Comments

I have to object to your characterization of the midair involving the business jet and the sailplane. You say that the jet captain "barely had time to avoid the glider when it collided with the nose of the Hawker." This creates the subjective impression in the reader that the Hawker was an innocent victim, as it were, that the glider ran into. You portray gliders as an in-flight hazard to jets. But the jet was moving at hundreds of knots, and the glider was thermaling at perhaps 45 knots - essentially stationary. Your description is like saying that "the pedestrian ran into the car." A more accurate description of the event would be that the jet captain ran over the glider, and did so (by the way) having failed to give way to the glider as required by the FARs. The jet was an in-flight hazard to the glider (which, by the way, was demolished in the collision - fortunately the pilot was wearing a parachute and the jet did not kill him). If gliders are made to sound like an in-flight hazard, the reader may conclude that perhaps they should be eliminated or more tightly regulated for the safety of jets everywhere. But from a glider's perspective, fast-moving jets (with pilots who aren't looking out the window) are a (very worrying) in-flight hazard that perhaps should be eliminated or more tightly regulated for the safety of gliders everywhere. Isn't it the responsibility of those who charge around the sky at high speed, to make sure they don't run down the little people? (I mean, that's what FAA is demanding of mere UAVs.) Remember, technically the glider has right of way; it's the jet's responsibility to see and avoid it - and the jets are refusing/failing to use appropriate technology to do so. Of course, the glider perspective is a minority one, and because of that it may at first sound strange - as a pedestrian's might in a world with few pedestrians. But you see how a change in emphasis leads to a change in the implied solution. Thus, I object to your implication that gliders are a hazard, a problem, a thing to be eliminated. Fast-moving jets are a problem, and their collision avoidance technology is inadequate, given the speed they're flying at. And, yes, gliders have been trying for years to get a) a national transponder code and b) transponders with low power requirements - which is partly a problem because minimum output power requirements are designed for power aircraft, and are designed to ensure that the signal reaches ATC (and not just TCAS in the area). But the FAA has a million more important things to do than to address transponders in sailplanes. We know. And we worry that we'll be the next one to be run over by a jet. If you think it's scary to be in a jet, in a sky that may have gliders in it, then think about how it is to be in a glider, in a sky that may have jets in it.