Glider near miss with Airliner (emergency climb) near Chicago yesterday?

I just got a reply from Trig regarding my query on a TN70 installation
to go along with my TT22 in my (certificated) Stemme. Their reply said
that I could use a TN72 in a TABS installation. For the extra money, I
think I'll go ahead with the TN70 out of concern that they misunderstood
that the Stemme is certificated or that TABS won't give me the
situational awareness that I want or that the glider exemption will one
day disappear.

On 9/27/2017 7:43 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:20:45 PM UTC-7, wrote:
The least costly way I know of alerting others is purchasing a transponder, about the same price as a radio.
It looks to me like this gold plated system's cost is about 4x the cost of a radio, and that makes me grumpy. (Or perhaps it could be ARG (Age Related Grumpy, or both.) ;-)

I'm also grumpy because this is about 10% the cost of the glider. If the airlines, with more political clout, had to pay 10% for ADSB, ADSB would be much different.

But my grumps aside, this thread is actually useful because it made me think that except for battery issues, my reasons for grumpy are no more compelling than the rest of the GA community. These days, the battery issues are not so bad. For a glider with lithium, a 4 hour flight is a no brainer. I can see 6 or 8 without much trouble. 12 may be a head scratcher, but hey, I'm an engineer and if I get to where I need it, I bet I can figure out a way.

In other words, I'm to the state where I think there should not be a glider exemption for gliders flying where airlines are likely to be. I think this even though it will cost me a small fortune to buy a system which is way more complicated that is necessary for the task at hand.

I say this because I don't see any other reliable way to provide separation between my cross country butt and an airline. An interesting question is are there other reasonable, reliable separation rules which might work for non-cross country flights?

Perhaps if within a published distance (5nm?) of a glider symbol on the chart and below cloudbase, other traffic won't depend on electronic means for traffic separation. Such a compromise is bad because it raises the bar for cross country, but at least it might provide a safe glider exemption for how many gliders are actually used. (Some GA might benefit from the same separation plan?)
Trig TT22 is around $2k plus installation.

I'm thinking most radios are around $1,300 to $1,500 plus installation. A good comparison point BTW since radios are an important safety option.

So I don't agree with 4X for a transponder, maybe closer to 1.5X-2X all up, being aware as well that individual installation costs can always vary signifcantly.

If we have to install 2020 Compliant ADS-B Out then sure, that might be in the 4X range. The silliness there is so much of the safety benefit, certainly vs airliners and fast jets, is obtained with just a transponder. I would hope voluntary use of transponders would help to prevent potential incidents and accidents that are likely to remove both the transponder and ADS-B out exemptions.

If it was not for the possibility of ADS-B Out becoming required in gliders I'd be suggesting pilots who fly in/near busy traffic areas and who want to use a transponder look to pick up cheaper used Mode C units. That may still make sense if you find one cheap, but you won't have a ADS-B Out upgrade path if gliders lose their ADS-B Out exemption.


--
Dan, 5J

On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 12:30:16 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually.. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…



On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 12:30:16 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually.. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…



On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 12:30:16 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually.. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…

Did anyone happen to notice that this pilot was registered in NL, according to OLC. Not an excuse or reason, I can see some "foreigner" visiting and 'drifts' into or near Class B airspace outside of ORD. Not being local may not have realized his error. He may still not have realized it as of today, unless the FAA has been knocking at his door or the owners door.

I had an AA MD-88 about run me over about 10 to 15 miles from DAY at 4000-4500 feet agl. What happened to the inverted wedding cake parameters?

On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 5:53:39 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 12:30:16 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…



On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 12:30:16 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…



On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 12:30:16 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…

Did anyone happen to notice that this pilot was registered in NL, according to OLC. Not an excuse or reason, I can see some "foreigner" visiting and 'drifts' into or near Class B airspace outside of ORD. Not being local may not have realized his error. He may still not have realized it as of today, unless the FAA has been knocking at his door or the owners door.

I had an AA MD-88 about run me over about 10 to 15 miles from DAY at 4000-4500 feet agl. What happened to the inverted wedding cake parameters?

