Four years after the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that a national transponder code be set up specifically for gliders, the Federal Aviation Administration has finally gotten around to doing it. Effective March 7, gliders not in direct contact with an air traffic control facility will be encouraged — though not required — to use the transponder code 1202 instead of codes currently used by other small aircraft operating under visual flight rules. The VFRs effectively mean gliders are invisible to commercial airliner crews in the vicinity, since most of the lighter-than-air vehicles do not now carry transponders at all and are extremely difficult for the naked eye to spot.

Curiously, the FAA admits that its action followed from the need for a specific transponder code for gliders, which “operate under some flight and maneuvering limitations,” and was the result of “an accident, many incidents, and [the afore-mentioned] NTSB recommendation.” The accident was a 2006 collision involving a corporate Hawker jet and a private recreational glider operating near the busy Reno/Tahoe International Airport.