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Old November 1st 18, 01:08 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Roy Garden
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Posts: 17
Default looking for advice on lead n follow flights

I'm an averagely useless XC pilot living in a visitor intensive place and
get asked to do Lead n Follow flights with some regularity.
I've tried, on quite a few occasions and short of herding cats, I can't
think of anything less likely to succeed.

The main issue is, keeping track of where people are and them knowing
where I am.
Flarm is great (no, it's not, it's fekkin useless) and the fallback Spot
the
gliders only works with any regularity up to about 8000' and gets a bit
spotty above that.

I don't want to have the guys right on my tail as I want to go check that
the "Next" bar is actually working before they follow me over. so that
leads to 10 (ish) mile separation frequently.

(The point of "Lead n follow", I think, is that it's a relatively safe, if
slow
way to go exploring.?)
If I say "Follow me chaps!" then head off, I could (and do, with some
regularity) **** it up. Fine when it's just me but the responsibility of
having people who don't quite "get" how nasty it can be, following me
stymies the whole thing.

Is there a way, to keep 10-15km separation and have people be able to
find me when I know it's good?
That we can do with kit that is "out there" ? (almost everyone has an
Oudie / flarm / phone with them)

I know this is urasB, but frankly, I could do without "Nigel" in his best
Essex Nasal, quoting that I should call out grid references from my map
.. . (Which I use frequently, to block the sun, from the primary nav
display)

Ideas chap (s/eses)?

I'm kind of at the stage where I really really don't want to as it's
always

a cluster through loosing people now, but I do have the time and
inclination, if there was some kind of semi reliable way to track / be
tracked.