Gliders and Transponders......again.

Washington DC Examiner January 15, 2009

Don't agree with everything Barb pushes, but she did her homework. The
whole article and reader feedback below. Thanks Frank for noting.

Please also post your comments at:

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/Wa...go_011509.html

Not just at rec.aviation.soaring. Congressional staffers read and
publish this stuff.

Michael
__________________________________

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/Gl...ys_011509.html

Gliding toward disaster: Tragedies and near-misses continue as FAA
delays

By Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor 1/15/09When 36-year-old Matthew Broadus of
Redmond, Washington climbed aboard the sleek Schleicher ASK-21 glider
three days after receiving an acrobatic plane ride as a Christmas
present, he had no idea Dec. 28, 2003 would be his last day on Earth.

Neither did 30-year-old Keith Coulliette - son of Roy Coulliette,
manager of the Pleasant Valley Airport outside Phoenix and owner of
the Turf Soaring School - who was planning on giving Broadus the ride
of his life.

Carl Remmer, an 82-year-old retired Marine Corps pilot and commercial
flight instructor, and his 80-year-old friend Bob Shaff, both
experienced pilots, were also out enjoying a flight in Remmer’s Piper
Cub when tragedy struck.

According to witnesses, the glider was coming out of a cloverleaf
maneuver at about 600 feet when Remmer’s left wing slammed into its
tail, sending the glider hurtling straight into the desert floor. The
impact also ripped off a three-foot-long section of the plane’s wing
and sent it into a death spiral.

A subsequent investigation of the fatal accident by the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found the plane’s unexpected entry
into the imaginary “aerobatic box” used by the glider partially to
blame. However, neither aircraft had a transponder, and NTSB
investigators cited both pilots’ failure to see each other as the main
cause of the crash that killed all four men.
They weren’t the only ones. Over the past 20 years, nine people died
and three were injured in preventable mid-air collisions between
gliders and private and commercial aircraft.

Dozens of near-misses endangered many more. But the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) still doesn’t require gliders to carry life-
saving transponders, a simple way to eliminate the risk.

* In 2006, a Hawker commercial jet pilot told NTSB that even with a
collision avoidance system, he had less than a second to take evasive
action after a glider suddenly appeared in his windshield. The two
aircraft collided over Smith, Nevada, damaging one of the Hawker’s
engines and completely disabling the glider, whose pilot had turned
off his transponder to reserve battery power and had to parachute to
safety.

* A transponder would have alerted a commercial jet arriving at
Chicago’s busy O’Hare International Airport in 1989 that it was on a
collision course with a glider at 5,000 feet. O’Hare’s air traffic
controllers didn’t know the glider was there because it didn’t show up
on their radar screens. Catastrophe was averted only because one of
the commercial pilots spotted the glider less than a half-mile away
and took immediate evasive action.
This scenario has been repeated at least twice every year for the past
two decades, but the FAA still allows gliders to fly without
transponders, which one critic likened to “driving at night without
your headlights or tail lights on.”
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is The Examiner’s local opinion editor. She
can be reached by email at: .

4 Comments ***

Reader Comments:

POSTED Jan 15, 2009jlatc: "So, the big sky, little bitty airplane
theory doesn't hold up so well? Why single out gliders? No aircraft
except as required by FAR Part 91.215 and FAR Part 99.12 must have an
operating transponder."

POSTED Jan 15, 2009hantavirus: "Obviously the writer of the article
never had real life "encounter" with a glider. There is a good reason
for exemption. I have a transponder and a hefty battery to power it.
Guess what, after 6 hours of flight the battery is flat dead, and no
transponder in any case. So FAA is wise not to create false
expectations. Gliders are required to have transponders to enter some
airspace. The example of "Chicago" seems like the one that may fall
into that category, but then again the jet may well have been in a
place it should not have been in. Following Writers logic, we should
have equip all pedestrians with horns, flashing lights... How many
people die in crosswalks? Please Barbara, look for sensation in that
direction."

