Midair Warning

This South Carolina midair reminds me a lot of my incident last Oct 29, 2014 near Inyokern, CA and China Lake. While gliding off from the Sierras eastbound after a final flight of the season.. at 2800agl I hear the roar of a fighter. The Eurofighter (at least that's what I think it was) crossed over me 100ft vertical... zero horizontal southbound at perhaps 250kts. I very well could have become a statistic and news story myself... "WX" in a Discus 2A

Quickly, I checked my PowerFlarm for the jet's transponder PCAS signal and found... NOTHING! At the time my glider was not transponder equipped.

Minutes before, I'd contacted Joshua Approach to check on a small piece of restricted airspace being crossed that is normally closed. It was "cold" this time, so I switched off frequency. The problem was... I had errantly grazed the larger R2505 restricted area by 1/4mile and noted at the incident time I was just leaving it. The encounter occurred 5nm SW of China lake just outside the tower Class D. So, my decision was to not communicate with FAA approach control and report the near midair.... instead, ruminate on this for a few days.

Two decisions came out of this encounter: 1) write up my NASA safety form and submit it (it was acknowledged months later by NASA) 2) Install a Mode S transponder (Trig T22 - now installed 2015 flying season). I don't know if having a transponder would have helped... but it might have... especially if I'd stayed on frequency with Joshua Approach. I already know that fighters have no TCAS and rarely use their radar for aircraft collision advisories.

Considering the cash I have on hand just sitting there for retirement... it seemed like a very good idea to install the transponder for my own self preservation... and the preservation of the sport of soaring.

Walt Rogers WX

Originally Posted by WaltWX[_2_]

I already know that fighters have no TCAS and rarely use their radar for aircraft collision advisories.


Walt Rogers WX

Ummm, as an ex-fighter guy, we extensively used our air-to-air radar to enhance see and avoid looking for possible threats from aircraft flying VFR. As Kirk has pointed out, we also used to interrogate Mode three 1200 squawks looking for traffic that might not be displayed on our pulsed Doppler radars due to the velocity notch around zero groundspeed.

Now, in a MOA, restricted area or warning area where we might be using the radar for other more tactical application, looking for possible traffic was not a priority. But yeah, once flying to and from? That radar is a major source of situation awareness of opposing traffic.

Now to this specific incident, given the description of a broadside impact, and given the slow speed of a C150 on climb out, it is highly unlikely this aircraft would have appeared on the fighter radar, it would have been considered in the "ground clutter" and not displayed. And while flying under ATC, practicing instrument procedures, the Pilot may have been less than vigilant in his see and avoid responsibilities. That said, a C150 appearing as a non moving spot on the canopy (definition of collision course) doesn't catch the eye movement or size wise until very late...

Squeaky
USFA 83

Takes me back to the mid-70s, while "defending the northern skies
against Godless communists", on target/intercept missions north of the
Arctic Circle, the target aircraft would turn off his transponder
(strangle parrot :-D ), dispense chaff and jam the radio frequency in an
attempt to avoid detection or escape intercept. Maybe this was the case
in your incident and nobody saw you. Or maybe he just buzzed you to let
you know you weren't supposed to be there.

A couple of years ago a friend and I were skirting the White Sands
Missile Range impact area (R-5107, outside of it, of course) in a
two-seater when we noted a low flying F-16 and a high flying F-15 which
appeared to be checking us out. They were both inside the boundary, we
were outside. As we continued south, we saw the exhaust trail of a
missile going up and arching over into a descent. About halfway down,
the trail ended and we saw no more. Good reason to avoid some areas!

On 7/13/2015 4:27 PM, WaltWX wrote:
This South Carolina midair reminds me a lot of my incident last Oct 29, 2014 near Inyokern, CA and China Lake. While gliding off from the Sierras eastbound after a final flight of the season.. at 2800agl I hear the roar of a fighter. The Eurofighter (at least that's what I think it was) crossed over me 100ft vertical... zero horizontal southbound at perhaps 250kts. I very well could have become a statistic and news story myself... "WX" in a Discus 2A

Quickly, I checked my PowerFlarm for the jet's transponder PCAS signal and found... NOTHING! At the time my glider was not transponder equipped.

Minutes before, I'd contacted Joshua Approach to check on a small piece of restricted airspace being crossed that is normally closed. It was "cold" this time, so I switched off frequency. The problem was... I had errantly grazed the larger R2505 restricted area by 1/4mile and noted at the incident time I was just leaving it. The encounter occurred 5nm SW of China lake just outside the tower Class D. So, my decision was to not communicate with FAA approach control and report the near midair.... instead, ruminate on this for a few days.

Two decisions came out of this encounter: 1) write up my NASA safety form and submit it (it was acknowledged months later by NASA) 2) Install a Mode S transponder (Trig T22 - now installed 2015 flying season). I don't know if having a transponder would have helped... but it might have... especially if I'd stayed on frequency with Joshua Approach. I already know that fighters have no TCAS and rarely use their radar for aircraft collision advisories.

Considering the cash I have on hand just sitting there for retirement... it seemed like a very good idea to install the transponder for my own self preservation... and the preservation of the sport of soaring.

Walt Rogers WX

--
Dan Marotta