Narrative:

I was flying a training session with a student pilot - prepping him for an upcoming checkride. We had been announcing our position over the CTAF; approaching from the south. I heard a vintage military fighter in the pattern calling out that they were doing short approaches (simulated engine failure). There was one other aircraft in the pattern; when we were initially monitoring the CTAF. My student announced our intentions to overfly the airport mid-field at 2500 feet; fly slightly north to a golf course which is the common entry point into the 45 into the downwind. Over the airport my student self-announced again. As we were heading for the golf course we self-announced our intentions to turn over the golf course enter on a 45 and began our descent to tpa [traffic pattern altitude]. At that point we heard the vintage military fighter announcing they were on the downwind. So we turned around the golf course 'button-hook;' at tpa and announced that we were on the 45 into the downwind. We could not see the vintage military fighter on downwind and I repeatedly made calls asking the vintage military fighter to identify where they were on the downwind as we had negative visual contact as we were entering mid-field downwind on a long 45. I looked everywhere in the pattern; including slightly above and below the tpa; in the event that the aircraft was flying slightly above or below the tpa. No sign of the aircraft; nor any radio calls. We announced turning from the 45 into mid-field downwind. We heard nothing from the vintage military fighter. We announced abeam the numbers and asked the vintage military fighter to please identify position - no response. We maintained pattern cruise power and I announced we were beyond the numbers on extended downwind and asked the vintage military fighter to identify position. Just when we were going to terminate the approach the vintage military fighter pilot announced that he was on crosswind. So we announced turning to base and on final. Out of the corner of our eyes we both turned to look immediately to our right and saw the vintage military fighter pilot coming up from behind us; just flying under our high wing; very slightly below us and we turned immediately left and initiated a go-round. Oddly the pilot didn't seem surprised and continued straight-ahead as if it was intended. I told my student to fly along runway heading and the vintage military fighter landed uneventfully at the airport. I told my student (and may have even transmitted on the CTAF) that I was going to do my best to report their tail number. Afterwards we returned to rhv and landed. I called a fellow-CFI whose judgment I trust about the incident and he mentioned he had heard that sometimes the radios in the vintage military fighters can work poorly; and when the pilots of those aircraft do use the radios it is probably less than 14% of the time.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A C172 instructor and student pilot experienced a NMAC with a vintage military fighter plane at a non-towered airport. The instructor believes the other pilot failed to make appropriate CTAF reports and used poor traffic watch techniques.

Narrative: I was flying a training session with a student pilot - prepping him for an upcoming checkride. We had been announcing our position over the CTAF; approaching from the South. I heard a vintage military fighter in the pattern calling out that they were doing short approaches (simulated engine failure). There was one other aircraft in the pattern; when we were initially monitoring the CTAF. My student announced our intentions to overfly the airport mid-field at 2500 feet; fly slightly North to a golf course which is the common entry point into the 45 into the downwind. Over the airport my student self-announced again. As we were heading for the golf course we self-announced our intentions to turn over the golf course enter on a 45 and began our descent to TPA [Traffic Pattern Altitude]. At that point we heard the vintage military fighter announcing they were on the downwind. So we turned around the golf course 'button-hook;' at TPA and announced that we were on the 45 into the downwind. We could not see the vintage military fighter on downwind and I repeatedly made calls asking the vintage military fighter to identify where they were on the downwind as we had negative visual contact as we were entering mid-field downwind on a long 45. I looked everywhere in the pattern; including slightly above and below the TPA; in the event that the aircraft was flying slightly above or below the TPA. No sign of the aircraft; nor any radio calls. We announced turning from the 45 into mid-field downwind. We heard nothing from the vintage military fighter. We announced abeam the numbers and asked the vintage military fighter to please identify position - no response. We maintained pattern cruise power and I announced we were beyond the numbers on extended downwind and asked the vintage military fighter to identify position. Just when we were going to terminate the approach the vintage military fighter pilot announced that he was on crosswind. So we announced turning to base and on final. Out of the corner of our eyes we both turned to look immediately to our right and saw the vintage military fighter pilot coming up from behind us; just flying under our high wing; very slightly below us and we turned immediately left and initiated a go-round. Oddly the pilot didn't seem surprised and continued straight-ahead as if it was intended. I told my student to fly along runway heading and the vintage military fighter landed uneventfully at the airport. I told my student (and may have even transmitted on the CTAF) that I was going to do my best to report their tail number. Afterwards we returned to RHV and landed. I called a fellow-CFI whose judgment I trust about the incident and he mentioned he had heard that sometimes the radios in the vintage military fighters can work poorly; and when the pilots of those aircraft DO use the radios it is probably less than 14% of the time.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.