Lighting the blue touchpaper of gliding
 

Here are a couple of questions about gliding.
Is it wise for me to orbit my (non SSR) glider around 3 miles finals to a large mil airfield at about 2000' without talking to the airfield even though I have a radio? After all, I am outside the ATZ and I don't have to "recognise" the MATZ.
Also, if I can see there's nothing going on at Scampton, is it okay for me to fly through R313 on a weekday afternoon without talking to anyone? And after I'm finished there, can I then overfly Hibaldstow para dropping site provided I can see there are no 'chutes in the air and not tell anyone that I'm there?

You may be legally allowed to do these things but somewhat bad form not to let someone know you are there. How can you be absolutely sure nothing is going on?
Short answer:- No, it is definately not wise.

Bad day at the office, chief?

Lighting the blue touchpaper of gliding
 

As above, legally allowed but frowned upon in polite company.

There are many things we "can" do but maybe shouldn't...as the bishop said to the actress.

Yes, it's that time of year again.

Depends on how keen the perpetrator is on having a mid-air! Hopefully the rumoured Mode C fitment mandate will take care of the bad apples...

Does anybody know the approximate % of UK glider pilots that have a FRTOL or other radio licence? For the Netherlands I know that a large percentage doesn't, so they are only allowed to operate on a handful dedicated glider frequencies.

JAFO
Without a doubt. Can't comprehend the mentality of some flyers at times.

Maybe those who've never tried flying a cross country task of 300km or greater should try it sometime? I regularly fly XC in both gliders and powered aircraft and I know which is the most challenging and has the highest workload.

There is no excuse for poor airmanship and I do wish more glider pilots had RT licences, but this is changing and the numbers who do are increasing. Its also encouraging that more and more ATC service providers are becoming more sympathetic to the fact that at the time of your call you may be struggling to work a half knot climb to stay airborne whilst trying desperately to avoid infringing 'Little Snoring' ATZ.

Now if only we could do something about the average 'power pilot's lookout - I know the visibility is terrible in a PA28 and the like compared to a glider, but I have had gliders fly straight through the thermal I am in (in class G before you ask) very frequently and likewise what excuse is there for overflying a well known gliding launch site below winch height?

Greenhouses and stones and all that....

There's no excuse for it, but it happens in all forms of aviation i'm afraid, the gliding club i used to fly from used to have a "hall of shame" of pictures of light aircraft flying straight over the top well below 2000' when winch launching was in progress and i have retrieved gliders from fields with an irate farmer standing by still upset by the damage a hot air baloon did to his crops the previous week. The retrieve crew had done nothing to minimise the crop damage in his opinion.

I even saw a facebook post from a local gliding club recently complaining about a single red arrow flying at less than 1000' along their downwind leg... Don't think they got a call from him....

As a glider pilot who regularly calls ATC units I can confirm that the R/T is very distracting. Many controllers seem to want to fill in every box on the progress strip and are oblivious to how irrelevant and distracting it is for the pilot calling. Even sleepy and almost disused airports seem dead against allowing the pilot to leave their frequency once they have called and I have on occasions had to be quite forceful and insisted that I was not going to remain on frequency as I was 10 nm away and there was no useful purpose for me to continue to listen to the drone of taxi instructions etc.
bb

Ok - Question to glider pilots.

You have right of way over power by law, but regardless of the law power pilots are unlikely to steer to avoid what they haven't seen; and gliders are difficult to see. I am not talking about overflying winch sites - on route only.

What can you do to you make gliders more easily seen -

Why not have black or orange paint, for example, to give power pilots more of a chance?

Why not carry a Mode C (at least) transponder? Even if more weight degrades performance, is that last piece of performance really worth your life (and those in the other machine)?

Why not get a radio license and talk to ATC?


I am not anti- glider (or any other machine) just anti crash / death.

John,

All good ideas in theory, but in practice:

1. Glass fibre gliders are (mostly) white in order to avoid heat-soaking the structure, which could comprise its strength.

2. Weight is not the issue with transponders. In fact, on good days, gliders carry water ballast to improve performance. The problem is the power requirement and its impact on the battery life. Cost is also a consideration.

3. RT Licence? Good idea, but I suspect many glider pilots probably don't want to take the time to do it or they don't have an appropriate modern radio.

I42

Understood. But perhaps from your response I am hearing that glider pilots put these slight inconveniences ahead of safety, and then rationalise that decision to themselves by blaming others for not avoiding them.

We are all VFR, flying "see and avoid". The first part is "See" - I suspect that failures in this part are at the root of many conflicts.

Gliders are, by necessity of design, a shape that is more difficult to see than some other aircraft (I fly a helicopter which is one of the more visible, bulky shapes, and occasionally power pilots don't seem to see me, so how much less visible are gliders?). As pilots we try to reduce the risk of not being seen; power machines have mandetory schemes (e.g. warning strobe light) and non-mandetory options (transponder, ATC radio contact) that are commonly (not exclusively used). We could also increase visibility of gliders, yet we don't (in many cases) take any active steps to do so; and then we are 'suprised' when the risk becomes reality.

My crystal ball? If we don't change things ourselves then at some point (time line here influenced by actual crashes / fatalities / reported near miss as skies become more crowded) "elf & safety" concerns at EASA will bring an EU-wide rule change to increase visibility and reduce risk.

Playing devils advocate here...

If you're so worried about a collision with a glider, why don't you install a Flarm device in your aircraft? All of a sudden you'll be warned about perhaps 90%+ of the glider fleet in your vicinity - at least that's what the Flarm uptake seems to be here in NL. Flarm is a lot cheaper than a Mode-C/S transponder plus TCAS/PCAS, and works even in the absence of an interrogation signal. And requires a lot less power.

Gliding and Powered flying happen to be two different worlds, with different education, examination and operating practices. What gives the powered flying world the right to impose their way of life (mode-S transponders, R/T, quadrantal rules, whatnot) on the world of gliding? Why can't the good things from the gliding world (Flarm, keeping a good lookout in uncontrolled airspace) be imposed on the Powered flying world?

As a glider pilot I'm keen on talking to ATC if I'm crossing, for example, an instrument approach - or even in the vicinity of a busy piece of airspace. But it's not quite as simple as it might seem:

• The idea that being in touch with ATC on a basic service does much for collision avoidance is doubtful, I think. (It basically tells you that there's someone in the area - but that was a good assumption anyway, so why weren't you looking out?) And ATC can't do traffic service or deconfliction for many. So it's see and avoid, I'm afraid.
• And, in any case, which ATC unit? - in many cases you've got a choice of several. Being in touch with one doesn't help you much with someone in touch with another.
• Gliders having transponders might help a little. But only if everyone carries some sort of TCAS, which we don't (except see previous post on Flarm). But besides the power and cost issues of transponders there's the inconvenient truth that our "safety" authority makes it quite difficult to fit them to many gliders.

Paul

Input from another glider pilot
 

My twopennorth relating to a couple of points mentioned here. My personal opinion is that cross country glider pilots SHOULD have RT licenses - apart from anything else it makes the use of the other 756 channels beyond the gliding frequencies legal, plus I found the course did much to improve my understanding of how GA airfields operate. So if I'm lurking close to an ATZ whilst climbing for 5 minutes I WILL contact them to let them know I'm there and they do seem to appreciate the call. What is not clear to me is whether glider pilots who train for the new glider pilot's license after EASA transition will need to do the RT module as a compulsory element of the syllabus - anyone out there know ?

The other point relates to the fact that most glider cross country flights these days are electronically logged, permitting after-the-event analysis of individuals' flying habits. You get to see their precise location and altitude every few seconds (oh, and FLARM does this as a by-product of its primary function - you can play your flights back via See You software with superb accuracy). As an instructor, I would undoubtedly have words with a club member who indulged in the legal but dubious practices referred to above in the thread, if picked up through trace analysis. Virtually every BGA ladder claim flight these days has an associated trace publically posted by its pilot, so there is great transparency as to our habits (see www.bgaladder.co.uk)

Quite apart from the problem of localised heating of composite structures if parts are coloured, as someone mentioned earlier, I seem to recall some test were done regarding visibility. Generally breaking up the outline was found to make visibility worse.

So, unless somebody finds a way of making glass gliders with the required strength in either a bright colour or black overall I can't imagine much changing.

I can only think of one accident where a powered aircraft hit a glider but far more of gliders colliding with each other.

Apparently some conspicuity trials were run on gliders a few years ago, the best results were obtained by applying silver mirror finish vinyl on the moving surfaces. Obviously nothing will help in a head on scenario but I understand it worked well otherwise. Why it hasn't caught on is another question.

To be fair, I think Il Duce's original point was more to do with the percieved wisdom of gliding in those locations, combined with radio silence, rather than the general rolling debate on use of radio / transponders etc etc.

I accept the best thermals are always in Class A!!

1) Signal Orange Strips on Glass Gliders are common in competition and not a problem

2) Mode C transponders mandatory in the Netherlands for Gliders operating away from the immediate vicinity of the airfield

3) Flarm and Powerflarm are common in the Netherlands too.