Do you have a transponder? Any idea if a TCAS RA was triggered from that incident?

--

In this case the pilot is experienced in the USA, and flying a US registered glider. OLC registration stuff will not have anything to do with this, and just wanted to try to clarify that issue now. (And I have no idea if the glider even actually has a transponder or not, I don't want to leap to any assumptions about what actually happened, we will know all over time.) The best thing right now is everybody is OK.

And to avoid any other confusion, this has nothing to do with drifting into or near Class B airspace, this incident occurred about 54 nm from O'Hare airport. 24 nm from the edge of the Mode C veil, and a bit under 20 nm for so from the edge of Class B. The overall glider flight was away from that Class B airspace not towards it. The reason for pointing out this again, is so we recognize how much traffic including fast jets and airliners are operating in Class E airspace, as you clearly are with your wedding cake concern..

If nothing else I hope this incident encourage folks to be aware of what is happening where they fly. Do things like look up locations of navaids, and airways and SID and STAR procedures, maybe have that discussion with ATC staff to get questions answered and open up a dialogue and address any concerns. And use all that to make a decision wether transponder carriage is justified or not.

On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 10:30:16 AM UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually.. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…

I will adopt ADS-B into my glider when it becomes economical to do so. I cannot justify spending 3-4 thousand dollars on my $12,000 Libelle. Until then I will use the see and avoid method and continue to monitor different frequencies when flying through that particular airspace. Just my thoughts.

Exactly and the only practical approach to take. What inside s transponder makes it so expensive? Most of the time in gliding it's that the market is so small, free market principals have no effect.

Dennis
DC

On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:49:18 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Exactly and the only practical approach to take. What inside s transponder makes it so expensive? Most of the time in gliding it's that the market is so small, free market principals have no effect.

Dennis
DC

Transponders have a fairly impressive amount of electronics, firmware and RF engineering in them. It used to be (1970s-1990s) seen to be obscenely expensive to deliver Mode S capabilities (much more expensive than Mode C). That maybe helped push decisions to develop dual-link ADS-B in the USA which ultimately complicated things... and I suspect slowed overall ADS-B Out adoption and helped increased costs.

One significant thing that happened with transponders in the 1990s is modern FPGAs allowed vendors to shrink lots of hardware complexity and reduce costs. A Mode S transponder is a complex piece of kit, its emulating old Mode A and C transponders, delivers impressive 25' altitude resolution, is able to transmit aircraft data, able to receive legacy TIS-A traffic data, and do ADS-B Out data as well. That you can buy one for as little a $2k is pretty amazing.

FPGA helped greatly reduce costs but so much of the costs are regulatory and compliance related. Look at the long list of RTCA and TSO specs that a transponder like a TT-22 meets. It's interesting to ask manufacturers what it would cost to ship an empty box--it's a serious fraction of the price of one of these transponders.

There is no way that a transponder could ever be built just for the gliding community. The development costs would never be recovered. Luckily Trig and other manufactures happen to make a general purpose transponder in a small form factor and low power consumption that is useful for us.

---

And for folks that don't know me or why I'm so interested (or pig headed) about transponders, ADS-B, FLARM etc. I've got a background in microwave engineering and research and technology. And was already interested in this stuff, and got much more interested in it after one day flying out of Minden in a Duo Discus on our way back to the airport when the Hawker 800 and ASG29 mid-air occurred. We knew after a short while that Hawker was down OK but they had not yet located the glider pilot. We assumed the worse and thought he was dead, and remember tieing down the Duo next to his crew who were waiting for news. Since that time I have also lost a friend in a glider-towplane mid-air collision. This stuff gets real very quick.

Some of the responses to events like the Hawker mid-air was am increasing focus on the possibility of mythical cheap UAT technology that seemed to me very unlikely to eventuate, and did not, and even if it had would have been totally incompatible with TCAS so should have been a nonstarter. Unfortunately for some years the discussion of mythical UAT products helped encourage some pilots to wait for future ware, and discouraged some adoption of transponders where they were really needed. That UAT fixation also worked in ways to not encourage FLARM availability in the USA. I spent a fair amount of time trying to correct ideas about how this UAT futureware will fix problems and magically cost so little, etc.

