If You've Flown a FLARM Stealth Contest, Vote Here

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 6:57:16 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 9:50:51 AM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
Excellent point. This smells rather rushed and "uncooked." If it was a development project from my team I would be concerned. One US contest late in the 2015 season and now the RC is already seriously considering a major change even before Flarm is mandatory accross all US contests or close to fully adopted. I think a year of careful testing (at least) is smart. The risk of a stealth mode "collision" still far outweighs the risk of a pilot getting a free thermal.

Perhaps FLARM et all (BGA, IGC, etc) should make a detailed statement to the public about the testing and development program underway for stealth mode and exact expextations/ requirements for safety and performance of collision alerts that are being worked towards.

This feels a lot like a synthetic vision avionics supplier doing an install and saying "go flying" in heavy IFR. It will be fine...

As requested- a year old, provided by Russell Cheatham. More development on the topic before long.
Text of the paper follows
UH

Flarm and the case for modified "Stealth" protocol
What's the problem
Range of Flarm now gives competitors the opportunity of identifying, locating and assessing the climb rate of competitors over 20km away. This has evolved with the production of better Flarm electronics (Powerflarm) and a better understanding of influence and importance of antenna location and design. Whilst the improved performance is most welcome as it now ensures that all installations are seeing and being seen at the important 2km range with much reduced blind spots(2km required for effective collision avoidance head to head), it has dramatically increased the tactical use by competition pilots.
Tactical benefits on task include being able to assess climb rate of others and identify where important pilots are in order to make improved strategic decisions. Even if the targets in view are not "tagged" they give important information for gliders behind to optimise routing and to ensure that if required a follower may ensure they fly the same route. Tactical benefit prior to start is even greater as it allows a full view of the start line area so it is clear where all the start gaggles are located, where key competitors are, whether they have started and sometimes what rate of climb is achieved in the first thermal on task.
It is arguable whether this sort of tactical assistance diminishes the art of racing gliders. I believe it does but this is not the main thrust of this paper. Flarm in isolation is a great safety device that has rightly been encouraged to the position we find ourselves today where it is mandatory in all FAI Cat 1 events. However, it is now very clear from feedback from International competition pilots that the workload in gleaning the "necessary" tactical data from the Flarm device is diminishing or eliminating the apparent added safety that the underlying Flarm provides.
What are pilots doing:-
1 Spending way too much time scanning moving maps for tactical contact detail instead of look out
2 Spending way too much time "tagging" competitors instead of look out to improve tactical content
3 Turning their Flarm units on and off at will to avoid tactical benefit accruing to others
4 Blanking antennas to reduce or eliminate range to avoid tactical benefit accruing to others
5 Installing amplifiers to increase range even further
6 Utilising two port Flarm units with one send/receive and one receive only antenna to maximise the range received but eliminate or restrict transmit range.
7 Changing backwards and forwards from "stealth" to full ON mode to minimize tactical benefit accruing to others but maximising own benefit as required.
Whats the effect
1 Safety is significantly diminished due to significant head in cockpit time inputting and viewing the Flarm for maximum tactical benefit.
2 Following or "leaching" is much easier so the eternal problem of gaggling is further encouraged at the possible cost of safety.
3 It is much easier for pilots of lower skill level to fly at the same XC speed as the best pilots.
What's the solution
When Flarm protocol was invented, it was thought that tactical advantage as described above may not be desirable in competition. So Flarm was designed with a "Stealth" protocol which degrades the information available to the pilot setting the mode and also to the pilot receiving that signal. So pilots can opt in or out of the tactical benefit and additionally the setting adopted is recorded on the IGC flight recorder. It was thought that this setting choice would be chosen at will by the pilot or prescribed by the competition ruling authority. Currently, IGC rules allow free choice of settings of Flarm unit.
One solution might be to mandate current Stealth mode for all events. This would certainly have a very significant effect and indeed was trialled by the BGA two years ago to fix all of the issues detailed above. However, it quickly became apparent that the current stealth mode, whilst eliminating the tactical benefit of Flarm, also reduces situational awareness in that targets that are not yet regarded as a threat do not appear on displays even if they are close by. The Flarm unit manufacturers themselves specifically do not recommend Stealth mode for this very reason although they comment in their literature that it is certainly better than pilots switching off their Flarm units. The BGA stealth trial was abandoned due to the forced situational awareness loss factor even though it was otherwise seen to be highly successful in restricting tactical benefit.
What is needed is a revised "IGC Stealth" protocol that has all the benefits and more but none off the pitfalls of the current stealth mode. Such a protocol would then be suitable for mandating by IGC and as required by all aero-clubs for National events.
In order to understand what is required, it is necessary to first understand what data is restricted to pilots when the current stealth mode is set - see table below.
Current stealth mode

