?