Nearly Mid-Air Collision at Estrella

be interesting to know where you where when you saw the B-1...

do you know if there were any IR or VR routes in your area? or were you
inside a MOA

and trust me.. when down low and fast.. two sets of eyes are looking outside
and forward..

BT

"C.Fleming" wrote in message
...
It sounds like a scary 10-15 seconds! I know the feeling: I too have had
close encounters with jets. I've been closer than I would have liked to
737's, F-117's, and a B1-b with its wings fully swept back flying
Nap-of-the-Earth. With one 737, I saw its shadow flying directly at mine,
but it took several seconds for me to find it. The other 737 was pointed
out to me by the Approach controller, but neither of us saw each other.
The
flight of F-117's I'm sure saw me, for they came up from behind and on my
right, and overtook me on a parallel course. They got my heart pounding
though! But it was the B1-B about 1,000 feet below flying at nearly the
speed of sound that scared the bejeezers out of me! Yes, keep your eyes
outside 99% of the time. Feel for the lift, listen to the audio vario,
and
look outside. Not only does this help keep aluminum off of fiberglass,
but
it improves your piloting technique as well.

A couple of points about the Harriers you encountered though:
1.) They may or may not have been in contact with ATC, and even if they
were, there would be no separation requirements between them and you.
2.) Military aircraft do not have the 200 knot limitation under the Class
B
airspace.
3.) Jet pilots tend not to look outside of the cockpit nearly as much as
we
do, and even if they did, it would be extremely difficult for them to see
us. There was a video made of a near-miss a couple of years ago between
an
F-16 and a Cessna 172. The footage was from the Heads-Up Display (HUD) of
the F-16. They missed by 15 feet, and you had to play the video in slow
motion to even see the Cessna.

I know those points don't give us a warm and fuzzy feeling, but that's the
world we live in. The best advice that I have is to either avoid the
areas
of high risk, communicate with the controlling agency, or work from within
the system to keep the aircraft apart from each other through a Letter of
Agreement (LOA).

Fly safe,
Chris Fleming, 'L9'
ATP B-767, CFI-G


"Terry Claussen" wrote in message
...

I have no idea if they were IFR, nor if they could, should or did
comply with the 200 KIAS speed limit under the shelf of the class B. I
also have no idea whether either I or the other glider was seen by the
lead. After the encounter, I lost my enthusiasm for the flight along
with the thermal and worked my way back to the sailport.

When I fly with students in this area, I hammer the idea that our
piece of the sky is busy due to the natural and man-created boundaries
which will force through traffic to overfly our thermal hunting area.
So I received yet another reminder that I cannot see everything even
part of the time. Were one of the Harriers and me to collide does
anyone think that the TV would have the blame anywhere other than me?

Let's be careful out there. I think I am, but again I got another
chance.

Terry Claussen

My personal closest was a twin Cessna (414 or something similar) at exactly
my altitude, about 15 feet off my right wingtip and a heading difference of
about 5 to 10 degrees to the right of my heading (in other words, he came up
from almost directly behind me). The only reason I can think of that he
didn't see me clearly in his windshield was that he was screwing his
girlfriend while his wife sat at home and nobody was flying the plane.

--
Scott
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Building RV-4
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die

"Ian Johnston" wrote in message
news:cCUlhtvFIYkV-pn2-lBQT51GsdKoW@localhost...
On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 15:15:18 UTC, (Kirk Stant)
wrote:

: But even at 350 knots, you
: have time to hear and react to the sound of the approaching fighters

Where I fly, we tend to meet fighters on the level while hill soaring.
They are following contours, so their paths are not nice predictable
straight lines. It's normally only possible to establish a probable
course half a mile away (they don't camouflage them for nothing) which
means about five seconds from impact. In that time, a glider can't
move much further than 500 feet. And since they're wiggling about, you
can only be reasonably sure of their course for about 2 seconds. Which
isn't long.

It's much easier when there is vertical separation, but then who
cares?

My personal best is a Tornado overtaking me on the same height and
about two wing spans (100 feet) away.

Ian


--

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message ...