Current stealth mode reduces situational awareness because all three factors in the amber column need to be true before 2d position, ID and Relative altitude with noise is available. This is why gliders very close to one another may not appear on displays but they can still very quickly become a threat - eg - a glider in the blind spot behind will not appear on the display of the pilot in front when both gliders are on similar track. Eg. Other gliders circling in same thermal will not always appear on display. Note that non of the basic audible and LED Flarm warnings are impaired if these are fitted.

Possible revised IGC stealth mode
A revised "IGC stealth mode" if implemented might look something like the table below:-

Here the ID is never available so it will never be possible to identify specific gliders so there will no longer be the requirement to attempt to "tag" other competitors thus reducing head down time and hence increasing safety. Also gliders remain unidentified from other competitors electronically at least thus satisfying the sporting argument too. With ID not being transmitted to others, pilots will be happier with the concept of the organisation possibly insisting on them being "tagged" for use by the competition organisation for purposes of glider competition tracking.
The 2d position and accurate relative altitude is available to all aircraft within 2km and 300m relative altitude. This allows all aircraft in the 600m x 2km disc to be visible at all times on graphic displays with accurate data for height so they may be monitored accurately. As the "ahead less than 45 degrees to track" requirement has been removed, situational awareness will be complete within the cylinder.
As no position or climb data is available outside the amber cylinder then the tactical benefit of seeing climb rates will be reduced but not eliminated. Also it will still be possible to follow other gliders provided any follower stays within 2km but it will be easier for trail-blazer to "escape" due to the relatively short distance and the lack of ID.
GLIDERS IN THE AMBER CYLINDER RETAIN FULL SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AT ALL TIMES
Conclusion and way forward
It is envisaged that the revised stealth parameters here should be checked for validity to achieve the desired result and then a dialogue be set up with Flarm to further check and implement.
Once available, the revised stealth mode should be made mandatory in all events

the head down time required and rate of climb displayed. Perhaps thermals in Britain or the US east are nice round, soft things that result in a well filtered and accurate rate of climb displayed. I have never found that to be the case in the western US. It is common to see +13.5 knots followed by -6.0 on the very next screen update. This is completely useless information for leeching - I have tried. Acting on that kind of information is much more likely to slow you down than speed you up. The head down time described is more a limitation of the tactical display than Flarm technology. The best displays require no more than a 1 second glance to get all of the information there is to get, entering what data needs to be entered takes a few seconds once or twice per flight. Many Nav displays and variometers require far more attention, yet there are no parallel complaints about them. There is far more head down time required of a poor nav display than a good Flarm tactical display - should we make rules against those?

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 10:30:29 AM UTC-5, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:
We had a few gliders in the first two days have problems getting into stealth mode due to (I think) display units which were reconfiguring their stealth. Another thing that can happen is someone leaves an old config file on the USB and downloads a flight and inadvertently reconfigs their unit. Once these pitfalls are understood their is really no issues with configuration.

Anyway a couple of gliders took off in non-stealth in the beginning of the contest, day 1 and day 2. No penalty points were given. At max two gliders were in the sky in non-stealth. They could only see each other's info. It was easy to see if they were working together to cheat the system. Of course they were not. CD discretion is the key to not getting too wrapped around the axel to what was an honest mistake.

We had people submit another FLARM log on one other day because this was all new. This is not really necessary if you have non-stealth FLARM unit checking on the grid.

Those are some additional facts about using in FLARM the stealth mode for a contest.

I don't feel too strongly about STEALTH vs NON-STEALTH so I planned to stay out of this thread. After reading XG's and XC's posts I feel a little called out so here is my $0.02. I would like to preface by saying that I enjoyed flying in Elmira very much, I don't know if it is because FLARM was in STEALTH or just because the contest was so well organised and expertly run. The fact that Monty sold his soul to the devil in trade for the fantastic weather we enjoyed certainly didn't hurt.

