Glider and hang glider question - Radar?

[Dave Homewood]

First of all, do hang gliders and lightweight gliders actually show up on Air Traffic Control's radar? I mean they're ofen very flimsy and made from plastic, fibreglass, wood etc rather than metal. Do they have a radar signature?

Or do they have to have some special tracking device so they can be seen?

I was also thinking, it's years and years since I have seen hang gliders anywhere. You used to see them heaps in the 1970's and early 1980's. Was it a craze that faded away? Where are all the die hards who continue the hobby now? Are they still flying at Te Mata Peak, or Raglan, etc?

[sniff]

Interesting topic!

Firstly, when flying the Andover doing HALO (High Altitude Low Open) with PTSU, Auckland Radar could see the bodies exiting the aircraft. So bodies in parachutes are detectable!

If glider pilots wear parachutes, then even if they are in a plastic plane, if you know what to look for you will find them.

But, as the use of primary radar diminishes, the chance of seeing them also reduces. For instance, you wouldnt see anything flying around Queenstown unless it had TCAS/Transponder.

And hang-gliders seem to have been replaced by parapenting these days (no poles to lug back up the hill, just fabric) so the profile is reduced, but not impossible to see.

[flyjoe180]

Gliders utilise transponders like any powered aeroplane or helicopter. The standard glider transponder code in NZ is 1300. Hang gliders wouldn't have transponders I would imagine. What about Balloons?

[Dave Homewood]

I wondered about hang gliders for two reasons, one I've seen them used in films to infiltrate places (James Bond style) but the other is my cousin was a champion hang glider (still competes nowadays I think) but back in 1985 during the big Triad exercise he was flying his hang glider and had two F-15's pass just underneath him! I wonder if they even knew he was there.

Have there been cases of midairs between hang glider and aircraft? It'd be like a big bird strike I guess, the plane might survive, the glider wouldn't.

[DragonflyDH90]

Hang gliding is still very active in NZ and has been taken to different levels also with speed gliding, speed/slalom, aerobatics (mostly loops) and the old standards of altitude and distance.
As evident at the recent Air Games at Wanaka (there is a little on Youtube under "airsports live" and "new zealand airgames"
Very impressive to watch.