PowerFlarm at Region 9 Contest

No, Kirk, I think I *do* understand.

For *my* type of flying, I see no benefit to having warnings of
Flarm-equipped aircraft since I don't fly contests and I don't fly in the
busiest areas around Moriarty. Hell, I don't fly anywhere near other
gliders and I fly higher than all but a few GA aircraft so it's unlikely
I'll ever see an alert. You will see my Mode-S transponder if you get near
me and you'll turn away. There's no need for you to tell me. Besides, I'm
looking outside so I probably saw you any way.

I agree absolutely that Flarm should be mandatory at contests, along with
parachutes, and male external catheters. I don't care. I won't be there.

As to maneuvering, I once spotted a small dot on the horizon as I was
thermalling. Completing ONE revolution, I saw a B-767 maneuvering to avoid
me. Thank God he had head outside instead of up his ass staring at doo-dads
on his wonderful glass panel!

I don't expect ATC to talk to every light plane and warn him of my presence.
On the other hand, I don't see too many of them at the altitudes I fly.

Can no one understand that my interest is to have ATC vector IFR traffic
around me and that I have absolutely no interest in contests or gaggles or
(the glider equivalent of) oil burner routes?


"kirk.stant" wrote in message
...
Dan, I think you don't completely understand what a PowerFlarm provides: It
allows you to pick up other PF-equipped gliders, and provides collision
warning if necessary (had a couple of those at R9 myself). But it also
detects and displays transponder-equipped traffic, and Mode-S/ADS-b traffic.
I saw several of those, including other gliders who had their PF in Stealth
mode later in the contest.

A transponder is nice if you are in a situation where you can talk to center
and they are talking to other traffic. But in some areas, everybody is VFR
and not everybody is talking to center - how does center tell that VFR 1200
Bonanza to look for the glider squawking 1202? In your situation, you will
have NO warning until he hopefully sees you and misses you. With a PF, I
will get a non-directional PCAS warning with his altitude and approximate
distance. Similar, but not as good (yet) as PCAS, but otherwise workable.

I agree the best is to have both PF and a Mode S transponder. But to say
that the transponder alone gives you better protection from ALL traffic than
a PF is wrong.

And really, you don't think you can maneuver away from an airliners
flightpath with 2 - 3 miles warning? Funny, I haven't had that problem even
with visual pickups of airliners.

Personally, I would like Flarm to be mandatory for ALL contests next year,
just like a parachute. And encourage Stealt mode be turned off during
regional contests - I found it a lot of fun to be aware of all the gliders
around me. For nationals, OK, stealth up, but I've got a feeling that again
(like team flying) we will be setting ourselves up for a beat-down at the
World's!

Like Mike said earlier - this year at Moriarty we had one real close
near-midair (7 ft separation), and at least one of those gliders didn't
have a Flarm installed. Meanwhile, those of us with Flarm installed had
several collision warnings that we resolved after being cued by the Flarm
where to look.

I'm convinced. It works. And if really isn't that tough to install - plus
it's easy to check the detection range online after a few flights with other
Flarm-equipped gliders.

Kirk
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