Originally Posted by
aeajr
2000 feet? Not a big deal.
Put up a nice 5 meter cross country glider (16 foot wing span) in a cross country competition and you will want to thermal up to AT LEAST 3000 feet before you even cross the start line. And that is certainly not the highest you might fly. And I am not talking about rouge pilots I am talking about AMA sanctioned events. All flown line of sight.
Typical 3.5 to 4M TD gliders regularly break 2000 feet during AMA sanctioned events and we do it within AMA safety guidelines. We operate under the same see and avoid rules the full scale pilots follow. We see our glider and we see other planes and we move to avoid them. We do not expect them to move to avoid us.
An FPV pilot who is out of site line distance can't necessarily do that. He likely does not have the situational awareness that we have when flying within sight from the ground. That is not a knock it is just an observation.
That is correct and we can see and avoid easily but FPV cannot, at least without a spotter and not in the clouds. But this is actually way off topic.