Thread
:
PowerFLARM leeching comments
View Single Post
#
6
October 28th 12, 11:40 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Evan Ludeman[_4_]
external usenet poster
Posts: 484
PowerFLARM leeching comments
On Sunday, October 28, 2012 4:45:03 AM UTC-4, Don Johnstone wrote:
At 23:35 21 October 2012,
wrote:
On Saturday, October 20, 2012 5:52:55 PM UTC-4, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Saturday, October 20, 2012 5:30:05 PM UTC-4, Don Johnstone wrote:
I was very uncomfortable with the concept of instructing pilots to lessen
the efficiency of an anti-colision assistance device.
Stealth mode in no way lessens the efficacy of FLARM anti-collision. It
gives you warnings when there is a collision hazard regardless.
Hope that is clear,
Dave,
it is clear, and while your statement is probably technically accurate,
it
isn't entirely correct. Any mode that reduces the pilot's situational
awareness also degrades safety to some extent. Stealth mode by definition
does exactly that. The OC fatality scenario is a case where stealth mode
might
not provide enough warning to assess the situation and take appropriate
action, whereas the 'full' mode probably would. Just my $0.02
Frank (TA)
From the FLARM manual
"Stealth mode inherently reduces some of the benefits of situation
awareness for yourself and surrounding aircraft. We do not recommend the
use of Stealth mode, but it is better than turning FLARMŽ off for tactical
reasons."
There is no way that the above can be interpreted in any way other than the
safety benefits are reduced. Do you really want to be seen being
responsible for telling pilots to reduce safety?
http://www.flarm.com/support/Flarm_Competitions.pdf
It's a matter of how much warning and of what type is useful and actionable..
You have not actually flown with PowerFlarm "radar", have you?
The amount of head down time required to develop any actionable information from present flarm radar screens is scary large. In fact I would argue that given only flarm/butterfly panel mount displays currently available we'll be safer with everyone in stealth mode simply because there will be less to look at on the panel and eyes may stay outside a little more. 3rd parties will solve the display problem even if Flarm doesn't, but the fact remains that radar in open mode shows you mostly targets that are not and will never become collision threats.
Read (I tire of saying this) the dataport spec. Page 19. It describes in detail what stealth mode actually does. Among other things, you'll find that it still displays all radar targets that might become a collision threat.. I can make the argument that this enhances safety because it does not so clutter the display with non-threats.
Evan Ludeman / T8
Evan Ludeman[_4_]
View Public Profile
View message headers
Find all posts by Evan Ludeman[_4_]
Find all threads started by Evan Ludeman[_4_]