Glider mid-air in Uvalde takes AOPA eMedia VP O'Callaghan

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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yep, i thought that article was a very nice tribute. i never met Chris but from all accounts on rec.aviation.soaring he was a great guy. I know he had done a lot of good things as a director for the SSA. He is really going to be missed by a lot of people.
 
The paragraph right before the TW quoted portion was great authorship from Chris himself...

Perhaps the best part of soaring is the always changing, always beautiful skyscape. Though I live in an unremarkable region of coastal plains and piedmont, the sky offers daily wonders.
Keen observers of the air, glider pilots often see things others miss. The annual migration of raptors south. The gossamers of migrating spiders glinting on our wings. A monarch butterfly 4,000 feet above the ground, fluttering its way to Central America. A tumultuous roll cloud, marking the turbulence beneath the glassy smooth but powerful lift of mountain wave, and the lens shaped clouds stacked above it. The grey tendrils that sometimes form below a cumulus cloud, marking especially strong eddies of lift. The concave bottoms of cumulus clouds that mark the very strongest of thermals. The extraordinary sensation of flying into a column of smoke rising from a field fire—opaque from the outside, but transparent once inside.
These are my weekly delights… shared with friends at the gliderport.
Click to expand...
RIP
 
That is a loss. Just curious do gliders communicate their positions and altitude during a flight or competition?
 
they are certainly capable of doing so. keep in mind ive never flown a competition. i think the only time they are required to make a call is when they are starting and finishing and of course it is nice if they call in the pattern to land. i suspect that they dont do a lot of random position calls while out on course. for one thing they are likely all flying more or less in a pack anyway.

Interestingly I've heard that Chris had been working with an ADS-B manufacturer (Mitre I think) that has been working on a low weight low cost ADS-B box. when this sort of technology eventually comes available it will probably greatly reduce the mid air risk.

Mid airs at contests are nothing new. There was a glider/glider mid air at the Sports Class Nationals this year too, thankfully both were able to land safely back at the home airport. Everyone knows the risks and does their best to keep a good eye out. Visibility out of these racing gliders is excellent.
 
This goes to show you... reminds me of how legendary glider pilot Bob Symons was killed by somehow exceeding Vne on tow in a wood-spar homebuilt. While being towed by a Tri-Pacer.

This was a guy who once soared in a 7-ton P-38 with the engines secured and props feathered for over an hour between 13,000 and 31,000 feet, among other things... he was hard-core; can't argue with his credentials as a glider pilot. and yet, he died on tow.

Early on, we all learn the basics of safety on tow and when gaggling, but this sort of thing can happen to anybody when their attention slips even a little. And of course, when two pilots are involved, both only have to lose the thread at the same time.

I gaggled with somebody for the first time only recently, without prior arrangement and without air-to-air comms, and it definitely required my full attention. The 2-33 has a huge blind spot- fortunately, I knew the other pilot (higher, in a 1-26) could see me better. Every time I lost sight of him, though, I worried.

This was an approach accident if I heard right, but that's just another situation where you are tempted to fall back on "rote" thinking.
 
Position reports during the contest are usually rare. With the new taskings the gliders fly simliar but not the same course most of the time. Although the temptation is to find the best lift and this may to lead to gliders near each other.

For one thing when you have 30 gliders out on course it does little good to announce I am at your 11:00 when you have no idea which glider you are talking to. Or having 30 gliders all annoucing positions tends to make pilots just turn off the radio as it just clutters the freqency with mostly useless information for majority of the time, Plus it can be augued that there may be some competitive advantage to not reporting or falsely reporting your position. If you do get close enough to see a competition number of the other glider a radio call might be useful, but unless you are at almost the exact same altitude it is more common to just watch the other glider and wave to him and see if he responds, to confirm he sees you.

Now while finishing or approaching the airport, as my understanding of this accident was, it is common to make the normal radio call as you would in a power plane usually starting about 5 miles out from the airport.

Glider flying really teaches see and avoid, and we fly in traffic conditions that would scare many power pilots, at least in contest flying. Imaging 30 gliders circling in a 5 mile circle at the same time. We realize there is an increased risk which is why at contests we always wear parachutes.

Glider pilots would really love to see a good econmical traffic avoidance system. We had great hopes for ADS-B but is looks like a typical system will as much or cost more the many of the gliders we fly. Europe has adopted a FLARM system that works well but has some challenges fitting into the US Air traffic system. There are several options including the Mitre system already mentioned that are being developed but as of yet little is available for gliders in the US.

Transponders help and many gliders are adopting them, however the change to ADS-B is slowing the progress as many pilots try to figure out what equipment they can buy that will provide the most benefit without being obsolete in a few years.

However it is very unlikely that any system will prevent glider midairs in congested airspace when you are tracking 5 targets already that are less than 1/4 mile away from you the report of a 6th or just losing track of one of the 5 could still cause a midair. Admittedly this is not how most midairs seem to happen.

Instead they seem to occur when two gliders think they alone and suddenly find they are not usually when the contact occurs. A Traffic Alert system would be useful for this more common scenerio. Glider pilots are actually usually more concerned about conflicts with power traffic. Hopefully the engineers and FAA will figure out a system soon the most pilots can afford soon, in the mean time we are waiting.

Brian
HP16T
 
Chris was posthumously awarded the SSA Exceptional Service award at our banquet on Saturday night. The standing ovation he received was quite moving.
 
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