ATC are usually competent so the issue usually arises because someone did not know or did not care there is an airfield there, and flew non radio by which I mean having a radio but not using it.
A second level of the problem is flying through the IAP of a Class G airfield, but that is excusable because PPL training is VFR only so the pilot is not required to know about the IAP. I have seen that many times too. A Seneca flew through the EGMD ILS, at the 3200ft platform altitude…
I sympathise with OP. At my local airfield we occasionally get SET traffic going through the ATZ at circuit height and not in radio contact. The markings are of a recognisable operator and we know where it landed, but I don’t think the matter has been raised. This operator has had at least one category A near miss filed against them in another ATZ. Most turbine operators give ATZs a wide berth if transiting VFR, and make contact on the radio, as part of their SOPs.
I brief students in faster aircraft to slow down before crosswind (UK joining procedures), usually by extending gear and in some cases first stage flaps before crosswind. Overtaking traffic with the slower aircraft lost in ground clutter is a real risk with most circuit traffic at 80-90 KIAS on downwind. A CAA examiner however complained about one student who slowed one mile before the ATZ for a left base join to a visual circuit on an IR ride, claiming the IR is a commercial standard and speed is a commercial constraint. I found this surprising.
LeSving wrote:
Also, glider pilots (I guess he was glider pilot flying a TMG), are used to flying close – much closer and in larger numbers than GA pilots. There were no danger here at all as I see it, even if he flew a bit hairy.
Understatements to say the least – ‘flew a bit hairy’ 
But seriously, the issue is not whether he was used to flying close to other pilots but whether I was used to having objects flying that close to me and how I would react to him suddenly being there….. putting himself on a collision course with me without knowing how I would react is a risk too far….. not just for him, but also for me.
No danger, you say. Well, let’s imagine I was just a student doing circuits solo and suddenly he appears there; I immediately pull back on the yoke to climb, push full power but forget to retract the flaps and, concerned he is still climbing up towards me, keep pulling – you can guess what happens next…. Didn’t a similar instance happen at Shoreham a few years back? Ok, the student was asked to circle in order to allow a faster aircraft to land but it was a situation where the student had to handle a situation he was unfamiliar with.
Let’s face it, the Motor Glider pilot was on frequency, knew I was coming in to land but still decided to fly through the approach path at a height liable to create a conflict. He didn’t know whether I was a 20 hour student flying solo or a 10.000 hour ATPL with experience in formation flying, which makes him doubly reckless, going through the approach path of an active airfield, below circuit height, without stating his intentions nor establishing where aircraft in the circuit were…..
Unfortunately this is another example of a poorly skilled glider pilot. In the last 2 years, I have had some pretty bad examples of UL idiots you wouldn’t believe, both in the air, and on the ground. Just talking to some of them gives me the creeps. Bad to nonexistent radio skills, insufficient knowledge of air law, dumb ignorance or arrogant disregard of aerodynamics… that was all fun and stuff as long as the gliders were made of aluminium tubes covered with cloth, but now they are real planes and I just think the education drastically falls behind the capabilities of their so-called gliders-turned-aircraft
Steve6443 wrote:
No danger, you say. Well, let’s imagine I was just a student doing circuits solo and suddenly he appears there
As I initially said, I agree with Silvaire that in a situation like this you have to take things in your own hands and avoid the danger altogether. It’s no matter to you who fault it is if you end up dead. Just think of him as a mad dog running wild or something. Beside, it IS everybody’s responsibility to avoid collisions, no matter who has caused the dangerous situation in the first place. That is basically my view on things like this. I mean, you had collision warning system as I understand, maybe he had to?
What he did was very wrong, there is no doubt about that. He caused what was potentially a lethal situation. Still, it is very much in your self interest to avoid situations like this altogether, as well as your responsibility as a pilot to do so. This is no defense for him, and no critique of you, it’s just the way I see these things. I got a bus license several years ago, due to “my children, your children, our children” situation Some of the first things you learn is to treat everybody else as random accidents waiting to happen (or “reading” the traffic patterns, looking for signs of dangerous situations). It’s exactly the same thing.
EuroFlyer wrote:
that was all fun and stuff as long as the gliders were made of aluminium tubes covered with cloth, but now they are real planes and I just think the education drastically falls behind the capabilities of their so-called gliders-turned-aircraft
… what exactly are you talking about?
@Steve6443,
I can understand that you were a bit upset about a glider infringing what you considered to be your airspace, but how close to you did he actually pass?
The reason I ask is that we all seem to have have different ideas as to what is “damn close”.
For a typical German autobahn driver a separation of about five feet with a relative speed of, say, 130 kph seems to be quite acceptable.
For a glider pilot in a thermal or ridge soaring, or a mountain pilot, about half a wingspan is comfortable.
An ag pilot flying as high as that is probably cruising back to his landing strip for a re-fill.
For formation flying, wings may overlap.
But it seems that some ACME-schooled PPL/IR pilots (and instructors) get the willies whenever they see another aircraft or an obstacle within a few hundred feet. These are people who do drive on motorways but who have never practiced flight in low ground effect, never made a forced landing from less than 500 feet, people who fly a 1,000 ft agl landing circuit size of a small African nation…
I’m not criticising or defending you or the other pilot, but I do think that each might benefit from the other’s point of view.
The same goes for radio communication: we know that glider pilots are too busy looking out to natter on the radio and twiddle knobs in the panel, so that’s how we should expect them to fly. As they say in Scotland, we just have to get used to it.
Jacko wrote:
…that each might benefit from the other’s point of view.
What benefit can there be from accepting a mid-air collision in the traffic pattern as a normal risk?
Jacko wrote:
I’m not criticising or defending you or the other pilot, but I do think that each might benefit from the other’s point of view.
So you think it’s acceptable to cross through my final approach, without making any radio contact with the airfield, without taking into consideration that I was concentrating on my approach?
For your info, I would estimate the closest he came to me was as he climbed through my altitude and I would guesstimate that that was maybe 50 – 75m away after I had cut the throttle. Had I not cut the throttle, I fear we would have collided, it was that close. Now, according to you and others here on the forum, that distance is practically light years away but I am NOT a close formation flyer and just because the motor glider pilot feels comfortable having someone sitting 20 inches off his wing tip does not mean that every pilot out there feels the same. Additionally the glider pilot should ask himself – what will this guy do when I suddenly pop up from beneath him, overtaking on his left? Will he react responsibly and we both go our separate ways, or will he panic and do something that will endanger both of us???
Jacko wrote:
we know that glider pilots are too busy looking out to natter on the radio and twiddle knobs in the panel, so that’s how we should expect them to
This was not a glider, but a motor glider. A Falke is to all intents and purposes a SEP. Btw, I know quite a few non-glider pilots who will take the club Falke out for a local bimble, as it’s usually the cheapest airplane on the line and also a great and very slow sightseeing platform (been in them several times, albeit only as pax in the two-seat version).