There was one pilot at Elmira who was never able to get his unit into stealth mode for the duration of the contest. He eventually dumbed down the ranges on his display in the spirit of "fair play". This pilot often helps others with their electronics so he is no technophobe.

My trailer was parked beside another pilot who was having issues putting his FLARM in to stealth at the beginning of the contest, the amount of unnecessary stress this was causing him in the mornings was plainly visible.

I know first hand of one more pilot who was not able to configure his FLARM properly until later on in the contest.

These 3 guys have been to multiple world championships each.

I had no problem putting my FLARM into STEALTH mode and flew that way until the second last day. On that day the gate was just opened for our class when I realized I could see the climb info and call sign of the pilot who's FLARM was not in stealth. I checked the FLARM status on my display and somehow my FLARM had reverted to normal mode. I gave a quick attempt to re-enable stealth while in the air but was unsuccessful. I didn't really want to mess with it in the start cylinder anyway so I gave up a pretty good starting position and landed to reload my STEALTH config on the ground. This didn't work so after checking with the CD I unplugged my FLARM from power and took a relight. I ended up starting almost an hour behind everyone on a day that ended early and flew without FLARM at all. Next day I plugged the FLARM back in without making any changes and STEALTH mode was back on.

In the end the RC's decision on mandatory STEALTH will not influence my attendance at a contest. FLARM increases our safety when used properly - this includes providing information beyond a simple collision warning. Ideally FLARM improves our Situational Awareness to the point that we don't need collision warnings, we simply don't let it get that close. Flying with FLARM is safer than without, but flying in STEALTH or without FLARM at all is still well within MY acceptable risk level. This is a decision each one of us has to make before take off.

My gut feel is to leave STEALTH mode as a pilot option especially because there were technical issues implementing it.

Luke Szczepaniak

Luke,
Thanks for your post. I definitely want to hear from you and any others about their experiences, good, bad or indifferent using stealth mode.

As to implementing a competition or stealth mode we should not let configuration problems be a big obstacle. I know this is getting ahead of ourselves a bit because we are far from a consensus on this topic. The British and others in the IGC seem to be much more down with this idea. I am glad they are working with FLARM toward practical solutions.

As for your landing back at Harris Hill, let me apologize. There was no need for you to do that as am I quite sure (knowing how level-headed our CD was) you would not have penalized without any intent to use your FLARM to follow others. But you are right you had no idea what the CD would or could have done. Our organization failed to foresee these different configuration problems and spell our the consequences. I applaud your sportsmanship for trying to do the right thing and I am sorry it affected your result.

The real problems were few. I and most users with a simple set up had zero problems. A few more did the old trick where they reconfigured back with an old config file in the root directory of their USB stick. For your problem and Dave's, I have no idea what went wrong there but it seemed to be related to a FLARM-view or similar device acting as a control head for the FLARM device. Would you agree?

At the contest this past summer we should have had ready a rubric that could have specified for those who went flying with their system not in stealth:

0 penalty points for first offense and no intent to game the system.
100-500 penalty for first intentional misconfiguration
DQ and review by SSA regarding possible suspension from contest flying for installing equipment intended to circumvent the competition mode.

....or some other values, it doesn't matter to me. The point is there is not a FLARM penalty. These are unsportsmanlike conduct penalties under (12.2.5..3). The stealth feature is designed so that if you are flying without stealth you can only see those gliders configured in non-stealth. It is really no big thing if one or two gliders misconfigured. We should have made that more clear.

XC

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 10:30:29 AM UTC-5, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:
We had a few gliders in the first two days have problems getting into stealth mode due to (I think) display units which were reconfiguring their stealth. Another thing that can happen is someone leaves an old config file on the USB and downloads a flight and inadvertently reconfigs their unit. Once these pitfalls are understood their is really no issues with configuration.

Anyway a couple of gliders took off in non-stealth in the beginning of the contest, day 1 and day 2. No penalty points were given. At max two gliders were in the sky in non-stealth. They could only see each other's info. It was easy to see if they were working together to cheat the system. Of course they were not. CD discretion is the key to not getting too wrapped around the axel to what was an honest mistake.

