Nearest near-miss?

The two biggest blind spots are below and in front of you or above and behind you. My closest is the one I didn’t see but was told about it by a rather reputable pilot after the fact. I was flying along in a Nimbus 3 early on a 500 mile task out of Minden during the Open class nationals. We all started pretty much at the same time since it was such along task. This was before we carried transponders, had Flarm, or any of that good stuff. Anyway I zoom up in a thermal and I hear that my tail missed the guy directly behind me by about three feet! He has a cool head and isn’t known to exaggerate.

Recovering from my vortex / downburst encounter on final over a gravel pit I had to climb to clear a topsoil pile. My subsequent urgent cogitations about where to put the glider were rudely disrupted by seeing the braid of the power cable that I cleared by 5' or so.

Only my equanimity was damaged.

Ka6 Years ago in a booming thermal 1,100' per minute over the Poconos approaching cloud base. When I looked up and estimated 2 more turns and I would be in the cloud . I exited the thermal and heard the 747 before I saw it apox 9,500 msl . I saw it for a brief eternity where I would have been !!!
A good reason to abide by the FARs.