On Jul 5, 10:21*am, "BT" wrote:
Transponders are a good thing.. when the other guy has TCAS or TIS
capability.
I would venture a guess it's 50-50 he never saw you and simply reacted to
the TA commands.
The small GA aircraft without a TIS display will still never see you.
BT

Which is why it's good to fly with both a transponder and a PCAS like
the Zaon MRX. I fly near both SFO and RNO airspace, and while these
aids must be regarded as aids - not substitutes - I find them
invaluable for helping "see and be seen." I know there's a cost
involved, but in the grand scheme of the cost of soaring, it is not a
huge increase when amortized over the life of the units.

As I noted in a PASCO Safety Seminar talk last Fall, one way to reduce
fatalities is to treat serious but non-fatal accidents with the same
respect as if there had been loss of life. Along those lines, what our
reaction (and the FAA's!) would have been if the Minden glider-bizjet
midair two years ago had been with an airliner and if there had been
significant loss of life on the airliner. I suspect our use of
transponders and PCAS would go way up, voluntarily at first and then
mandatorily as the FAA got into the act and took away many of our
privileges. Let's not wait for something of that magnitude - which
could kill soaring as we know it along with hundreds of people - to
take action.

I wrote up that talk "Complacency: What Me Worry?" and have posted it
at

http://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/...2007_talk.html

Martin