SSA petition to allow transponder to be turned off

Tim Mara wrote:
you know..I sell transponders and have sold a lot of them to glider
owners....I have however been afraid from the start that once the FAA starts
to recognize larger numbers of gliders with transponders it could come back
to haunt us all...If we lose the exemption requiring transponders in
gliders, and we might now that the FAA sees that they can indeed be operated
from our battery power it could be just the straw that breaks the camels
back

First, this cat jumped out of the bag a couple of years ago: the FAA
knows about the Becker, and Microair, and they'll know about the Filser
and the others, as they become available.

....Soaring as a sport isn't growing even now in the US, adding more cost
to owning and operating gliders surely will not help...to many clubs and
many owners adding $2000+ to each and every glider plus the added expense to
keep them certified and working will certainly take more club type and older
gliders off line.

Second, I've been told by my director that the FAA is not keen to burden
the sport with another requirement; that they understand our situation.

snip

I hear a lot of grumbling about near misses while flying in and around
approaches to busy metro airports, while flying near military bases and so
on.....the simple truth is, if this is happening and I'm sure it is, the
answer is not in adding one more piece of electronics, the answer is in not
flying in these busy corridors.
...doing so will eventually cause this
airspace to be closed to all non-commercial aircraft and the eventual loss
of this and other airspace where traffic is not a problem

These corridors also have general aviation airplanes flying in them, so
we'd have a lot of allies if such restrictions were ever attempted. I
think losing the use airspace just because transponder equipped gliders
are flying in it is most unlikely. The idea that this could somehow lead
to losing airspace for general avaiation in areas that AREN'T busy is
incredible to me.

and before we all
know it an end to soaring as we know it today in this country...Public
opinion will outnumber the small number of pilots wishing to fly for fun.
Let the evening news, 60 minutes or 20/20 run some special on the dangers
glider pilots pose to airliners and every politician will support the public
opinion polls and side with them to get votes.

These doomsday scenarios are so hard to predict, I don't think we should
even try. Keep in mind that a there are a lot more general avaition
airplanes than there are gliders, and they fly into these busy areas a
lot more than we do, yet no one is suggesting they rip out their
transponders and just fly in the rural areas.

....the more we depend on
electronics the more we are keeping our heads down in the cockpits.

Transponder use doesn't do this: turn it on when you turn on the radio,
turn it off when you land. You don't look at it, you don't tune it, you
don't listen to it. It's just there.

...with
GPS and pocket nav's to guide us, flight computers to calculate for us and
transponders to shield (?) us we are also forgetting what we started doing
this for to begin with....look outside, there is real beauty to be seen
through the clear mecaplex that surrounds us....fly safe, but always fly for
fun

These are worthy issues, but separate from transponders.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA