Originally Posted by
FullOppositeRudder
I would suggest that FLARM takeup in Australian gliding operations has probably been quite high. We know we have a visibility issue - we're hard to see from some angles, and the very modes of soaring flight involve potentially flying in close proximity to other gliders some of the time. I've looked at a few of the glider instruments panels appearing the Facebook pages for the club whose aircraft and esteemed member were involved in this accident. Those photos show FLARM units - and an up to date VHF radio. None of the photos were of the Astir involved in the accident, but given that for FLARM to be effective it needs to be fitted to all aircraft normally operating in the area, I would almost expect that it was fitted and operational in this aircraft. I can't comment as to whether it was fitted in the RAAA registered aircraft (I would almost expect not) and if it was, most probably we wouldn't be having this conversation. However, that's not altogether the point of raising this here. If the glider has FLARM fitted and operational there should be a record of the flight(s) up to and including the accident. This may be useful in establishing the movements of the glider involved.
Concerning radio reporting - I know my club was and is fastidious about radio reporting (on the CTAF as it happens). A radio check (amongst other essentials) is part of the challenge drill to the pilot by the person hooking on the cable prior to launch. It may be pre-launch policy Australia wide - I don't know (there was a time when I would have). However, even so I once had an aircraft from one of the training concerns operating out of Parafield flash past me about a hundred metres away when we were both still inside the CTAF boundary for our operation - there was no radio call heard by me or others in our network. This discussion could have been about me.
Factually, radios are only useful on avoiding potential conflict if they are used - especially by pilots transiting through a known CTAF location. Having said that, the CTAF frequency where I used to fly was /perhaps still is, so congested with input from over a dozen different aviation operations within radio range that useful or essential information can be doubled on another transmission, or filtered out by the crew in (say) an instructional flight. Working thermals keeps a us fairly busy, and concentration on the 'aviate' part of the equation can sometimes overtake the 'communicate' capabilities - as it perhaps always should, but at a potential cost if the information missed were to be critical. There are no easy answers in some of these issues. We all just have to be aware of the possibilities using eyes firstly, but also such other means as are available to keep it safe and avoid sad events such as this one. We can learn from this.
I’m a bit mystified. We don’t have an accident report to refer to. Reading this thread seems all we got is media reports. What exactly is the lesson ?
How do we know that the two pilots weren’t aware of each other ? Were there a medical issue that caused one aircraft to suddenly veer into the other ?
There is a media report of the aircraft falling out of cloud. Perhaps one aircraft had lost control and spun down onto the other aircraft… looking out the window won’t help there.
I’d posit that in aviation ‘learning’ comes via researched and verified information.