We had people submit another FLARM log on one other day because this was all new. This is not really necessary if you have non-stealth FLARM unit checking on the grid.

Those are some additional facts about using in FLARM the stealth mode for a contest.

I don't feel too strongly about STEALTH vs NON-STEALTH so I planned to stay out of this thread. After reading XG's and XC's posts I feel a little called out so here is my $0.02. I would like to preface by saying that I enjoyed flying in Elmira very much, I don't know if it is because FLARM was in STEALTH or just because the contest was so well organised and expertly run. The fact that Monty sold his soul to the devil in trade for the fantastic weather we enjoyed certainly didn't hurt.

There was one pilot at Elmira who was never able to get his unit into stealth mode for the duration of the contest. He eventually dumbed down the ranges on his display in the spirit of "fair play". This pilot often helps others with their electronics so he is no technophobe.

My trailer was parked beside another pilot who was having issues putting his FLARM in to stealth at the beginning of the contest, the amount of unnecessary stress this was causing him in the mornings was plainly visible.

I know first hand of one more pilot who was not able to configure his FLARM properly until later on in the contest.

These 3 guys have been to multiple world championships each.

I had no problem putting my FLARM into STEALTH mode and flew that way until the second last day. On that day the gate was just opened for our class when I realized I could see the climb info and call sign of the pilot who's FLARM was not in stealth. I checked the FLARM status on my display and somehow my FLARM had reverted to normal mode. I gave a quick attempt to re-enable stealth while in the air but was unsuccessful. I didn't really want to mess with it in the start cylinder anyway so I gave up a pretty good starting position and landed to reload my STEALTH config on the ground. This didn't work so after checking with the CD I unplugged my FLARM from power and took a relight. I ended up starting almost an hour behind everyone on a day that ended early and flew without FLARM at all. Next day I plugged the FLARM back in without making any changes and STEALTH mode was back on.

In the end the RC's decision on mandatory STEALTH will not influence my attendance at a contest. FLARM increases our safety when used properly - this includes providing information beyond a simple collision warning. Ideally FLARM improves our Situational Awareness to the point that we don't need collision warnings, we simply don't let it get that close. Flying with FLARM is safer than without, but flying in STEALTH or without FLARM at all is still well within MY acceptable risk level. This is a decision each one of us has to make before take off.

My gut feel is to leave STEALTH mode as a pilot option especially because there were technical issues implementing it.

Luke Szczepaniak

Luke,
Thanks for your post. I definitely want to hear from you and any others about their experiences, good, bad or indifferent using stealth mode.

As to implementing a competition or stealth mode we should not let configuration problems be a big obstacle. I know this is getting ahead of ourselves a bit because we are far from a consensus on this topic. The British and others in the IGC seem to be much more down with this idea. I am glad they are working with FLARM toward practical solutions.

As for your landing back at Harris Hill, let me apologize. There was no need for you to do that as am I quite sure (knowing how level-headed our CD was) you would not have penalized without any intent to use your FLARM to follow others. But you are right you had no idea what the CD would or could have done. Our organization failed to foresee these different configuration problems and spell our the consequences. I applaud your sportsmanship for trying to do the right thing and I am sorry it affected your result.

The real problems were few. I and most users with a simple set up had zero problems. A few more did the old trick where they reconfigured back with an old config file in the root directory of their USB stick. For your problem and Dave's, I have no idea what went wrong there but it seemed to be related to a FLARM-view or similar device acting as a control head for the FLARM device. Would you agree?

At the contest this past summer we should have had ready a rubric that could have specified for those who went flying with their system not in stealth:

0 penalty points for first offense and no intent to game the system.
100-500 penalty for first intentional misconfiguration
DQ and review by SSA regarding possible suspension from contest flying for installing equipment intended to circumvent the competition mode.

....or some other values, it doesn't matter to me. The point is there is not a FLARM penalty. These are unsportsmanlike conduct penalties under (12.2.5..3). There really needs to be intent to deceive to impose a penalty. The stealth feature is designed so that if you are flying without stealth you can only see those gliders configured in non-stealth. It is really no big thing if one or two gliders misconfigured. We should have made all of this more clear.

XC

Just to add one thing to my post (since I was asked to post and flew in Elmira)

I think the largest issue was not the Stealth vs. normal - it was the fact you had to do a flight before you were sure the settings were correct - and if it turned out they were not, you had to do another flight and so on...... and some peole launch hoping it was right, which in itself can be distracting.

