Originally Posted by
sprite1
Come on Wilyflier, more details would be appreciated if you're going to use that one incident from 20 years ago. What height? Designated and well known hang gliding area? Perhaps the hang glider flew over a known model aircraft strip and clubhouse that he should've read up on before taking flight?
If this all happened 20yrs ago with a responsible model aircraft flyer, I'd say short of just not flying his model that day, there was nothing else he could have done to prevent a collision with a hang glider.
The collision occurred at 80' above the hill (too low for a reserve deployment). The models and the hangliders used the same soarable ridge. Generally the hangliders were at the west side and the models at the east side. The model flyers would keep line-of-sight separation with the hangliders to make sure of no conflict but the model flyer failed to do so, in this instance, and mis-judged the range separation of the two. The model was fairly heavy, fast and had the wings mounted on steel pins, projecting from the fuselage. The hanglider side-wire slid between the model wing and fuselage, and was cut by the steel mounting pin of the model.