Originally Posted by
bookworm
The question on feasibility is meaningless. The regulatory requirement makes them unsuitable for aircraft flying above 15,000 ft. The CAA's response is correct in that "many types of glider" do not exceed 15,000 ft.
What you need to argue for is a regulatory change to permit the use of 70W equipment above 15,000 ft by gliders. Good luck.
Oh dear. Just about any type of glider can exceed 15,000 ft if it is flying in decent wave. The CAA should have said that "many glider flights do not exceed 15,00 ft".
However, anyone who wants a Diamond height will have to do so and people have been doing Diamond heights for some considerable time, in all sorts of gliders, not just nice white modern GRP ones.
And quite a few flat-landers (who otherwise might well not need Mode S, depending on what the final outcome is) visit Scotland (or other wave sites) in search of that elusive Diamond height. But not, I suspect, if they have to spend some £4k on getting a transponder fitted.