Close encounters with airliners and fast jets and gliders happen much more than people think. Monday is another. A few years after the Hawker midair we had a close encounter between an airliner and a (transponder less) glider in the same frigging Carson Valley area. Maybe just to show their seriousness about that issue the FAA turned up to interview the pilot with FBI special agents in tow. There have been multiple close encounters with fast jets including the jet of the owner of the Examiner publishing company, that got the glider community bad press in his publications for a few years. There have been other non-airline or fast jet mid-air collisions with gliders over the last decade or two, a glider on tow in Colorado with a Cirrus, a towplane and glider in California, and multiple glider on glider mid-air collisions in contests. Hopefully PowerFLARM is the right tool for those later cases and PowerFLARM adoption seems to have helped.

Ultimately the development of TABS was a nice direction, fully compatible with TCAS, some of that was inspired by the early low cost UAT ideas, some encouraged by FLARM, some by other low-power Mode S initiatives, it combines Mode S and 1090ES out with lower cost GPS technology. But the FAA frustratingly left it dangling with no adoption path for certified gliders. And a sword dangling over our heads that if any (experimental gliders) adopts TABS and then gliders lose the ADS-B out exemption affected pilots may have to throw out say the TN72 GPS and replace it with a TN70. A really crazy idea, if this is ever going to be usable and affordable the FAA has to help kick start TABS adoption and help the way for pilots willing to pay to install it now and start to get costs down for everybody. For disclosure I provided some small help to vendors providing input on the development of the TSO-C199/TABS standard. But again TABS and ADS-B Out is getting far ahead here, the real issue in the context of this thread is transponder adoption in busy traffic areas.

And some of my personal close encounters....

Thermalling a few miles from the Panoche VOR, with transponder. As I come around a C152 comes right through my thermal circle at my altitude, came head on out of nowhere, and blended well into the cloudy background. Flying inbound to the VOR. Student may have had a hood on. That convinced me to buy a Xaon PCAS. Which over the years helped provide several useful warning like...

Thermalling in the Mendocino mountains, transponder and PCAS. Several gliders hanging around for a friendly contest start. I get a PCAS alert at close altitude, looking like crazy and see him, coming over a hundred feet or so above me is a DC-7 fire bomber. I assume he did not see me at all and just let him go over.

And then there is are times where it all just works, like with Travis approach, transitioning their very busy airspace on flight following, controllers being fantastic and routing traffic and asking me if I have all the C5s on final visual. Uh yes I do (and they all have TCAS II). Or talking to Reno approach (now NOCAL) and being transponder equipped in the Carson valley and hearing and seeing B737 routed safely around you. That is a great feeling.

Since I now have a PowerFLARM portable and "see" among other things
ADS-B traffic, I would like to see useful data about that traffic. The
PF portable display is abysmal but I get a really nice B-52 shaped icon
on my ClearNav display showing it's relative position and direction,
while there's a climb/level flight/descent icon, there's nothing about
altitude.Â* For that, I have to go back to the PF display to see its
relative altitude, but the PF only displays the relative altitude of the
nearest sensed aircraft.Â* "Fine", you might say, but of what value is
knowing that there's an airliner 2,000' above me and only 0.1 miles
away, when there's a glider at my altitude and 0.15 miles away?Â* But
then I could reach across the cockpit (side-by-side two seater) and
fumble with the Streak/XCSoar which will give me all the information if
I can push all the buttons to select the aircraft of interest on a small
touch screen while still flying the glider and looking outside.

Maybe a feature request to ClearNav will get a software update to show
relative altitude of ADS-B targets will get a positive result.

On 9/27/2017 9:36 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:49:18 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Exactly and the only practical approach to take. What inside s transponder makes it so expensive? Most of the time in gliding it's that the market is so small, free market principals have no effect.