Actually, if you hear an airplane engine, it's likely that it is directly
below you where the sound can reflect back from the ground.
I'll now tell my near miss story.

Thermalling near Riverside California one day I say a small puff of smoke
off to the south. "That's strange", I thought as I continued to circle.
Next time around the ball of smoke was still there and it seemed bigger.
Several more turns in the thermal and the ball of smoke was getting very pro
minent and there was a black dot in the center of it.

The smoke was jet exhaust and the black dot turned out to be a B52 with me
in his crosshairs. As I dove for clearance, he passed less than 100 feet
above me. That was noisy.

Bill Daniels

Good point, I've listened to the race cars near Turf Soaring many
times while working the house thermal, fun to watch them running
sideways around the short dirttrack.

I once broke hard upon hearing a jet, and turned right into a two-ship
of F-16s who were frantically pulling to get away from me! So we all
saw each other and waggled wings, and went on our business.

OTOH, once while thermalling on the Estrella ridge, just outside a big
piece of class B airspace, I watched a Southwest 737 letting down
towards me, and after a few turns it was obvious that he and I were
going to share a very small piece of sky pretty soon! (Crew must have
been heads down getting their before landing checks done). So when
they got "close enough", I moved aside, let them by (with a wave),
then returned to my thermal, which seemed none the worse for wear.
Kind of like a Laser meeting a supertanker - sometimes right of way is
the wrong way! But was was scary was that this big 737 cruised by
absolutely silently - not a whisper. What if: near cloudbase, poor
vis, same place: No warning whatsoever - Wham, tinkle, tinkle. It is
really important to know where the heavy and fast iron flies in your
area!

Cheers!

Kirk

(Mark James Boyd) wrote in message news:401ec338$1@darkstar...
If radar getting you is a problem, for boats they make fairly
compact aluminum "radar reflectors" that are pretty lightweight.
Dunno if they'd fit in a tail section though, kinda
"ship-in-a-bottle" maybe?

I am planning to fit a marine aluminium corner cube into the fuselage
of the Pirat. It's about 12" on each side, very light, and can be
assembled in situ. There more compact reflectors for marine use which
are claimed to have larger radar cross sections, but the emphasis has
to be on "claimed" there.

Active reflectors are also coming in for marine use. They are
not-quite-transponders: when they hear a pulse they send one, or in
some cases several, back. I don't know how compatible they'd be with
airborne radar systems, though.

Ian

On 3 Feb 2004 04:55:56 -0800, (Ian Johnston)
wrote:

(Mark James Boyd) wrote in message news:401ec338$1@darkstar...
If radar getting you is a problem, for boats they make fairly
compact aluminum "radar reflectors" that are pretty lightweight.
Dunno if they'd fit in a tail section though, kinda
"ship-in-a-bottle" maybe?

I am planning to fit a marine aluminium corner cube into the fuselage
of the Pirat. It's about 12" on each side, very light, and can be
assembled in situ. There more compact reflectors for marine use which
are claimed to have larger radar cross sections, but the emphasis has
to be on "claimed" there.

Sounds interesting. Can you supply more detail yet, like cost, weight,
sources?



--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

Yeah, I have a published 10nm-wide IR route nearby. It extends from 500 ft
AGL to 7,000 ft MSL. Whenever I head out on cross-countries, I get their
status, and plan accordingly. I've seen F-16's and F-117's mostly, but it
was the big B1-b that snuck up on me! I try to transit the route as close
to 90 degrees and as rapidly as possible. The time with the B1-b had me hit
some serious sink 10 minutes before, and I had to thermal in the area; which
I never do! The terrain is very rugged (canyons, mountains, and rolling
sand dunes), so I have to stay high, usually above 10,000 ft.

Chris Fleming, 'L9'
El Paso, Texas

"BTIZ" wrote in message
news:wBETb.7074$IF1.1160@fed1read01...
be interesting to know where you where when you saw the B-1...

do you know if there were any IR or VR routes in your area? or were you
inside a MOA

and trust me.. when down low and fast.. two sets of eyes are looking
outside
and forward..

