Mike Schumann wrote:
If you are on a collision course, how are you going to know whether going
down is the right solution? He might be 50 ft below you, and you are going
to dive right into him. Or he might also decide to descend.

Or you could just sit there with your eyes closed and do nothing, if
you have trouble making decisions. If you don't have the eye to know
what is the best move fairly quickly, almost instinctively, either
aviation is not for you, or else you need more hours in the air with
an experienced PIC. Get into the ball sports where an appreciation for
spatial relationships, hand-eye coordination, relative motion on all
planes, and accelerations is programmed into your brain -- though this
is best begun at a very early age.

---

Going down is good if you have the space; turning can work -- I have
most often done both; going up is a very limited option in a glider so
it's here that your timing and judgment are most critical.

If I had to suggest a rule of thumb, it would be to maneuver to a
position behind and below the traffic, and do not delay. The most
natural tendency seems to be to go up as an initial fright response,
so I would anticipate the other pilot will do that, if anything. By
the time you have identified the threat as necessitating an avoidance
reaction and begun your maneuver, his opportunity to make the
situation either better or worse has probably already been
considerably reduced. Of course there is always somebody out there who
is both slow to react and also tends to make exactly the wrong move.
But, if you are doing your part in the see-and-avoid dance you should
already have solved both his problem and yours. Early awareness goes a
long way toward simplifying the decision and enhancing your execution.


This brings to mind an interesting suggestion that I was taught when I got
my power license about avoiding collisions with birds: Always climb, as the
birds will tend to dive.

The birds don't always dive, I promise you. If they are as good at
see-and-avoid as they should be, they frequently do so. Some of them
aren't any better than some of us, however, when it comes to traffic
awareness. The lone hunters tend to be the sharpest, not surprisingly.
The flockers, not so much.


Jack