On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 7:43:49 PM UTC-4, wrote:
This is how I see it.
People are talking about situational awareness, and being able to look at your flarm scope and see where other gliders are (without climb rates etc).. Okay so, think about all the years that contests had a waiting list because they filled up, so there were a ton of gliders all flying in close proximity without flarm and they didn't have an overwhelming amount of mid-airs, pretty much because everyone was looking out the window. Now if every one has flarm with just gliders no climb rates, altitudes, or contest ids. Now people are going to be looking at their flarm scope for traffic and not looking out the window, where that guy who's flarm antenna got obstructed is, or that power traffic who doesn't use flarm is . . .

----

Hmmm. If one owns POWERFLARM and is moderately experienced at flying contests with it...one would know that a pilot very rarely looks at the FLARM display. When a pilot does get an unexpected warning the first thing you do is redo your visual scan. If that scan fails, you "might" quickly glance at the display in an effort to better ID the conflict location.

That said, glancing at the FLARM display is almost always unnecessary as FLARM also gives the pilot an audio call for the traffic immediately following the beep warning (Example: traffic, 3 O'Clock, Above). If you do decide to look at the display (once you have checked visually and heard the audio prompt) it only takes a small fraction of a second to glance down at the display and see where the traffic is (relative to your current position) and then get eyes back out again continue trying to find it.

All of this happens in a few seconds, max. The warning, the audio prompt, the scan which began immediately upon the initial beep, the glance, the continued scan, etc. Remember, without FLARM you would not know anything was wrong at all at this point.

A competent competition pilot is constantly scanning (visually, not Flarm). Flarm is your traffic co-pilot, helping you scan with audio cues primarily. When you do get a warning on the Flarm (perhaps the glider in a thermal ahead tightens up the turn) and you hear the initial conflict warning beeps, you almost always expect it and knew it was coming based on what you see visually. The timing of this FLARM warning is incredibly accurate and virtually instantaneous. You actually learn what maneuvers will set off a warning and what won't. As a courtesy to other pilots I try not to set the warning off for them if at all possible (it can be irritating).

Back on the other hand, if you get a FLARM warning that you are not expecting (you see no gliders nearby)...its quite startling (and also, unfortunately, just as accurate). You know there is a problem.

One of the most frightening warnings is when a glider that is following you pulls in close behind you on a pull up. You usually cannot see them and the FLARM audio might say...6 o'clock, below and the display shows a glider right on top of you. One just has to deal with those and have a bit of trust.

I must say that I feel the constant stream of statements about FLARM taking pilots eyes off their visual scan out the window is a VERY large misconception. It simply is not true. At least in my experience.

The audio beeps (and synthesized speech guidance) is 99% of what FLARM is to me. I listen to FLARM....and rarely need to look at anything inside the cockpit from a safety perspective. The main reason I have the FlarmView is to download flights more easily.