PowerFLARM leeching comments

At 02:22 30 October 2012, Ramy wrote:

The difference between midairs and all other cause of accidents is that
it
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is the only type which you can do almost nothing to prevent it, except
usin=
g flarm. See and avoid fails to prevent midairs. Yet this is the only
type
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of accident which can be avoided by using relatively low cost and easy to
i=
nstall technology.=20

Ramy

I sincerely hope that no-one believes the above statement because it is
misguided.
The only way of preventing mid air collisions is for pilots to maintain a
good lookout and situational awareness AT ALL TIMES.
By far the most common scenario for a mid air in a glider is in a thermal,
followed by flying in wave. FLARM was designed to address the second cause,
flying in wave, and it does assist a pilot in that it alerts him where to
look for a threat that he has not seen, in theory. It is reasonably
efficient at this task. FLARM is not particulary good at assisting a piot
in a thermal and the effectiveness reduces as the number of gliders in a
thermal increases. Were are we likely to find large numbers of gliders in
the same thermal? in competitions.
If you are sharing a thermal with other gliders outside competition flying,
being the person able to climb faster is a matter of personal pride, not a
high priority you might think. In the competition scenario being able to
outclimb your opponents is a very high priority, you are there to win after
all. Of course a good lookout and situational awareness are essential when
sharing a thermal with others but is this priority degraded by the need to
get the best out of the thermal so climbing better. No pilot deliberately
degrades his lookout and situational awareness to address other priorities
but the need to out perform is always in the mind, that is the paradox of
competition flying. Does FLARM help in a busy thermal? The good people at
FLARM and many pilots will tell you the answer to that is NO, it was not
designed for that situation and given the heading/track problem it can be a
hinderance rather than a help.
The only way to prevent a mid air in a glider is to maintain a good lookout
and situational awareness and anyone who says otherwise is a asking for
trouble. Training people and emphasising that need is what is needed not a
technology solution that gives pilots the idea that their lookout can be
delegated to a machine that has serious limitations.