midair in Bay Area Nov 7

Around 5500 feet, 3500 AGL or so. They were not flying together per se, but were part of 8 gliders or so who flew from Byron that day in the same area on a great soaring day. That’s pretty much all I know so far. The bail out was captured by a photographer. You will need to zoom on the photos.
http://claycord.com/2020/11/07/repor...oygdc08p925lqs

Ramy

On Monday, November 9, 2020 at 3:46:32 PM UTC-5, Ramy wrote:
Around 5500 feet, 3500 AGL or so. They were not flying together per se, but were part of 8 gliders or so who flew from Byron that day in the same area on a great soaring day. That’s pretty much all I know so far. The bail out was captured by a photographer. You will need to zoom on the photos.
http://claycord.com/2020/11/07/repor...oygdc08p925lqs

Ramy
Pretty lucky for the both of them, this could have been a real disaster for human loss. They need to go buy a lotto ticket. Bob

Rumor has it that while both gliders were Flarm equipped, one was not functioning that day. Anybody know more?

On Monday, November 9, 2020 at 12:46:32 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
Around 5500 feet, 3500 AGL or so. They were not flying together per se, but were part of 8 gliders or so who flew from Byron that day in the same area on a great soaring day. That’s pretty much all I know so far. The bail out was captured by a photographer. You will need to zoom on the photos.
http://claycord.com/2020/11/07/repor...oygdc08p925lqs

Ramy

I can only confirm that one flarm was working since I could see him earlier.. He also had ADSB. I know the other glider was equipped with flarm but I don’t know if it was operative.
One of the gliders was my old ASW27.

Ramy

Flarm Antenna placement is critical on ASW-27s because of carbon fiber structure. A single antenna by the glareshield leaves a big blind spot below. After a close encounter with an ASW-28 below, I mounted antennas on both sides of the canopy. Unfortunately FCC does not allow transmit on both antennas.

I wonder if they were at least talking to each other? Ramy, were you hearing anything on the radio? Anyone else?


Boggs

On Tuesday, November 10, 2020 at 8:39:41 AM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
I wonder if they were at least talking to each other? Ramy, were you hearing anything on the radio? Anyone else?


Boggs
They were not talking to each other and not aware of each other. They didn’t see each other until a split second before impact. One of the flarms was inop due to expired firmware. They were both cruising under a cloud street and collided head on at 5300 ft MSL (3500 AGL) with their left wings significantly damaging the wings. Both gliders entered vertical or negative dive which helped them bailing out quickly as they fell of the gliders as soon as they released the seat belts. One pilot was mostly unscratched, the other was hospitalized due to hard landing on a slope and is recovering from back injury.
I urge everyone to make sure to fly with operative powerflarm and upgrade the powerflarm firmware every year during the annual.

Ramy

I urge everyone to make sure to fly with operative powerflarm and upgrade the powerflarm firmware every year during the annual.

Indeed, during the annual. The perfect time to do it and then you'll not be later questioning, did I or didn't I?
A PSA is probably worth doing through RAS with a little how-to in spring for those of us in Northern Hemisphere. I always found those helpful.

On Monday, November 16, 2020 at 7:10:11 PM UTC-6, Ramy wrote:
On Tuesday, November 10, 2020 at 8:39:41 AM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
I wonder if they were at least talking to each other? Ramy, were you hearing anything on the radio? Anyone else?


Boggs
They were not talking to each other and not aware of each other. They didn’t see each other until a split second before impact. One of the flarms was inop due to expired firmware. They were both cruising under a cloud street and collided head on at 5300 ft MSL (3500 AGL) with their left wings significantly damaging the wings. Both gliders entered vertical or negative dive which helped them bailing out quickly as they fell of the gliders as soon as they released the seat belts. One pilot was mostly unscratched, the other was hospitalized due to hard landing on a slope and is recovering from back injury.
I urge everyone to make sure to fly with operative powerflarm and upgrade the powerflarm firmware every year during the annual.

Ramy

I hope FLARM realizes how lucky they are that the pilot did not die. They intentionally program a piece of safety equipment to brick itself once a year which then directly leads to the loss of life? I can see the crying widow in the courtroom now. Not pretty.

On 11/16/20 6:10 PM, Ramy wrote:
One of the flarms was inop due to expired firmware.

I wonder how many personal injury attorneys saw that statement...

--
Dan
5J