POSTED Jan 15, 2009ydg: "Anyone familiar with transponder technology
will immediately recognize that it can do very little to maintain
separation between two aircrafts maneuvering under Visual Flight Rules
at 600 feet. Barbara, I understand that Examiner owner Phil Anschutz
has a personal agenda (http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/
Gliding_toward_disaster_-_a_timeline_of_key_events_011509.html).
However, you really are bringing a wrong case here. NTSB's official
investigation cited "failure to see and avoid" as the main cause.
Transponders help neither see nor avoid."

POSTED Jan 15, 2009Andy: "I have flown at the accident airport for
over 20 years. I knew 2 of the people that died that day. The use or
absence of transponders had absolutely no significance in the
accident. Had both aircraft been fitted with transponders it could not
possibly have made any difference. Please do some research so that you
have some understanding of the subject before you publish your
opinions."

_____________________

Warnings began years ago
By Examiner Special Report
- 1/15/09

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) was established by
Congress to investigate transportation accidents, determine their
specific cause, and make recommendations to prevent similar mishaps in
the future.
More than two decades ago, the agency warned FAA about the limitations
of the “see and avoid” method used by glider pilots and others flying
under VFR. The agency’s analysis of past accidents conclusively
determined that the use of VFR alone posed the highest risk of mid-air
collisions. Yet many glider pilots still rely on VFR exclusively,
putting themselves and other pilots at risk.

They’re not the only ones who fail to take advantage of the cushion of
safety transponders provide. Since 2001, NTSB has investigated 51
incidents in which the lack of a transponder – or the failure to use
one – played a significant role.
Accidents happen, even in wide-open spaces where mid-air collisions
seem impossibly improbable. For instance, in 2005 one person was
killed and two military pilots had to ditch their plane when a newly
manufactured Air Tractor crop duster being flown to its new owner
collided with an Air Force Cessna on a routine training flight in
Oklahoma. The crop duster’s transponder had not yet been installed.
Last year, 31 near mid-air collisions were reported to the FAA. If
every aircraft carried a transponder, that number would probably be
much lower.

Glider pilots speak almost rhapsodically about the feeling of freedom
they get when soaring above the Earth and “reading” the wind currents
to keep aloft. Sailplanes are also a great way to teach student pilots
basic aviation skills.
Retired Navy pilot and AOPA member Mark Danielson, who flies for
FedEx, believes all student pilots should be required to spend some
time in unpowered flight, which he says “is the true teacher of both
aerodynamics and weather.”

Danielson noted several incidents in which commercial airliners
crashed, even though their pilots did exactly what they were trained
to do in an emergency, because the aircraft did not respond
accordingly. In such cases, he says, the kind of airmanship uniquely
acquired by learning to fly a non-motorized glider might have averted
a tragedy.

So restricting gliders is not the answer. But for everybody’s safety,
including their own, they do need to be “visible” to other pilots at
all times. --- Barbara Hollingsworth

3 Comments ***

*
Reader Comments:
POSTED Jan 15, 2009FT Pilot: "As a former military pilot with several
thousand hours flight time, I must disagree with most of this article.
Visually recognizing other aircraft has saved my life many more times
than the full array of technology I had in the cockpit. As for
transponders, they do nothing to help a pilot recognize other air
traffic if they don't have the other equipment that goes along with
them. The weight and high cost of this equipment would prevent any
small plane from being manufactured, especially gliders."

POSTED Jan 15, 2009: "I don't understand how the mere installation of
a transponder would have prevented the accident discussed or what the
author is proposing regarding transponders and gliders."

POSTED Jan 15, 2009Ray C.: "Barbra, a couple of things about your
series. First, you refer to the Hawker pilot as 'He" in another
article but in fact is was a female pilot flying that jet. In that
incident there were other very significant factors including a real
lack of training on the part of the local flight controllers, who
directed the aircraft to an area that is populated with gliders on a
regular (almost daily) basis. Something you have yet to bring up is
that military aircraft lack some of the essential gear (TCAS)which
means there are blind to all other air traffic. A transponder will not
help you with those guys unless ATC has you AND is talking to them.
The fact is that some gliders just will not be safer with a
transponder and can't operate with them, due to battery and other
issues. Other gliders really should have them. I just installed one in
my glider."