Glider Crash - Minden?

snoop wrote:
Must be nice to walk on water!

Actually, it's the water into wine trick that really wows the crowd I
hang with...

No apologies - the bizjet should have seen the glider. The glider also
should have seen the bizjet. There may be reasons why that didn't
happen - and I'll be the first to admit I've been guilty of late
detection of aircraft nearby. If I screw up, I've got no problem
admitting it - there really isn't much room for ego where flight safety
is concerned.

But I also know from first hand that all this hysteria about closing
speed is BS. Even jet fighters can be seen in time to avoid.
Airliners are huge and almost impossible to miss. Bizjets fit in
between.

But you have to be looking.

Kirk

schrieb:

But I also know from first hand that all this hysteria about closing
speed is BS. Even jet fighters can be seen in time to avoid.

No.

http://www.bfu-web.de/cln_003/nn_415..._3X191-1-2.pdf
http://www.bfu.admin.ch/common/pdf/1598

Stefan

Stefan wrote:
No.

Yes. I've done it in fighters, light planes, and gliders. Dodged
F-16s and AV-8Bs in Arizona for many years in my LS6.

Of course, if you don't see it, for whatever reason, then yes it can
hit you. If you were deaf, you could even get run over by a blimp!
(except the shadow might warn you!).

Worse case is getting run down from behind. It helps if you hear the
fighters and throw up a wing so they see you (done that too - it worked
just fine). You do have to be willing to move your glider around to
look all around when you suspect there is someone in your blind spot.

I'll keep on looking out the window instead of fiddling with my PDA.

Cheers,

Kirk
66

kirk.stant wrote:
Stefan wrote:
No.

Yes. I've done it in fighters, light planes, and gliders. Dodged
F-16s and AV-8Bs in Arizona for many years in my LS6.

Of course, if you don't see it, for whatever reason, then yes it can
hit you. If you were deaf, you could even get run over by a blimp!
(except the shadow might warn you!).

Worse case is getting run down from behind. It helps if you hear the
fighters and throw up a wing so they see you (done that too - it worked
just fine). You do have to be willing to move your glider around to
look all around when you suspect there is someone in your blind spot.

Would you write an article for Soaring magazine about your techniques?
It seems like an appropriate time. I know I don't see fighters soon
enough, and I'm sure I could miss aircraft coming up behind me. I often
see aircraft in the distance, but I know I haven't seen some airplanes
of various types that were potential threats.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Would you write an article for Soaring magazine about your techniques?
It seems like an appropriate time. I know I don't see fighters soon
enough, and I'm sure I could miss aircraft coming up behind me. I often
see aircraft in the distance, but I know I haven't seen some airplanes
of various types that were potential threats.


Eric, it's not so much a technique as paranoia about other traffic.
There are some tricks that all pilots should know and use: have an
absolutely clean canopy (inside and out - I'm amazed by how filthy most
pilots let their canopies get), minimize reflections and obstructions
(PDA's, big compasses, etc.), keep "inside the cockpit" tasks short,
refocus at inifinity often while scanning, look for threats, not just
passing airplanes (low or high is not very critical, what's on the
horizon is dangerous!, and ALWAYS CLEAR YOUR FLIGHTPATH), look for
motion or lack of it in the forward quadrant.

Use every tool available - call out passing planes to other gliders and
vice versa, listen to tower when passing a busy airport, look for
shadows on the ground (good in the pattern), smoke trails or glints in
the air, and sound - if anything makes the hairs on the back of your
neck stand up, the turn and look around.

Think about where the traffic will be coming from. When you are
cruising and are near the VFR hemispheric altitudes, look in the
direction the traffic will be coming from. Most power pilots will fly
at "easy" altitudes (multiples of 500').

Avoid hanging around VORs, intersections, and following major
interstates - lots of power traffic there, flying IFR (I follow roads)!

Due to the speed difference it is hard for a glider to get away from a
fast mover at close range, but if you are seen there is a good chance
he will maneuver to avoid. And your cross section is basically the
same whether turning or flying straight - it's just oriented different.
But whip into a steep turn (45 degrees either way) and you will
probably be seen - and you get to see other planes maneuver out of your
way. I've seen everything from King Airs, 737s, and F-16s respond to a
wing flash.