If there was a way to be know the settings on the ground (say the program wrote the settings to your thumb drive upon being turned on) - it would have saved some pilots some stress.

WH1

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 4:57:00 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Just to add one thing to my post (since I was asked to post and flew in Elmira)

I think the largest issue was not the Stealth vs. normal - it was the fact you had to do a flight before you were sure the settings were correct - and if it turned out they were not, you had to do another flight and so on...... and some peole launch hoping it was right, which in itself can be distracting.

If there was a way to be know the settings on the ground (say the program wrote the settings to your thumb drive upon being turned on) - it would have saved some pilots some stress.

WH1

Can't you turn it on while on the ground and see if you can read contest ID's?, if so, then you have a clue.

Also, as XC just recently posted, they could have thought of "yet another possible issue" and posted "potential penalties if you circumvent stealth mode". Sounds like they made a good faith effort, but missed something. Poop occurs.
No slam on anyone, sorta like the manager that ask's, "Have you thought of all potential issues before we do this?".
The answer would be, "Yes......but....". You can't think of EVERYTHING, sounds like the HHSC people tried very hard to make it a great contest.
Yes, I know & have flown with most of them, they tend to do a good/level headed contest and I've flown a number contests at the site.

So, for next year (if stealth mode is mandated and/or used), people have a "heads up" to consider yet something else.

On Monday, 7 December 2015 15:50:24 UTC-7, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 4:57:00 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Just to add one thing to my post (since I was asked to post and flew in Elmira)

I think the largest issue was not the Stealth vs. normal - it was the fact you had to do a flight before you were sure the settings were correct - and if it turned out they were not, you had to do another flight and so on...... and some peole launch hoping it was right, which in itself can be distracting.

If there was a way to be know the settings on the ground (say the program wrote the settings to your thumb drive upon being turned on) - it would have saved some pilots some stress.

WH1

Can't you turn it on while on the ground and see if you can read contest ID's?, if so, then you have a clue.

Also, as XC just recently posted, they could have thought of "yet another possible issue" and posted "potential penalties if you circumvent stealth mode". Sounds like they made a good faith effort, but missed something. Poop occurs.
No slam on anyone, sorta like the manager that ask's, "Have you thought of all potential issues before we do this?".
The answer would be, "Yes......but....". You can't think of EVERYTHING, sounds like the HHSC people tried very hard to make it a great contest.
Yes, I know & have flown with most of them, they tend to do a good/level headed contest and I've flown a number contests at the site.

So, for next year (if stealth mode is mandated and/or used), people have a "heads up" to consider yet something else.

If the SSA rules committee is going to mandate anything they must also lay out the procedures for enforcement, penalties for non-conformance and automate the tasks as much as possible; such as having WINSCORE check the IGC files for what mode the Power Flarm was operated in. Asking an organizer to perform all the 'what ifs' scenarios and then determine how to handle the exceptions is not the way to go.

I agree that the HHSC did the best the could and then some but I am not sure their approach is repeatable and/or scalable.

On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 7:02:57 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:

If your aircraft's information is tagged as a glider with ADS-B, a competition mode can still be implemented that would display all the power traffic for you. You can tweak the parameters of this competition or stealth mode to provide plenty of collision avoidance. I think 10-18 seconds warning, knowing that the warnings are not perfect is enough for me. But it could made greater.

This seems like a non-trivial exercise. Putting aside for the moment that you'd also be blanking out non-contest glider traffic. The advantage we have with Flarm is that it is a sole-source technology (though I know some have complained about this fact for cost and other reasons). It give us the advantage of being able to go to one vendor and though one means or another get them to implement filters to the data that the device otherwise puts out.

It's not so easy in a world with multiple vendors and different layers of the technology stack and open standards. Outside the world of Flarm there are multiple ways to:

1) Transmit GPS position: ADS-B UAT, ADS-B 1090ES, Flarm, Transponder via TIS-B rebroadcast under ADS-R via ADS-B ground stations, satellite (InReach, Spot, etc.) and a whole host of inexpensive consumer technologies that are out or coming out that use either mobile phone GPS or low-power ISM-band (what Flarm uses) GPS tags (track your pet, bike, child, etc).

