There's another way to get into a collision situation.

If you have another glider very close, slightly below and outside you a
thermal you can be in a situation where there are few options. You can't
climb since you have no excess airspeed. You can't descend,or roll out of
the turn without a collision and you are turning as tight as you can without
risking loss of control.

If the other glider is smaller and more nimble and "herds" a larger, less
maneuverable into a tight turn the situation can have you sweating bullets
until he moves away.

Been there. Please don't crowd another glider from the outside.

Bill Daniels

"JJ Sinclair" wrote in message
...
Real good post, Paul. Thank you for your candor.
I remember the day I was following a ship on the ridge at old Vacaville. I
was
inside and a little behind, because we were slope soaring and I knew he
would
be turning away from the ridge.

Bad assumption, he turned into the ridge. I came sooooo close to a head-on
collision that I had to bank my ship to match the slope of the ridge. He
passed
with him 15 feet above me and the tree tops were 15 feet below me.

That 5 second near-miss has been a lasting memory of just what
*assumptions*
can do.

The mid-air collisions that I'm familiar with, fall into 3 categories;

1. Distraction (looking at the goodies)

2. Unable to see the other guy (in the clouds, low sun angle, smoke, haze,
etc.)

3. Maneuvering (one or both ships maneuvering)

Enough, of this! Let's not be looking at out toys, too much. Watch out
when
working the wispies, call out your altitude or ask the other guy for his.
Clear
all turns and give a quick, "JJ's going left".
JJ Sinclair