Of course I've also seen a 737 fly right through my thermal just
outside of Class B airspace (acturally right next to an
approach/departure extension of the B airspace. I was carefully
thermalling outside the Class B, watching the arrivals, and watched as
one guy approached from the West. When it was obvious he was going to
join me in my nice 7 knot thermal, I moved out of his way, let him by
(no noise by the way) then re-entered the thermal and continued the
climb.

I've also heard jet noise, done a check turn, and been rewarded with
the sight of 2 F-16s about a half mile away maneuvering hard to go
around me.

Final tip - if you see one jet fighter, start looking real hard for the
other one, and for the additional two in trail. And if the one you
see is going to pass about a mile to your side, then be real scared of
the one you don't see that is in one mile spread formation, watching
his leader, just like you are. Fighters almost never fly alone.

Anybody else got good suggestions/techniques/tips?

Kirk
66

Wow, so many aircrafts...
In the 7 years and about 2000 hours I flew my LS4, I never saw
commercial traffic close by, and I fly most of the time in the Reno
area. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am using a transponder?
I had one close call over airsailing with an airliner in the short time
I flew club gliders without transponders (I believe they all have
transponders now).

Ramy

kirk.stant wrote:
Eric Greenwell wrote:
Would you write an article for Soaring magazine about your techniques?
It seems like an appropriate time. I know I don't see fighters soon
enough, and I'm sure I could miss aircraft coming up behind me. I often
see aircraft in the distance, but I know I haven't seen some airplanes
of various types that were potential threats.


Eric, it's not so much a technique as paranoia about other traffic.
There are some tricks that all pilots should know and use: have an
absolutely clean canopy (inside and out - I'm amazed by how filthy most
pilots let their canopies get), minimize reflections and obstructions
(PDA's, big compasses, etc.), keep "inside the cockpit" tasks short,
refocus at inifinity often while scanning, look for threats, not just
passing airplanes (low or high is not very critical, what's on the
horizon is dangerous!, and ALWAYS CLEAR YOUR FLIGHTPATH), look for
motion or lack of it in the forward quadrant.

Use every tool available - call out passing planes to other gliders and
vice versa, listen to tower when passing a busy airport, look for
shadows on the ground (good in the pattern), smoke trails or glints in
the air, and sound - if anything makes the hairs on the back of your
neck stand up, the turn and look around.

Think about where the traffic will be coming from. When you are
cruising and are near the VFR hemispheric altitudes, look in the
direction the traffic will be coming from. Most power pilots will fly
at "easy" altitudes (multiples of 500').

Avoid hanging around VORs, intersections, and following major
interstates - lots of power traffic there, flying IFR (I follow roads)!

Due to the speed difference it is hard for a glider to get away from a
fast mover at close range, but if you are seen there is a good chance
he will maneuver to avoid. And your cross section is basically the
same whether turning or flying straight - it's just oriented different.
But whip into a steep turn (45 degrees either way) and you will
probably be seen - and you get to see other planes maneuver out of your
way. I've seen everything from King Airs, 737s, and F-16s respond to a
wing flash.

Of course I've also seen a 737 fly right through my thermal just
outside of Class B airspace (acturally right next to an
approach/departure extension of the B airspace. I was carefully
thermalling outside the Class B, watching the arrivals, and watched as
one guy approached from the West. When it was obvious he was going to
join me in my nice 7 knot thermal, I moved out of his way, let him by
(no noise by the way) then re-entered the thermal and continued the
climb.

I've also heard jet noise, done a check turn, and been rewarded with
the sight of 2 F-16s about a half mile away maneuvering hard to go
around me.

Final tip - if you see one jet fighter, start looking real hard for the
other one, and for the additional two in trail. And if the one you
see is going to pass about a mile to your side, then be real scared of
the one you don't see that is in one mile spread formation, watching
his leader, just like you are. Fighters almost never fly alone.

Anybody else got good suggestions/techniques/tips?

Kirk
66

Isn't there a speed limitation in class G in the USA? (In Europe it's
250 knots max)

J. N.

Ramy wrote:
Wow, so many aircrafts...
In the 7 years and about 2000 hours I flew my LS4, I never saw
commercial traffic close by, and I fly most of the time in the Reno
area. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am using a transponder?
I had one close call over airsailing with an airliner in the short time
I flew club gliders without transponders (I believe they all have
transponders now).


Could be where you fly - in the Phoenix area (and most of NW AZ), there
is a lot of traffic. Then again, It doesn't bother me to be around
other airplanes - it's kind of neat to watch a big old airliner cruise
by (and wonder if anyone in it saw me), or get checked out in a thermal
by a couple of AV-8 (which happened to me up by the Grand Canyon - they
altered course and came over to where I was thermalling at about
15,000', went by on either side of the thermal. I waved at them, of
course).

But just cuz you don't see it, don't mean it aint there!

Kirk

Kirk... Really, all the good suggestions etc... but let's not kid ourselves,
shall we?

Please, do me a favor. Open your favorite word processor (while you are,
obviously, reading R.A.S. at some sort of a computing device). Set font to
Arial, size to 10 and zoom to 100%. Type letter o (lower case) on a blank
page. Move the blinking cursor away. Step back 10 feet. This is the same
angular size the Hawker was to the glider pilot only 20 seconds (one turn in
thermal) before impact. Can you see it? If you can, congratulations --
you've got one heckofa vision.

Now change the text color to *white*.

Any more questions?

The truth is, if you can't see this tiny *motionless* speck ...two miles
away ...in the inversion haze ...on one thermalling turn, then it is going
to hit you before you finish the next.

Let alone, where can you go in those few seconds even if you do see 'em?
--
Yuliy


"kirk.stant" wrote in message
ps.com...

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Would you write an article for Soaring magazine about your techniques?
It seems like an appropriate time. I know I don't see fighters soon
enough, and I'm sure I could miss aircraft coming up behind me. I often
see aircraft in the distance, but I know I haven't seen some airplanes
of various types that were potential threats.


Eric, it's not so much a technique as paranoia about other traffic.
There are some tricks that all pilots should know and use: have an
absolutely clean canopy (inside and out - I'm amazed by how filthy most
pilots let their canopies get), minimize reflections and obstructions
(PDA's, big compasses, etc.), keep "inside the cockpit" tasks short,
refocus at inifinity often while scanning, look for threats, not just
passing airplanes (low or high is not very critical, what's on the
horizon is dangerous!, and ALWAYS CLEAR YOUR FLIGHTPATH), look for
motion or lack of it in the forward quadrant.

Use every tool available - call out passing planes to other gliders and
vice versa, listen to tower when passing a busy airport, look for
shadows on the ground (good in the pattern), smoke trails or glints in
the air, and sound - if anything makes the hairs on the back of your
neck stand up, the turn and look around.

Think about where the traffic will be coming from. When you are
cruising and are near the VFR hemispheric altitudes, look in the
direction the traffic will be coming from. Most power pilots will fly
at "easy" altitudes (multiples of 500').

Avoid hanging around VORs, intersections, and following major
interstates - lots of power traffic there, flying IFR (I follow roads)!

Due to the speed difference it is hard for a glider to get away from a
fast mover at close range, but if you are seen there is a good chance
he will maneuver to avoid. And your cross section is basically the
same whether turning or flying straight - it's just oriented different.
But whip into a steep turn (45 degrees either way) and you will
probably be seen - and you get to see other planes maneuver out of your
way. I've seen everything from King Airs, 737s, and F-16s respond to a
wing flash.

Of course I've also seen a 737 fly right through my thermal just
outside of Class B airspace (acturally right next to an
approach/departure extension of the B airspace. I was carefully
thermalling outside the Class B, watching the arrivals, and watched as
one guy approached from the West. When it was obvious he was going to
join me in my nice 7 knot thermal, I moved out of his way, let him by
(no noise by the way) then re-entered the thermal and continued the
climb.

I've also heard jet noise, done a check turn, and been rewarded with
the sight of 2 F-16s about a half mile away maneuvering hard to go
around me.