2) Collect GPS positions. There is direct UHF (mostly ISM-band) including Flarm, ADS-B, ADS-R, but also via in-cockpit internet connection - mostly via cellphone data or even text connection, but other link layers are possible. Even the satellite trackers have dedicated web pages that don't necessarily abide by the 15-minute delay rules, so a little web-coding and you are good to go.

3) Communicate from receive device to display device. Historically via serial port or USB, increasingly via WiFi and Bluetooth, which are nearly impossible to pick up via inspection.

4) Display the targets. Displays range from high-end bespoke devices made by the likes of LX Nav, LX Navigation and ClearNav (among others), to the PNA category (Oudie and a bunch of Chinese-sourced devices), to totally non-soaring-driven Android and iOS Phones, Phablets and tablets at the low-cost end of the spectrum (low-cost since most people already own one). The software may be proprietary, independent of the device maker or totally open-source. Some software may be soaring-specific, but much more of it for traffic situational awareness is make for non-soaring aviation.

The tough part is that all you need to do is get a stream of position data from anywhere, get it into the cockpit by any of a variety of means and deliver it for display on any device, many of which are made by manufacturers who don't care at all about soaring. Now that would take a bit of putting things together to run on a bespoke soaring computer if there were no reason to do it other than to cheat at glider racing (which somebody might try to do, but it's a bit of effort to take an NMEA stream, delete or spoof the aircraft time and MUX it into the stream from another GPS source like Flarm).. But here's the thing, except for a subset of racing glider pilots, everybody else in soaring (especially XC and OLC pilots, GA pilots, airline pilots) WANT all this info in the cockpit without any filters, so I think it'll be a monumental task to get all those different combinations of vendors to cooperate. Also, the rest of aviation doesn't care about our desires to filter traffic so you can always take a GA setup and use that on your Android flight computer with a non-soaring traffic app. Some of that stuff is cheaper than the soaring stuff already.

The alternative is to restrict racing equipment to only the stuff you can control, which is likely the integrated, bespoke stuff - and require pilots to somehow lock up their cellphones. I'm not sure how good an idea it is to mandate that people only carry the most expensive gear.

I'm seeing the future arriving faster than we thought - some of it from the 2020 ADS-B mandate, some of it from advances in GPS trackers, some from advances in mobile devices, some of from advances in data communications and adoption of wireless links and some of it from advances in cloud services that make it easy to move data around. The thought that we are going to be able to control all of that against the forces that are pushing it forward seems, well, complex, daunting and expensive. I give it two years.

Oh - I don't agree that 10 seconds is okay, not for where I fly.

9B

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 8:29:39 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 7:02:57 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:

If your aircraft's information is tagged as a glider with ADS-B, a competition mode can still be implemented that would display all the power traffic for you. You can tweak the parameters of this competition or stealth mode to provide plenty of collision avoidance. I think 10-18 seconds warning, knowing that the warnings are not perfect is enough for me. But it could made greater.

This seems like a non-trivial exercise. Putting aside for the moment that you'd also be blanking out non-contest glider traffic. The advantage we have with Flarm is that it is a sole-source technology (though I know some have complained about this fact for cost and other reasons). It give us the advantage of being able to go to one vendor and though one means or another get them to implement filters to the data that the device otherwise puts out.

On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 6:06:31 PM UTC-8, XC wrote:
On Monday, December 7, 2015 at 8:29:39 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Sunday, December 6, 2015 at 7:02:57 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:

If your aircraft's information is tagged as a glider with ADS-B, a competition mode can still be implemented that would display all the power traffic for you. You can tweak the parameters of this competition or stealth mode to provide plenty of collision avoidance. I think 10-18 seconds warning, knowing that the warnings are not perfect is enough for me. But it could made greater.

This seems like a non-trivial exercise. Putting aside for the moment that you'd also be blanking out non-contest glider traffic. The advantage we have with Flarm is that it is a sole-source technology (though I know some have complained about this fact for cost and other reasons). It give us the advantage of being able to go to one vendor and though one means or another get them to implement filters to the data that the device otherwise puts out.

