The strip at Abbots Bromley is at 350 ft, and the collision happened at 1800 ft.
Most aircraft of the type involved (I am not commenting on this specific example) use the armstrong start method and have no electrical systems. This, and the fact that the aircraft was probably only 90 sec or so from leaving the ground, make most of the comments about radar and radio of little relevance.
If the newer aircraft had been fitted with full TCAS it would have been unable to detect most of the traffic likely to be at 1800 ft in that area. There is no practical solution to allow a Xpder to be fitted to an aircraft with no electrical system at this time (the CAA acknowledge this). The busy gilding site at Cross Hays and the strips in the area containing mostly micros and permit types which are mostly not Xpder equipped.
25% of GA are micros, another 15% are permit types and about 20% are gliders. This does not take into account the paramotors, which outnumber the whole of GA. The vast majority of the above will not show up on TCAS. I have a plea to all the people with “electronic collision avoidance solutions”, on behalf of the majority of flying machines you may come into contact with, please do not give up on your lookout. I know it is popular to criticize see and avoid, but it is THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN, and the less we try to make it work, the more it will kill us.
Rod1
(with radio and Xpder)