Final tip - if you see one jet fighter, start looking real hard for the
other one, and for the additional two in trail. And if the one you
see is going to pass about a mile to your side, then be real scared of
the one you don't see that is in one mile spread formation, watching
his leader, just like you are. Fighters almost never fly alone.

Anybody else got good suggestions/techniques/tips?

Kirk
66

Bravo Yuliy, perfect example!
In the meantime, Let's hope the sky stays big this Labor Day weekend,
as with the current forecast, many will be smoking the skies near
Minden :-)

Ramy

Yuliy Gerchikov wrote:
Kirk... Really, all the good suggestions etc... but let's not kid ourselves,
shall we?

Please, do me a favor. Open your favorite word processor (while you are,
obviously, reading R.A.S. at some sort of a computing device). Set font to
Arial, size to 10 and zoom to 100%. Type letter o (lower case) on a blank
page. Move the blinking cursor away. Step back 10 feet. This is the same
angular size the Hawker was to the glider pilot only 20 seconds (one turn in
thermal) before impact. Can you see it? If you can, congratulations --
you've got one heckofa vision.

Now change the text color to *white*.

Any more questions?

The truth is, if you can't see this tiny *motionless* speck ...two miles
away ...in the inversion haze ...on one thermalling turn, then it is going
to hit you before you finish the next.

Let alone, where can you go in those few seconds even if you do see 'em?
--
Yuliy


"kirk.stant" wrote in message
ps.com...

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Would you write an article for Soaring magazine about your techniques?
It seems like an appropriate time. I know I don't see fighters soon
enough, and I'm sure I could miss aircraft coming up behind me. I often
see aircraft in the distance, but I know I haven't seen some airplanes
of various types that were potential threats.


Eric, it's not so much a technique as paranoia about other traffic.
There are some tricks that all pilots should know and use: have an
absolutely clean canopy (inside and out - I'm amazed by how filthy most
pilots let their canopies get), minimize reflections and obstructions
(PDA's, big compasses, etc.), keep "inside the cockpit" tasks short,
refocus at inifinity often while scanning, look for threats, not just
passing airplanes (low or high is not very critical, what's on the
horizon is dangerous!, and ALWAYS CLEAR YOUR FLIGHTPATH), look for
motion or lack of it in the forward quadrant.

Use every tool available - call out passing planes to other gliders and
vice versa, listen to tower when passing a busy airport, look for
shadows on the ground (good in the pattern), smoke trails or glints in
the air, and sound - if anything makes the hairs on the back of your
neck stand up, the turn and look around.

Think about where the traffic will be coming from. When you are
cruising and are near the VFR hemispheric altitudes, look in the
direction the traffic will be coming from. Most power pilots will fly
at "easy" altitudes (multiples of 500').

Avoid hanging around VORs, intersections, and following major
interstates - lots of power traffic there, flying IFR (I follow roads)!

Due to the speed difference it is hard for a glider to get away from a
fast mover at close range, but if you are seen there is a good chance
he will maneuver to avoid. And your cross section is basically the
same whether turning or flying straight - it's just oriented different.
But whip into a steep turn (45 degrees either way) and you will
probably be seen - and you get to see other planes maneuver out of your
way. I've seen everything from King Airs, 737s, and F-16s respond to a
wing flash.

Of course I've also seen a 737 fly right through my thermal just
outside of Class B airspace (acturally right next to an
approach/departure extension of the B airspace. I was carefully
thermalling outside the Class B, watching the arrivals, and watched as
one guy approached from the West. When it was obvious he was going to
join me in my nice 7 knot thermal, I moved out of his way, let him by
(no noise by the way) then re-entered the thermal and continued the
climb.

I've also heard jet noise, done a check turn, and been rewarded with
the sight of 2 F-16s about a half mile away maneuvering hard to go
around me.

Final tip - if you see one jet fighter, start looking real hard for the
other one, and for the additional two in trail. And if the one you
see is going to pass about a mile to your side, then be real scared of
the one you don't see that is in one mile spread formation, watching
his leader, just like you are. Fighters almost never fly alone.

Anybody else got good suggestions/techniques/tips?

Kirk
66