SSA responds to ANPRM

On Tuesday, August 18, 2015 at 8:45:12 PM UTC-7, George Haeh wrote:
I have been slogging through the some
220 responses and came across a
response from the NTSB:

http://www.regulations.gov/contentStrea
mer?documentId=FAA-2015-2147-
0137&attachmentNumber=1&disposition
=attachment&contentType=pdf

"our main concern was to ensure that
gliders are detectable by an aircraft
equipped with a traffic alert and collision
avoidance system (TCAS)"

Gliders are already kept well away from
air carriers by Class B and C.

That is serious misunderstanding of how controlled airspace works.

Scheduled airline traffic for example flies in Class A, B, C, D and E airspace in the USA. Class E airspace in particular is a concern with gliders and airliners near some busy traffic areas. For example in the Reno Area you have Airliners fling approaches into Reno sharing airspace with glider traffic in the Carson Valley. It is interesting to look down from a glider and see multiple B737s on approach to Reno. That is why pilot education, voluntary carriage of transponders, established gliders procedures with ATC, etc. are so important there. And many owners/pilots, clubs, FBOs, organizations like PASCO have down great work to support that. And why when incidents like airliners getting anywhere near close to a glider gets a lot of attention. And while the Reno area may be the poster-child for airliner-glider saftey concerns in the USA that situation is far from limited to the Reno Area.


That makes the primary beneficiaries of
the ANPRM private jet owners able to
afford TCAS - $30K to $200K before
installation.

There are many valuable inputs that people can and should be making about this ANPRM and related concerns, from all possible points of view, but stating inflammatory opinions like this that are based on such obvious misunderstands is not likely to do anybody any good.


As long as they're transmitting ADS-B,
anybody with PowerFLARM knows
exactly where they are from several miles
away and can avoid.

PowerFLARM ADS-B In is a helpful feature, but when it comes to high-speed threats like fast jets and airliners (especially above 250 knots above 10,000') the usefulness may be more for educating PowerFLARM users about where that traffic generally is and to avoid that entire area if possible.. or to help convince those owners/pilots to get a transponder.. which has happened in a few cases I know. I'm not so convinced it's that useful for a glider pilot reliably avoiding ADS-B Out equipped high-speed jet or airliner that does not know the glider is there. For that it seems making the glider visible to TCAS in the high speed jet or airliner is much more useful approach.