Many glider pilots are also current (or retired) ATPLs, and many (possibly a majority) of those sometimes fly in cloud in gliders and consider it perfectly safe.
Bizarre. It is as if an ATPL protects you from something in a cloud you cant see. Well good luck, clealry ATPL glider pilots are indeed sky Gods because I suspect they will need God on their side when they meet another aircraft in a cloud.
The risk to IMC aircraft OCAS is higher from military aircraft than from gliders.
Oh goodie, that makes me feel a lot safer.
What absolute nonesense.
But.....whether any LARS operator could make sense of a gaggle of 15 or 20 gliders in a single thermal (all separated of course and looking out with eyes on stalks) I very much doubt.
They dont need to. All the LARS operator needs to do is report the traffic as a gaggle and allow the rest of us to steer around the gaggle. I think both the LARS pilot and the rest of us have the intelligence to work out it is a gaggle of pilots in IMC.
Where I fly (Sweden), large areas of restricted airspace are set aside for soaring in clouds
Not a bad idea for a change. I guess the area could be reported cold as well to free up the airspace to other users. Whether gliders can be trusted to stay in their own patch judging by this thread is however doubtful.
I am a great believer in hanging on to priviliges we already have. Indeed I am a staunch supporter of the IMC rating. However, I have to weigh up the evidence, not as a glider pilot or as a powered pilot but on the basis of whether or not it is reasonable to permit gliders to do something no one else can. I have seen nothing here to support it being reasonable - just emotional arguments.
Look chaps when a twin collides with a glider in IMC two, three or even eight people are going to be dead. If we are really unlucky the collision might involve CAT and the death toll will be even greater. I have a feeling your "priviliges" will disappear over night and maybe a few other priviliges with it - I suspect your fraternity might wish you had better regulated yourselves, God forbid you ever need reminding.