It's not so easy in a world with multiple vendors and different layers of the technology stack and open standards. Outside the world of Flarm there are multiple ways to:

1) Transmit GPS position: ADS-B UAT, ADS-B 1090ES, Flarm, Transponder via TIS-B rebroadcast under ADS-R via ADS-B ground stations, satellite (InReach, Spot, etc.) and a whole host of inexpensive consumer technologies that are out or coming out that use either mobile phone GPS or low-power ISM-band (what Flarm uses) GPS tags (track your pet, bike, child, etc).

2) Collect GPS positions. There is direct UHF (mostly ISM-band) including Flarm, ADS-B, ADS-R, but also via in-cockpit internet connection - mostly via cellphone data or even text connection, but other link layers are possible. Even the satellite trackers have dedicated web pages that don't necessarily abide by the 15-minute delay rules, so a little web-coding and you are good to go.

3) Communicate from receive device to display device. Historically via serial port or USB, increasingly via WiFi and Bluetooth, which are nearly impossible to pick up via inspection.

4) Display the targets. Displays range from high-end bespoke devices made by the likes of LX Nav, LX Navigation and ClearNav (among others), to the PNA category (Oudie and a bunch of Chinese-sourced devices), to totally non-soaring-driven Android and iOS Phones, Phablets and tablets at the low-cost end of the spectrum (low-cost since most people already own one). The software may be proprietary, independent of the device maker or totally open-source. Some software may be soaring-specific, but much more of it for traffic situational awareness is make for non-soaring aviation.

The tough part is that all you need to do is get a stream of position data from anywhere, get it into the cockpit by any of a variety of means and deliver it for display on any device, many of which are made by manufacturers who don't care at all about soaring. Now that would take a bit of putting things together to run on a bespoke soaring computer if there were no reason to do it other than to cheat at glider racing (which somebody might try to do, but it's a bit of effort to take an NMEA stream, delete or spoof the aircraft time and MUX it into the stream from another GPS source like Flarm). But here's the thing, except for a subset of racing glider pilots, everybody else in soaring (especially XC and OLC pilots, GA pilots, airline pilots) WANT all this info in the cockpit without any filters, so I think it'll be a monumental task to get all those different combinations of vendors to cooperate. Also, the rest of aviation doesn't care about our desires to filter traffic so you can always take a GA setup and use that on your Android flight computer with a non-soaring traffic app. Some of that stuff is cheaper than the soaring stuff already.

The alternative is to restrict racing equipment to only the stuff you can control, which is likely the integrated, bespoke stuff - and require pilots to somehow lock up their cellphones. I'm not sure how good an idea it is to mandate that people only carry the most expensive gear.

I'm seeing the future arriving faster than we thought - some of it from the 2020 ADS-B mandate, some of it from advances in GPS trackers, some from advances in mobile devices, some of from advances in data communications and adoption of wireless links and some of it from advances in cloud services that make it easy to move data around. The thought that we are going to be able to control all of that against the forces that are pushing it forward seems, well, complex, daunting and expensive. I give it two years.

Oh - I don't agree that 10 seconds is okay, not for where I fly.

9B

I see your point. There are a lot of options out there and more coming all the time. We do have IGC approved flight recorders. Is it so far fetched that we fly with IGC approved cockpit GPS and displays? I mean most of us fly with off the shelf soaring stuff, anyway. I understand that some really enjoy the avionics aspect of soaring but not most.

Is it that crazy to trust people to leave their cell phones in the side pocket and not cheat with non-approved devices while racing? As you said there is no prize money or women to be won in this sport, only the respect of our fellow pilots. Who can respect another pilot who would go out of his way to circumvent the rules?

XC

Most people wouldn't, but if you have a display you set up for non-race buddy flying using ADS-B and an Android phablet - well you'd just have to promise not to peek. The open-source soaring software is pretty popular too.

It's a lot of permutations to play "whack-a-mole" with.

I like all the innovation in electronics - it's cool to see all the interesting things that are coming out.

9B

Is it so far fetched that we fly with IGC approved cockpit GPS and displays? I mean most of us fly with off the shelf soaring stuff, anyway.

Sorry Sean but in actuality most of us fly with mobile devices and not "off the shelf gliding stuff". I think it is completely unreasonable to expect me to pay upwards of $5000 to downgrade my existing setup to what *in my opinion* is inferior hardware and software. I much rather invest that money in 100 contest tows or 200 tows at my home club than putting it in somebody's pocket...


Luke