Although I would not personally fly a glider in cloud, I do know of a number of glider pilots who would fly into cloud, in the correct conditions, as there is often very strong lift inside of cumlous cloud.

It is highly unlikely that anyone in a glider would fly into Stratacumulous, or any layer cloud however, as there unlikely to be much lift hiding in them

Geoff

Does a glider have a horizon (AI)? I have never flown one but have seen a few and none of them had any sort of gyro reference. I know it is "possible" to keep wings level solely by reference to the compass, but surely not in any turbulence.

A lot of gliders have electric gyro horizons and / or turn indicators. Not so much the basic training types you'll see on the club fleet around most gliding clubs, but a lot of the privately owned ones used for long soaring flights do. You usually switch it on a couple of minutes before you plan on using it, at least you did way back beyond the dawn of time (1980s) , when I was still an active glider pilot.

A couple of points on MATZ crossings:

1. The controller will ask you to set the Airfield QFE. This is becase the MATZ vertical extent is 3000' above the airfield datum and also that the Military use QFE as a landing datum.

2. Brize Norton and Lyneham do not have MATZs. They are Class D airspace (it says so on your map) so it's no different to crossing an airfield such as Bournemouth. So don't ask for a MATZ crossing - ask to cross their airspace.

IO540

My obtuse comment referred to a comment by AOPA, reported recently in Pilot mag, where they said that radar coverage in the UK was restricted to the TMAs. Utter rubbish. It was contained in their response to mode S.


VA

Yes, VA - I challenged that with AOPA. Deafening silence since.

Certainly. If you are flying around outside controlled airspace without mode C on, nobody knows what level you are at. You could be at 500', you could equally well be at FL 240. Your groundspeed can give a rough indication as to how high you might be, but it's just a guess.

Now, along come London Mil working an E-3 AWACS at, say, FL 200. Outside controlled airspace, like you, and a big expensive aeroplane with lots of people on board, so probably under a Radar Advisory Service. Could equally well be a civil unit working an airliner inbound to or outbound from a regional airport outside controlled airspace, the problem is the same.

Say the big jet needs to pass through the same chunk of airspace you are in, in all probability much higher than you, and in reality no danger of a confliction. The controller providing the RAS has to achieve (or do their best to achieve) EITHER 3000' vertical separation based on your mode C or 5 miles horizontal separation. Ideally, the controller would prefer to take 3000' vertical separation above you - however, if your mode C is turned off, the 3000' vertical separation isn't an option, and the controller has to take 5 miles horizontally against you. Effectively, you are wiping out a 10 mile diameter cylinder of airspace centered on your aircraft, from the surface to FL 245, that an aircraft under RAS has to be vectored around. I understand that some transponders are mode A only, but I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would intentionally leave mode C off. It happens a lot though.

I would question the sanity of someone who did that. Just because no-one knows thet are doing it, doesn't mean they aren't busting CAS, or heading for a nasty encounter with a 747 for that matter.

Hope that explains what I meant. Clear as mud, probably :)

Edit: Whoops, it wasn't me that you were asking to elaborate. I feel a bit daft now.