U.K. near-midairs

This is curious as like all things in british bureacracy it takes time for
stats to be reported and given that the AIB has only just released the
results of 2003 It must be that that is referred to. If so then as usual
there has been a slight case of exageration as there were only 8 airprox
involving civil gliders in 2003 in the uk - 3GA, 1 GA heli, 1 glider vs
glider, 1 Civil, 1 milatry & 1 unknown ? (ufo??). But there were also 3
military gliders who filed airproxes 1 vs Military the other 2 GA. and had 2
Airproxes filed against them. This was out of a total of 181. Also note that
I am not sure that the aib differentiates between gliders and hang gliders.
The biggest total was unsurprisingly Military who claimed the top two spaces
with 18 airproxes against themselves and 18 vs Civil. The worst class
overall was military who had 65 airprox filed against them with GA a close
second with 50. ( Civil Gliders only had 2 airprox filed against them and
one of these was by another glider pilot)

full report at http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/423/Pages%...%20BK11web.pdf see
page 7 for summary table

I have yet to see a Light aircraft take avoiding action - I suspect they are
concentrating on the instruments and gps far too intently. The only time I
know I have been spotted is when I have been thermaling near ATZs and heard
complaints to the local traffic management (tower/radio) that I was actually
in the ATZ when I was a good 3-4+ miles clear. I think the only time power
pilots are looking out the window is on Final aproach and then they get a
completely false sense of prospective. I would suspect our wingspan may have
something to do with it as they they think we are smaller thatn we actualy
are and thus get the distance wrong.
As for the altitude comment given the usable airspace in the UK is sub 7k ft
and mostly sub 5k ft I dont see that anything has changed with the newer
models this was well within reach of pre-glass gliders.


"Jack" wrote in message
om...
"Gliders in the U.K. were involved in 10 near-midairs
in the second half of last year, safety investigators
said recently, noting that newer models fly at high
altitudes without transponders and are hard to see,
both visually and on radar...."

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#188600


e.g., http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3763766.stm

I find the concept of "near-midairs" close to useless. One pilot's "near
miss" is another pilot's "sighting". If there was some way of accurately
and consistently measuring the distances and then quantifying large numbers
of results objectively then it _might_ be useful. Until then there are only
"hits" and "misses" in my book. "Hits" make the evening news, subjective
war stories shouldn't...
-Bob

"Stephen Haley" wrote in message
...
This is curious as like all things in british bureacracy it takes time for
stats to be reported and given that the AIB has only just released the
results of 2003 It must be that that is referred to. If so then as usual
there has been a slight case of exageration as there were only 8 airprox
involving civil gliders in 2003 in the uk - 3GA, 1 GA heli, 1 glider vs
glider, 1 Civil, 1 milatry & 1 unknown ? (ufo??). But there were also 3
military gliders who filed airproxes 1 vs Military the other 2 GA. and had
2
Airproxes filed against them. This was out of a total of 181. Also note
that
I am not sure that the aib differentiates between gliders and hang
gliders.
The biggest total was unsurprisingly Military who claimed the top two
spaces
with 18 airproxes against themselves and 18 vs Civil. The worst class
overall was military who had 65 airprox filed against them with GA a close
second with 50. ( Civil Gliders only had 2 airprox filed against them and
one of these was by another glider pilot)

full report at http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/423/Pages%...%20BK11web.pdf
see
page 7 for summary table

I have yet to see a Light aircraft take avoiding action - I suspect they
are
concentrating on the instruments and gps far too intently. The only time I
know I have been spotted is when I have been thermaling near ATZs and
heard
complaints to the local traffic management (tower/radio) that I was
actually
in the ATZ when I was a good 3-4+ miles clear. I think the only time power
pilots are looking out the window is on Final aproach and then they get a
completely false sense of prospective. I would suspect our wingspan may
have
something to do with it as they they think we are smaller thatn we actualy
are and thus get the distance wrong.
As for the altitude comment given the usable airspace in the UK is sub 7k
ft
and mostly sub 5k ft I dont see that anything has changed with the newer
models this was well within reach of pre-glass gliders.


"Jack" wrote in message
om...
"Gliders in the U.K. were involved in 10 near-midairs
in the second half of last year, safety investigators
said recently, noting that newer models fly at high
altitudes without transponders and are hard to see,
both visually and on radar...."

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#188600


e.g., http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/3763766.stm

This is why I only use fatalities for accident statistics of any kind
to judge relative safety.
They are the only utterly consistently metric.

Bob Korves bkorves@winfirstDECIMALcom wrote:
I find the concept of "near-midairs" close to useless. One pilot's "near
miss" is another pilot's "sighting". If there was some way of accurately
and consistently measuring the distances and then quantifying large numbers
of results objectively then it _might_ be useful. Until then there are only
"hits" and "misses" in my book. "Hits" make the evening news, subjective
war stories shouldn't...
-Bob
--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

Bob Korves wrote:
I find the concept of "near-midairs" close to useless. One pilot's "near
miss" is another pilot's "sighting". If there was some way of accurately
and consistently measuring the distances and then quantifying large numbers
of results objectively then it _might_ be useful. Until then there are only
"hits" and "misses" in my book. "Hits" make the evening news, subjective
war stories shouldn't...
-Bob

It could be done by radar for aircraft with transponders (which would
include some gliders and most GA aircraft, at least in the the US) or by
flight recorders (glider/glider near misses could often be measured this
way), but I don't know if any effort is made to get these numbers. The
exception would be if both aircraft were under ATC control.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

At 09:30 21 December 2004, Tony Burton wrote:

Some years ago a pilot was taking his young son for
a ride in a 2-32. There
was a BANG and the 2-32 was knocked into a spin.
After recovery, nothing
seemed amiss. Later on landing one wing wheel assembly
was missing. The
missing wing wheel assembly was found imbedded in
the leading edge of an F4
at the local AFB.

Bill Daniels

I was there that day. It was just west of Black Forest
Gliderport, 1975
I think. The jet was southbound, letting down into
Peterson Field. The
2-32 didn't spin so far as I recall the pilot recounting
the event. The
wingtip wheel was found imbedded in the tip tank of
the jet.


F-4s never carried tiptanks, so presumably wheel was
in an underwing tank. Route to get there must have
been interesting.