Nearest near-miss?

On Saturday, May 11, 2019 at 12:26:02 PM UTC-7, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 12:47:45 PM UTC-4, wrote:
..who’s got the closest near-miss?

I was flying out of Bayreuth in the BavariaGlide Pre-Worlds in 1999,
on a task leg heading east (sun to my back) over an large area with no lift,
kinda final-glide to the next area with lift. Suddenly the cockpit got quite
dark. I instinctively pushed the stick forward and looked up, to clearly see
the tape weave on the gear doors of the Nimbus 3D passing directly overhead.
Probably less than 5 feet to the gear, which means my tail was *really* close.
IIRC there were around 80+ gliders in that contest. We had one fatal mid-air.

I've had many close ones with errant gliders in and especially entering gaggles.

A few scares with oncoming gliders under streets as well.

All these strongly motivated my work on FLARM!

Another scary one wasn't quite as close as the Nimbus:
In Vermont decades ago, the glider above and ahead
of me in the gaggle hit a tree and pitched down a bit...

Be careful out there,
Best Regards, Dave

Dave, if I understand it correctly, he passed over your glider from behind. He was passing because he flew faster. So if you "instinctively pushed the stick forward", you actually accelerated, while obviously losing some height. Do you remember what happened with the distance between the two of you? I'm asking because I was in a similar situation (it was done intentionally 'for fun' by the other pilot - we spoke on the ground and he apologized for his dangerous stunt), and it was scary exactly because I couldn't get away from him. I guess opening the airbrakes would have been a better solution, but it all happened in a second and there was no time to think what was best.

On Saturday, May 11, 2019 at 8:02:17 PM UTC-4, Tom BravoMike wrote:
Dave, if I understand it correctly, he passed over your glider from behind.
He was passing because he flew faster. So if you "instinctively pushed the
stick forward", you actually accelerated, while obviously losing some height.
Do you remember what happened with the distance between the two of you?
I'm asking because I was in a similar situation (it was done intentionally
'for fun' by the other pilot - we spoke on the ground and he apologized for
his dangerous stunt), and it was scary exactly because I couldn't get away
from him. I guess opening the airbrakes would have been a better solution,
but it all happened in a second and there was no time to think what was best.

Spoilers would be better, except it takes another second to move your hand...
Pushing the stick forward raised the tail which could have made things worse.
He passed ahead as higher performance and wingloading allowed faster cruise
while still arriving high enough at the area with lift.

Be careful out there,
Best Regards, Dave

PS: The incident in Vermont required evasive action but not so close!