midair in Bay Area Nov 7

I wonder if they were at least talking to each other? Ramy, were you hearing anything on the radio? Anyone else?


Boggs

On Tuesday, November 10, 2020 at 8:39:41 AM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
I wonder if they were at least talking to each other? Ramy, were you hearing anything on the radio? Anyone else?


Boggs
They were not talking to each other and not aware of each other. They didn’t see each other until a split second before impact. One of the flarms was inop due to expired firmware. They were both cruising under a cloud street and collided head on at 5300 ft MSL (3500 AGL) with their left wings significantly damaging the wings. Both gliders entered vertical or negative dive which helped them bailing out quickly as they fell of the gliders as soon as they released the seat belts. One pilot was mostly unscratched, the other was hospitalized due to hard landing on a slope and is recovering from back injury.
I urge everyone to make sure to fly with operative powerflarm and upgrade the powerflarm firmware every year during the annual.

Ramy

I urge everyone to make sure to fly with operative powerflarm and upgrade the powerflarm firmware every year during the annual.

Indeed, during the annual. The perfect time to do it and then you'll not be later questioning, did I or didn't I?
A PSA is probably worth doing through RAS with a little how-to in spring for those of us in Northern Hemisphere. I always found those helpful.

Yikes! This is the THIRD collision I've heard of in the last year and a half between PowerFLARM equipped aircraft where one of the PowerFLARMs is not working. In the first two cases the towplane PowerFLARM was not operating, one because of undisclosed issues, the other because the towpilot was taxiing back to the hangar without turning on the PowerFLARM when a glider at the end of its landing run pulled in front.

3 Missed Opportunities
5 Write Offs
2 Fatalities
1 Hospitalisation

How much has/will your insurance go(ne) up ?

OK...I am ready to get flamed.
I have flown with a PowerFlarm for several years.
False alarms. Searching frantically for aircraft that I just never see or do not exist.
Flying with a group, all with Flarm, and several do not show on my screen because they have carbon fuselages and antennas that are blocked.
Flying head to head with another Flarm aircraft and no display.
Having other pilots inform me that they saw my plane on their screens when I was not flying...multiple times!
The programing and configuration issues are just too much.
My system is updated and confirmed with and by experts.
But, most are not.
For me, it has not been a dependable, reliable, predictable piece of equipment.
My experiences in France have been much better.
My understanding is that those systems are overseen/verified/inspected by aircraft mechanics.
Here in the USA...the Flarm system mostly increases my anxiety and complicates my flying day.

Have there been any glider mid airs in the last few years where the gliders didn't have Flarm?

At 04:03 17 November 2020, Gregg Ballou wrote:
Have there been any glider mid airs in the last few years where the
gliders
didn't have Flarm?


I can't directly answer this question but very nearly had one myself this
summer.

Was flying near Col de Carro in French Alps. Ground there is about 3-
3200 metres, Cloudbase I recall being around 3800 so not a huge
amount of room. There were alot of gliders in the area, I could see at
least 7/8. Three were below and in front of me in a thermal and I
planned to pass above their thermal. Flarm was giving me collision
warnings and I (WRONGLY!) assumed it was the gliders in front of me.

I then saw another glider at 90 degrees to my track heading straight for
my wing tip at exactly the same level. They were horribly close and I do
not know how we did not collide.

The experience has reinforced something said to me, as a a student
many many years ago, pre Flarm but just as relevant ' Don't
concentrate on the gliders you have seen. You're not likely to collide
with them. Keep looking for the ones you haven't seen.' (Thanks Mike
Pirie)

On Monday, November 16, 2020 at 10:03:10 PM UTC-6, Gregg Ballou wrote:
Have there been any glider mid airs in the last few years where the gliders didn't have Flarm?

There's also a lot more car crashes with seat belts these days.

On Monday, November 16, 2020 at 7:19:41 PM UTC-8, Guy Acheson wrote:
OK...I am ready to get flamed.
I have flown with a PowerFlarm for several years.
False alarms. Searching frantically for aircraft that I just never see or do not exist.
Flying with a group, all with Flarm, and several do not show on my screen because they have carbon fuselages and antennas that are blocked.
Flying head to head with another Flarm aircraft and no display.
Having other pilots inform me that they saw my plane on their screens when I was not flying...multiple times!
The programing and configuration issues are just too much.
My system is updated and confirmed with and by experts.
But, most are not.
For me, it has not been a dependable, reliable, predictable piece of equipment.
My experiences in France have been much better.
My understanding is that those systems are overseen/verified/inspected by aircraft mechanics.
Here in the USA...the Flarm system mostly increases my anxiety and complicates my flying day.

One great thing about flarm is that it works even if you don’t know how to use it or confused by it. It is sufficient if only the other pilot knows. So I always tell the Luddite (no offense) to turn on their flarm and ignore it if they are not comfortable with it, and then spend some time in the winter learning it and improving it.

Regarding the question if there been midair’s without flarm. Well, the good news is that less and less people fly without flarm so there are less midairs also without flarm. Overall there are much less midairs, the only ones I recall either had inop flarms or happen in gaggles where flarm is no more effective than see and avoid.

Ramy

Guy Acheson wrote on 11/16/2020 7:19 PM:
OK...I am ready to get flamed.
I have flown with a PowerFlarm for several years.
False alarms. Searching frantically for aircraft that I just never see or do not exist.
Flying with a group, all with Flarm, and several do not show on my screen because they have carbon fuselages and antennas that are blocked.
Flying head to head with another Flarm aircraft and no display.
Having other pilots inform me that they saw my plane on their screens when I was not flying...multiple times!
The programing and configuration issues are just too much.
My system is updated and confirmed with and by experts.
But, most are not.
For me, it has not been a dependable, reliable, predictable piece of equipment.
My experiences in France have been much better.
My understanding is that those systems are overseen/verified/inspected by aircraft mechanics.
Here in the USA...the Flarm system mostly increases my anxiety and complicates my flying day.

It is unfortunate that your experience with Flarm is so poor. I have flown with Flarm for many
years and ...

-essentially no false alarms: there is always a glider there when I have an alarm.
-when flying in a "group" (which I think means gliders less than a mile away, going the same
direction and thermalling together) all the gliders always show on my Flarm. Most of them are
carbon gliders.
-Head to Head: the other glider always shows (my antennas are in the nose, so forward is the best)
-I programed it once and used it that way for years, still do
-I update it once a year, it's easy (I do have read the instructions each time)

I have no explanation for why our experiences are so different, but I think your experience is
extreme. Perhaps your installation is much of the problem, and it should be reviewed by a
different expert, even a pilot with experience using several systems.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1