On Oct 14, 1:52*am, Derek C wrote:
On Oct 12, 4:14*pm, Peter Scholz
wrote:



Am 12.10.2010 16:25, Darryl Ramm wrote:

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.

---

Yes, this area has airline traffic, but not what you would call "high
density". ATC aouthorities are watching this closely, and they have the
exact traffic figures, and they also have clear rules when to implement
a Class C or Class D airspace to seperate IFR and VFR traffic. Up to
now, there was no need to do so, we will hear in a few weeks it this
will change next year. We talk to those ATC people, and they listen to
us. There are also glider pilots amongst them.

But definitely there is no cooperation to be expected from Ryan Air. A
company that wants you to pay for the use of the toilet in their planes,
and that recently started to apply for flying their planes with only one
pilot in order to save money will for sure not sponsor any security
equipment for glider pilots.

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.

The situation in Germany is different than in the USA. There is in
general a far more strict seraration between IFR and VFR traffic. E.g.
for the traffic to and from Frankfurt International there will never be
(legally) a situation like the one described in the incident report, as
all IFR fraffic is routed through Class C airspace.

Requiring mandatory transponder use for gliders in Germany would be sure
overkill, and we are fighting against a rule like that.

--
Peter Scholz
ASW24 JE

Can I also point out that fitting Transponders to gliders without TCAS
does not give them any means of avoiding glider to glider type
collisions. It is onlyreally of benefit to ATC and airliners, but
glider owners are expected to pay for them!

Derek C

TCAS in a glider? That's not ever going to happen. But quite a few of
the transponder equipped gliders in the USA (we have a high ratio of
those in Northern California/Nevada) also carry the Zaon MRX PCAS and
they are mostly helpful for glider-glider and glider-GA traffic
awareness--but a lot less useful than Flarm would be.

No single technology does now, and no upcoming technology will provide
very effective traffic awareness/collision avoidance needs across
glider-glider, glider-GA and glider-airliner/fast jet etc. If
airliners are a serious concern in an area then transponders in
gliders working with ATC radar and the TCAS in airliners is the
ultimate technical approach available to help avoid a collision. The
glider pilot installs a transponder to avoid the airliner running into
him, to avoid the deaths of an airliner full of passengers and to
avoid the damage to soaring that such an accident would cause. There
is absolutely no collision avoidance technology available that could
warn a glider pilot and give them more information/effective result
than allowing TCAS II in the airliner cockpit to do its thing.

Traffic awareness technology in the glider cockpit can help make
glider pilots aware of where airline etc. traffic is. PCAS can do that
a little (but is too slow/short range and non-directional to deal with
airliners and fast jets). ADS-B will help in future (but with lots of
caveats esp. around the dual-link technology in the USA). However none
of these future technologies will provide the ultimate saftey net that
transponders and TCAS do, not for decades.

The appropriate technology for glider-glider and glider-towplane
scenarios is Flarm and the glider-GA question is more complex
especially in the USA. PCAS has been the only answer we've had there
for a while. ADS-B may be the answer long-term (but it looks like it
is going to be a mess in the USA for quite a while).

Darryl