Experience with Flarm "Stealth" and Competition modes

My experience with US power flarm radar consists of one contest at Perry, where I hooked my flarm brick to my Clearnav. (Other gliders seem to have disappeared from the Clearnav screen with recent updates, which I hope will be fixed.)

Yes, you can see other gliders and Flarm's idea of their climb rates, at distances of a few miles. In my experience, I was never able to successfully join one of them in a thermal. But I guess the potential is there.

On the other hand, I found the greater situational awareness of the Flarm radar, that would not be provided by collision warnings alone, of great benefit, both for safety and for contest enjoyment.

Pre-start gaggles in misty conditions (start height was not set well below cloudbase) showed up very nicely. It was a great benefit to know there were 10 gliders I couldn't see in the cloud ahead, before the collision warnings started going nuts. Collision warning means look down, see where Flarm thinks the glider is, look up, find the glider, avoid it, try not to run in to another one.

A similar thing happened in cruise. I went one way, another half of the gaggle went another way. 15 miles later I could see on the flarm radar that we were converging again, at exactly the same altitude. I like to think we all look 90 degrees to the left and right frequently enough to pick up gliders converging to the cloud ahead. But it sure was nice to know about it all well before collision warnings started going off.

I found it enjoyable too. I would not have known where the other half of the gaggle went. Seeing where they went and where I went in real time, realizing we made exactly the same speed to the next cloud was interesting. It didn't make any difference to the race, but it's fun to know where people are..

Similarly, on one long leg with no turns, it seemed to me looking out the window that I was completely alone. I would not have known about the 10 gliders just behind me without the Flarm radar. Useful for safety, and interesting if not very valuable in the contest.

I see a strong chance that Flarm radar will lead to a bit less gaggling. Now, if you want to fly with the gaggle, you must stay in visual contact which is quite close. If it works to join other gliders by flarm, you can afford to go off a bit more on your own and not worry you'll be alone all day.

In sum, with this experience, I see flarm radar as possibly having a very slight competitive benefit. It has a slight, but definite, enjoyment benefit.. And it has, a substantial safety benefit. Knowing where they are before the collision alarm goes off and I have a Big Problem Right Now is a good thing.

In any case, fear that this is the End Of Soaring As We Know It, that a new generation of techies will take over who just watch screens and leech along like a big video game, seems highly overstated, at least based on my experience with current equipment in this contest.

John Cochrane