Dennis
DC
Transponders have a fairly impressive amount of electronics, firmware and RF engineering in them. It used to be (1970s-1990s) seen to be obscenely expensive to deliver Mode S capabilities (much more expensive than Mode C). That maybe helped push decisions to develop dual-link ADS-B in the USA which ultimately complicated things... and I suspect slowed overall ADS-B Out adoption and helped increased costs.

One significant thing that happened with transponders in the 1990s is modern FPGAs allowed vendors to shrink lots of hardware complexity and reduce costs. A Mode S transponder is a complex piece of kit, its emulating old Mode A and C transponders, delivers impressive 25' altitude resolution, is able to transmit aircraft data, able to receive legacy TIS-A traffic data, and do ADS-B Out data as well. That you can buy one for as little a $2k is pretty amazing.

FPGA helped greatly reduce costs but so much of the costs are regulatory and compliance related. Look at the long list of RTCA and TSO specs that a transponder like a TT-22 meets. It's interesting to ask manufacturers what it would cost to ship an empty box--it's a serious fraction of the price of one of these transponders.

There is no way that a transponder could ever be built just for the gliding community. The development costs would never be recovered. Luckily Trig and other manufactures happen to make a general purpose transponder in a small form factor and low power consumption that is useful for us.

---

And for folks that don't know me or why I'm so interested (or pig headed) about transponders, ADS-B, FLARM etc. I've got a background in microwave engineering and research and technology. And was already interested in this stuff, and got much more interested in it after one day flying out of Minden in a Duo Discus on our way back to the airport when the Hawker 800 and ASG29 mid-air occurred. We knew after a short while that Hawker was down OK but they had not yet located the glider pilot. We assumed the worse and thought he was dead, and remember tieing down the Duo next to his crew who were waiting for news. Since that time I have also lost a friend in a glider-towplane mid-air collision. This stuff gets real very quick.

Some of the responses to events like the Hawker mid-air was am increasing focus on the possibility of mythical cheap UAT technology that seemed to me very unlikely to eventuate, and did not, and even if it had would have been totally incompatible with TCAS so should have been a nonstarter. Unfortunately for some years the discussion of mythical UAT products helped encourage some pilots to wait for future ware, and discouraged some adoption of transponders where they were really needed. That UAT fixation also worked in ways to not encourage FLARM availability in the USA. I spent a fair amount of time trying to correct ideas about how this UAT futureware will fix problems and magically cost so little, etc.

Close encounters with airliners and fast jets and gliders happen much more than people think. Monday is another. A few years after the Hawker midair we had a close encounter between an airliner and a (transponder less) glider in the same frigging Carson Valley area. Maybe just to show their seriousness about that issue the FAA turned up to interview the pilot with FBI special agents in tow. There have been multiple close encounters with fast jets including the jet of the owner of the Examiner publishing company, that got the glider community bad press in his publications for a few years. There have been other non-airline or fast jet mid-air collisions with gliders over the last decade or two, a glider on tow in Colorado with a Cirrus, a towplane and glider in California, and multiple glider on glider mid-air collisions in contests. Hopefully PowerFLARM is the right tool for those later cases and PowerFLARM adoption seems to have helped.

Ultimately the development of TABS was a nice direction, fully compatible with TCAS, some of that was inspired by the early low cost UAT ideas, some encouraged by FLARM, some by other low-power Mode S initiatives, it combines Mode S and 1090ES out with lower cost GPS technology. But the FAA frustratingly left it dangling with no adoption path for certified gliders. And a sword dangling over our heads that if any (experimental gliders) adopts TABS and then gliders lose the ADS-B out exemption affected pilots may have to throw out say the TN72 GPS and replace it with a TN70. A really crazy idea, if this is ever going to be usable and affordable the FAA has to help kick start TABS adoption and help the way for pilots willing to pay to install it now and start to get costs down for everybody. For disclosure I provided some small help to vendors providing input on the development of the TSO-C199/TABS standard. But again TABS and ADS-B Out is getting far ahead here, the real issue in the context of this thread is transponder adoption in busy traffic areas.

