On Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 1:52:18 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 4:42:13 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 12:21:41 PM UTC-8, Papa3 wrote:
On Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at 1:51:58 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
I find your use of the phrase "banning technology" completely disingenuous when in fact what Tim and others are proposing is to actually USE a feature built into the technology by the designers. Semantics matter!

Erik Mann
Flarm Fan. Stealth Fan.


Just to clarify, the Flarm Configuration Specification 1.02 published in 2015 says, in the section describing the PRIV (stealth) command:

"It is recommended NOT to activate stealth mode!"

From conversations with the Flarm engineers I discovered that statement, complete with exclamation point, was included because they meant it. That's a pretty strong way to word it. Stealth is only included as an alternative to people turning their Flarm off entirely, which is the one thing that's worse.

People demand that stealth mode be written into the software then use the fact that the feature exists to argue that the designers want us to use it, otherwise that wouldn't have written it.

Nope. They don't think it's a good idea for us to use it and they said so - in writing.

9B

Again, this is not accurate. The FLARM CONFIGURATION SPECIFICATION FTD-14 recommends not setting your FLARM to stealth for normal flying. (See the table below the text.) The reason is given below:

"To apply full reciprocity, a pilot who enables stealth mode will only get information as if all other aircraft had enabled stealth mode, independent of their actual setting."

This is not to say stealth is not recommended to be used in competition as it designed to be. Rather the intent is that a non-competition pilot who is accidentally configured in stealth may think he/she is getting features he/she is not. For example, he may incorrectly think the area is clear by looking at the scope.

XC

Hey Sean,

Hmmm...I've read that spec over and over since it was published back in August. They don't mention anywhere that PRIV mode should only be left off for "normal flying" (presumably this means non-contest flying) - but the spec doesn't use either "normal" or "non-contest" as a qualifier when recommending it not be used. They make a blanket statement.

The quote you copy, while correct, is simply a description of how stealth mode operates, but not in any way a recommendation for its use that I can wrestle out of the language no matter how hard I try.

I'd add that in my conversations with various members of the Flarm team (and without attempting to speak for any of them), I got a very specific sense that the internal view of stealth mode is that it is a compromise made only to keep some pilots from turning off their units entirely, not because anyone thought it was intrinsically a good thing to do. It's complex to implement, creates potential unpredictable conflict scenarios (despite a lot of thought), and requires ongoing support.

9B