Yep. If there is good wave lift, there's strong up and down drafts plus rotors in between. Flying through that stuff at 500 kt. can be hard on the airframe and pax even there's no glider traffic about.

Just noticed that the NTSB prelim on this one is wonderfully verbose...

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...06X01297&key=1

There's nothing more wasted than power left in a battery after a collision. :hmm:

just performing the initial training on the 800, nice to know it is strong as it looks!!!

Minor ? damage
 

Any more 'minor' :mad::mad::mad: damage to the right wing , right engine (detaching from the fuselage), and nose/cockpit, and there would have been 'minor':mad::mad::mad: fatalities.

Given the increase in use of personal aircraft, gliders, advertising blimps, etc, and increases in general and commercial aviation, I would think it wise for FAA to mandate transponders on mostly everything. There is too much going on in the cockpit for pilots to be worrying about mid-airs near major airports.

Hats off to the crew for holding it all together. A crew who gets the instrument panel in their laps and manages to land a plane safely are damn lucky to have survived. :ok:

The big problem with transponders in gliders and other a/c without a generator/alternator is the heavy current drain. A glider battery fits in your hand.
There's some 5000 Flarms installed in European gliders. They cost some 650 Euros and only require 52mA. http://www.flarm.com/product/index_en.html
This is a far more practical way to go for g/a than mode S transponders for everybody, especially considering how long it will be before mode S capable radars are put into operation -- 20 years or so.

Well done to both pilots.

How much wing drag and pull to the right did the Hawker pilots experience? Without the radome and consequent airflow changes to pitot tubes, the airspeeds must have been amost useless.
It looks like combat damage.

Maybe there was a small hamlet near them named Midway, Nevada.;)