Nearly Mid-Air Collision at Estrella

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message ...

Actually, if you hear an airplane engine, it's likely that it is directly
below you where the sound can reflect back from the ground.
I'll now tell my near miss story.

Thermalling near Riverside California one day I say a small puff of smoke
off to the south. "That's strange", I thought as I continued to circle.
Next time around the ball of smoke was still there and it seemed bigger.
Several more turns in the thermal and the ball of smoke was getting very pro
minent and there was a black dot in the center of it.

The smoke was jet exhaust and the black dot turned out to be a B52 with me
in his crosshairs. As I dove for clearance, he passed less than 100 feet
above me. That was noisy.

Bill Daniels

Good point, I've listened to the race cars near Turf Soaring many
times while working the house thermal, fun to watch them running
sideways around the short dirttrack.

I once broke hard upon hearing a jet, and turned right into a two-ship
of F-16s who were frantically pulling to get away from me! So we all
saw each other and waggled wings, and went on our business.

OTOH, once while thermalling on the Estrella ridge, just outside a big
piece of class B airspace, I watched a Southwest 737 letting down
towards me, and after a few turns it was obvious that he and I were
going to share a very small piece of sky pretty soon! (Crew must have
been heads down getting their before landing checks done). So when
they got "close enough", I moved aside, let them by (with a wave),
then returned to my thermal, which seemed none the worse for wear.
Kind of like a Laser meeting a supertanker - sometimes right of way is
the wrong way! But was was scary was that this big 737 cruised by
absolutely silently - not a whisper. What if: near cloudbase, poor
vis, same place: No warning whatsoever - Wham, tinkle, tinkle. It is
really important to know where the heavy and fast iron flies in your
area!

Cheers!

Kirk