On Oct 12, 2:08*am, John Smith wrote:
Darryl Ramm wrote:
If glider pilots choose to fly near areas of high-density airline and
fast-jet traffic *without a transponder and the decision would only

I hate that "who has been there first" argument nearly as much as I hate
Usenet posters who don't care to reasonably trim quotations. Anyway, in
Germany, nearly everywhere gliders have been first.

That area has been densly populated by gliders for a long time, without
any conflict whatsoever. There's a perfect international airport nearby,
Frankfurt-Main (EDDF), which coexists with the gliders without any
problem. Now Ryanair appears and chooses not to use Frankfurt-Main, but
rather fly to Frankfurt-Hahn (EDFH) instead, because it's cheaper (in
fact, ist's even subsidized...). And then Ryanair asks that gliders
should go and spend thousands of Euros for transponders, so Ryanair can
spare a few bucks in landing fees by using a subsidized airport.

But every time a glider takes off in that area now is the glider pilot
making a decision to fly in an area of high density airline traffic? I
know this mess was not created by the glider pilots changing how they
operate--but what is reasonable to do now from a safety viewpoint? If
that traffic is there then transponders will likely provide a strong
safety-net, and lack of use might well end up costing a planeload of
passengers their lives and cost soaring greatly if there is a mid-air.
By all means go and tackle Ryanair on the safety implications of what
they are doing. They hardly have a good PR image and the public may
well be sympathetic.

---

Moving topic somewhat but I want to make the point that we've lost
several airliners full of passengers in fatal-midair collisions with
light-aircraft and the response to that was largely transponders and
TCAS/ACAS. And gliders operating near high density airline and fast
jet traffic without transponders are effectively bypassing that
evolution. I worry that human nature and perception of risks can allow
apparent reduction of risks in situation because we don't perceive
those rare but critical accidents happening frequently enough to
register as practical risks even if they have catastrophic outcomes. I
start my talks on collision avoidance with the following (USA centric
information). There are similar fatal mid-air collisions outside the
USA.

Allegheny 853
MD DC-9 vs. Piper Cherokee
Fairield, Indiana 1969 -- 83 killed

Pacific Southwest 182
Boeing 727 vs. Cessna 172
San Diego, California 1978 -- 144 killed

Aeroméxico 498 (the mid-air that lead to Mode C transponder and TCAS
carriage requirements in the USA)
MD DC-9 vs. Piper Cherokee
Cerritos, California 1986 -- 82 killed, 8 injured

NetJets N879QS
Hawker 800XP vs. Schleicher ASG-29
Reno, Nevada 2006 -- 3 minor injuries (we were very lucky)

Darryl