jb92563 wrote:
How would you communicate with the traffic on a collison course?
121.5 ?


We're not on rails, jb -- if you have time to talk, you have time to
fly. And limited reaction time for either crew is a major factor.

There is no requirement to monitor 121.5, nor is it practical.
Considering the poor radio discipline of many pilots, such a requirement
would be worse than useless, even if there were money/panel space for
two radios or just for an upgrade to a two-receiver-in-one box
configuration.


Just wondering if there is a way to alert the other traffic of the
possible conflict.

Affordable tech would certainly help if universally available. As it is,
full-time transponder operation is not practical for all sailplanes.
Though 121.5 may not be the answer, the radio can be a more useful tool
than we currently make of it. Sailplanes generally have radios and could
certainly use them more aggressively. Frequently alerting ATC to your
current position and altitude by voice contact, when transponder or
primary radar returns are not available to them, should become our
standard mode of operating. It's not like we cover ground by huge leaps.
Regular position updates may also serve the glider pilot well when he is
forced to land out, or bail out.

Nationally, it's not sailplane operations that are the problem. Are
there statistics to indicate there is an increase in sailplane activity
in recent years? In fact, we keep hearing concerns about the opposite trend.

The main problems are lack of crew awareness in a see-and-avoid
situation, speed differential, the minimal profile of the glider in some
attitudes (applies to different degrees to all aircraft), and --
related to speed differential -- the inability of even a maneuverable
craft to escape the threat when it has been identified.

Answers: training/crew discipline, and reduction of the speed
differential by extending the 250 KIAS speed restriction to FL 180.

See-and-avoid is far more effective when people have their heads out of
their...cockpits. And especially when their speed is appropriate.
Two-fifty below ten is no longer enough of a restriction, considering
the increase in the number of turbocharged light planes being sold, and
greater use of the mid-level airspace. Raising the 250 KIAS speed
limit to FL180 can easily reduce closing speeds by 50 kts or more at
those altitudes, will not affect Turbo Props much if at all, and gives
everybody a better chance to see and avoid in VMC, whether VFR or IFR.
Where the terrain out west is higher than we flat-landers have to deal
with, the "250 KIAS below FL180" restriction brings speeds into
alignment with what they are elsewhere in the country on an AGL basis,
giving low-speed operators out west the same protection we have in the
east at the altitudes at which the westerners are forced to operate.

Also, the existence of "G" airspace below 2000' AGL anywhere in the
contiguous states is an archaic holdover that ought to be ended. The
lack of radar coverage is a fact in most of the country at those levels
anyway, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Who ran into whom? Well, the jet crew took it on the nose, not in the
tail. The NTSB report could reverse that scenario for FAA enforcement
follow-up, especially considering right-of-way rules, but I'm not
betting the farm on it. The FAA is a political animal, too often driven
by the media-perceived problem, and the media, when not willfully
ignorant, more interested in the business advantages of emotional impact
from a sensational headline than in what is simply the truth.
Objectivity is boring for the average customer, so does not sell.

I hope AOPA will be front-and-center in this situation--shoulder to
shoulder with SSA--as AOPA's ox will be the very next one gored if
restrictions to glider ops are proposed and enacted.


Jack