And some of my personal close encounters....

Thermalling a few miles from the Panoche VOR, with transponder. As I come around a C152 comes right through my thermal circle at my altitude, came head on out of nowhere, and blended well into the cloudy background. Flying inbound to the VOR. Student may have had a hood on. That convinced me to buy a Xaon PCAS. Which over the years helped provide several useful warning like...

Thermalling in the Mendocino mountains, transponder and PCAS. Several gliders hanging around for a friendly contest start. I get a PCAS alert at close altitude, looking like crazy and see him, coming over a hundred feet or so above me is a DC-7 fire bomber. I assume he did not see me at all and just let him go over.

And then there is are times where it all just works, like with Travis approach, transitioning their very busy airspace on flight following, controllers being fantastic and routing traffic and asking me if I have all the C5s on final visual. Uh yes I do (and they all have TCAS II). Or talking to Reno approach (now NOCAL) and being transponder equipped in the Carson valley and hearing and seeing B737 routed safely around you. That is a great feeling.

--
Dan, 5J

On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:29:12 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 10:30:16 AM UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
I just listened to this news on a major news network and pseudo confirmed it he http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1374687

The newsperson actually said, "Why didn't this glider have a transponder, why wasn't this glider talking to someone, how is this possible…" live on the air.

I continue to believe that the sailplane community needs to fully adopt ADSB and transponders whenever outside of 3 miles of the airport (for basic training). Getting an exemption was a big mistake. Sailplane flying cross country, near major airspace, or at high altitudes should absolutely have ADSB and/or 250 watt transponders.

The awful scenario we are all worried about IS going to happen eventually. Its simply a matter of: A) was the gliding community pro safety or B) was the gliding community defiant and trying to wiggle out of safety and make special exceptions for itself.

When IT happens, the result will be unfortunate if we are still on the B path, as we are now…

I will adopt ADS-B into my glider when it becomes economical to do so. I cannot justify spending 3-4 thousand dollars on my $12,000 Libelle. Until then I will use the see and avoid method and continue to monitor different frequencies when flying through that particular airspace. Just my thoughts.

I'm not sure why you are discussing ADS-B Out and $3k-$4k costs?

Price of a state of the art transponder is ~$2k or so (plus installation, but the altitude encoder is included) for a Trig TT22.

Of course $2k or so is still a significant cost, but lets keep it real and not pile on ADS-B costs when discussing what are really transponder issues.

In an airliner (or many fast jets) vs glider scenario TCAS provides a wonderful traffic awareness and collision avoidance tool to that other aircraft, and only relies in the "threat" aircraft having a transponder (Mode C or S) . ATC also can see and will continue to see gliders equipped with transponders on SSR in critical busy airspaces, especially that Class E airspace hiding airliners and fast jets.

100 years of American soaring how many high speed airplane/glider midairs have there been? There was the bizjet/ASG29 over Minden, any others? Convince the gov't there is a need for transponders in gliders so airliners can avoid us(gliders have the right of way) and I'll tell them how the transponders will be powered by 12 dollar batteries soldered in by amateurs (in a rush before the first tow, ah screw it, no time to solder friends are launching, we'll just twist wires together and tape) lolz.
If the justification is separation with airliners then you need equipment with the same reliability and redundancy of airliners. If you don't have equal equipment it isn't about safety, it is about feelings. And that is gay..

On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 9:29:12 PM UTC-4, wrote:

I cannot justify spending 3-4 thousand dollars on my $12,000 Libelle.

I have Trig TT21 in a nice 18 year old medium performance glider. Here's how I justify the cost.

The utility/value of a $2000 transponder is the same whether it is installed in a glider worth $10,000 or $100,000. Amortized over 10 years, it costs me ~$200 a year, a small fraction of what I spend on flying each year. Cost of a mid-air collision is priceless.

If the eventual buyer of my used glider does not want to pay the depreciated value of my transponder, I could pull it out, sell it used, put it in my new ship or put it in a club glider. Or maybe I'll just kiss it goodbye and feel good that the new owner is flying with a transponder.