Flarm blind spots are mostly about the aerial placement: you will not see
anyone directly below or above due to signals not going through fuselage.
It works well on the head on case. With the above/below blindspot you
would
have been alerted earlier as the other glider approached out of
blindspot.
They are not perfect and need to be used along with good lookout. With
Flarm you get a directed lookout which is very effective.
Mandatory Flarm in comps and preferably in all gliders/tugs is a small
price to pay for the increased safety, but : YOU STILL NEED TO LOOK OUT!
Tom

It is worth running the range analysis software from the Flarm web site to
check how well your aerial is working, albeit this shows the horizontal
range. I was very pleased to find a similar tool recently on the LX Nav web
site that allows you to do this for a file from an LX8000/9000.

I am experimenting with two commercially available L shaped and T shaped
aerials that are intended to reduce vertical blind spots at the expense of
some horizontal range. So far so good, and that is just with the L aerial
mounted inverted under the glare shield.

Mike

Mike