The holy grail of glider technology is the ability to read the strength of thermals at a distance. So far, accomplishing that has evaded all those who have tried. PowerFlarm offers the best hope for doing just that on a limited scale when there are other gliders in a cooperating network. If you want to view that as a leeching tool, so be it. Glider racing is inherently a cooperating process.

There are folks now that are advocating voice cooperation between racers. Certainly the subject PowerFlarm functionality is fairer and more benign than having guys off on a separate frequency discussing strategies.