FLARM.....for good, or evil??

On 10/28/2010 11:32 AM, Mike Schumann wrote:


There's no question that FLARM or ADS-B based systems could have
easily prevented the Parowan mid-air. My question is how much you can
rely on this type of equipment to accurately warn you of collisions
when you are flying in gaggles.

Obviously knowing the relative position of other gliders in the gaggle
is helpful. I would be very skeptical, however, of putting my faith
in FLARM or any other system to accurately warn me of a collision with
another glider that was in the same thermal, near my altitude, that
was in my blind spot.
This situation is addressed at

http://www.gliderpilot.org/FlarmFlig...andPerformance

where it states that the human eye is better than Flarm. I don't think
anyone has claimed Flarm is better in every possible situation, and
users and Flarm itself repeatedly state you must still look outside to
have the best protection; however, I believe Flarm will indicate there
is a glider behind you, something a pilot might not always be aware of,
so it still has value in this situation.

Transmitting the project path of the aircraft is really only
beneficial if the equipment on board the transmitting aircraft has
some added information that is not available to the receiver on the
transmitting aircraft's intent.

With both FLARM and ADS-B systems, the initial visibility of the other
aircraft occurs way before there is any collision threat, so the
receiver should have no difficulty computing the project path of the
other aircraft. ADS-B actually transmits the category of aircraft
(i.e. glider, balloon, etc...) so the receiver can get a pretty good
hint on the type of maneuvers that can be expected.
I can think of three situations where the time involved can be reduced:

1) two gliders approaching head on. At 100 knots each - a 200 knot
closing speed - that's only 18 seconds or so to collision. How many
seconds of warning do you lose while collecting enough points to make a
good estimate of the projected paths - 5 seconds, 10 seconds? I don't
know, but I'd prefer to know sooner than later.

2) Ridge or mountain flying, where the transmissions are blocked by the
terrain. Once they round the corner of the ridge, there may not be
enough time to calculate a projected path.

3) shortened range due to signal blockage by the wings or fuselage.


--

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz