Is FLARM helpful?

On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 10:18:11 UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

Continuing the argument, Nephi has conducted a well attended no accident contest (yes, I know it is OLC but try to explain that to a jury) for the last two years, setting tasks and posting the results and requiring Flarm. For the 2016 Nationals in Nephi the SSA has mandated Flarm, but intentional and with forethought, decreased the safety and situational awareness provided by the available and mandated technology.

As one of the organizes for the 2016 Nephi Nationals I would like to set the record straight.

1) There have been 3 years of OLC events in Nephi and in 2014 there was also a SSA sanctioned regional competition.

2) We, the organizers, submitted a waiver request to the SSA competition and rules committee to have Power Flarm Mandatory. This is the actual request that was submittted

PowerFlarm mandatory

Request - Make PowerFlarm (PF) mandatory for all gliders flying within the contest. As far as PF mode is concerned we would leave it in open or standard mode.

Reasoning - Safety. The last 3 years PF has been mandatory at the Nephi based OLC/XC camps with very positive feedback. Also many of the gliders that flew in the 2014 Region 9 contest utilized PF in standard mode with positive comments. The second aspect of safety pertains to the TCAS functionality provided by PF.

Response from the waiver request - Waiver is granted. It was the decision of the Rules Committee that for 2016 National contests, any Flarm use shall be in stealth mode

There was more in the response but I believe it is best for that to come out in meeting minutes published by them.