BT

Ian Johnston skrev den 3 Feb 2004 04:55:56 -0800:

I am planning to fit a marine aluminium corner cube into the fuselage
of the Pirat. It's about 12" on each side, very light, and can be
assembled in situ. There more compact reflectors for marine use which
are claimed to have larger radar cross sections, but the emphasis has
to be on "claimed" there.

It'd be interesting to find out what the speed threshold for the doppler
radars typically is. Unfortunately, that is not a piece of information
they go out of their way to make available. The question is, above or
below the speed of a glider in a thermal?

Cheers,
Fred

we have no problems with local ATC radar picking up our Grob 103, LS-4,
Libelle, and of course.. the Schweitzer Iron, 2-33 and 1-26

but they have to be looking at Primary Radar.. and not just the transponders
BT

"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
...
On 3 Feb 2004 04:55:56 -0800, (Ian Johnston)
wrote:

(Mark James Boyd) wrote in message
news:401ec338$1@darkstar...
If radar getting you is a problem, for boats they make fairly
compact aluminum "radar reflectors" that are pretty lightweight.
Dunno if they'd fit in a tail section though, kinda
"ship-in-a-bottle" maybe?

I am planning to fit a marine aluminium corner cube into the fuselage
of the Pirat. It's about 12" on each side, very light, and can be
assembled in situ. There more compact reflectors for marine use which
are claimed to have larger radar cross sections, but the emphasis has
to be on "claimed" there.

Sounds interesting. Can you supply more detail yet, like cost, weight,
sources?



--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

Fredrik Thörnell wrote:
Ian Johnston skrev den 3 Feb 2004 04:55:56 -0800:

I am planning to fit a marine aluminium corner cube into the fuselage
of the Pirat. It's about 12" on each side, very light, and can be
assembled in situ. There more compact reflectors for marine use which
are claimed to have larger radar cross sections, but the emphasis has
to be on "claimed" there.


It'd be interesting to find out what the speed threshold for the doppler
radars typically is. Unfortunately, that is not a piece of information
they go out of their way to make available. The question is, above
or below the speed of a glider in a thermal?

Cheers,
Fred

In an air surveillance radar the doppler information (instantaneous
radial velocity) is used primarily to reject stationary targets that
creep in via the sidelobes (as opposed to a weather radar which is
really interested in all the IRV data it can gather). In my experience
the doppler clutter threshold was set very low - say 1 or 2 knots. My
experience is military, where the cutoff was set as low as possible to
counter the postulated "spiral in at low radial velocity" attack, but I
believe ATC radar would also have compelling reasons to keep the doppler
cutoff very low (don't want tangential targets disappearing on you).

Where gliders are likely to disappear is in the processing of multiple
radar returns into tracks. A variety of clutter rejection algorithms
can be used, and we never used anything quite as simple as "under X
knots, throw it out". We did, however, try very hard to eliminate bird
tracks, and glider flight patterns obviously have much in common with
certain birds. The distinction is between "visible to ATC" and "tracked
by ATC" - and we'd really like to be tracked.

In short, I don't think there is any simple answer to at what speed a
glider will be tracked by ATC. And while I think using a corner
reflector to provide a great big RCS is a great idea, I can still
imagine the ATC software thinking, "Hmmm, that must be a GREAT BIG hawk
out there...".

IMHO,
Dave

On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:36:06 UTC, Martin Gregorie
wrote:

: On 3 Feb 2004 04:55:56 -0800, (Ian Johnston)
: wrote:

: I am planning to fit a marine aluminium corner cube into the fuselage
: of the Pirat. It's about 12" on each side, very light, and can be
: assembled in situ. There more compact reflectors for marine use which
: are claimed to have larger radar cross sections, but the emphasis has
: to be on "claimed" there.
:
: Sounds interesting. Can you supply more detail yet, like cost, weight,
: sources?

Any chandler will sell them. I'm not sure who does mail order these
days, as a coupleof big names went bust. Gaelforce in Inverness,
maybe, or Jimmy Green in Devon?

I think they are about thirty quid and the one I have on the boat
weighs less than a pound.

Ian