Thanks to Piers for finding the airprox report. The answer to your question,
Jim is that he wasn't necessarily at 250ft, but even if he was he was flying a
"self-launch" glider so he could power himself into a climb if he needed to.
Also, he was on a long-range flight, so the proximity of a glider site was
immaterial.
Note that the glider reported an altitude relative to a QNH (not necessarily a
recent one, of course) and the Tornado reported a height agl.
Gliders are very difficult to spot from below or level: they are normally
white, very thin with tiny markings and no strobe.
Chris
28 Jul 2013, at 22:13, Jim Nichols <jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Thanks, Chris. You are correct. However, even near an airport, they
> must watch their altitude, though those high-aspect-ratio wings provide
> a very low sink rate. We recently had one get too low on an approach to
> the municipal airport, which has long runways, and he ended up in a
> tree. The tree was in a flat valley, and was below runway elevation. :-[
--
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