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Old January 4th 16, 11:16 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
XC
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Default The truth about Flarm Stealth and Competition definition...


You need a better tactical display. No one I know tracks gliders for 4 minutes. You take a one second glance at the display and notice that there are 4 gliders the direction you are headed. A minute later another one second glance shows that one has headed off so there are still three. 2 minutes later another 1 second glance confirms that the 3 gliders are now pretty close, headed the opposite direction, and you should be looking for them that direction. You opt to alter course slightly right. A minute later a one second glance shows that your course alteration put the 3 other gliders safely to your left with no possibility of a conflict or Flarm alert. Situational awareness is only useful if you use it. You now have 4 seconds total heads down time spent over 4 minutes to completely eliminate any conflict with 4 other gliders with no other tactical benefit.


I am not believing you when you say you are looking at your display 4 seconds out of every 4 minutes.

The level one warnings begin to go off 13-18 seconds before a collision would happen. They are independent of the any stealth mode setting. That's a long time to make the small flight path adjustment necessary to avoid another glider. They are really pretty good but not perfect. Layer on top of that 2 km radius (going to 5 km now) and plus or minus 300 meters and you have all the situational awareness that is necessary.

The ongoing overstatements about degraded safety are folks who want to use open FLARM tactically (or, for the fun/learning of watching what others are doing.) Let's talk about that if you want to but let's not continue turn that into a safety argument.

XC