Flarm and stealth

Hi John,

I have not flown with FLARM yet... But I did fly in the Sport Class
Nationals in Parowan, UT this year - in which there was a major mid-air
collision and at least one other near-miss. I wanted FLARM (for myself and
everyone else at the contest) so bad I could taste it.

I have also been a Competition Director and Contest Manager at several U.S.
soaring contests and competed in a number of soaring contests.

It seems to me that enabling Stealth mode reduces safety. It reduces the
amount of knowledge you get about traffic around you. Also, it reduces the
amount of information you get about thermals in front of you. To me,
information about thermals in front of me increases my personal safety
factor because it reduces the likelihood that I will need to landout
(especially on a weak day) - which has inherent risks (especially over
rugged terrain).

In the roles of Contest Manager and Competition Director, I always had in
the back of my mind thoughts of liability. I was somewhat concerned that
the decisions of the people running the contest could come back to bite us
all in the event of a tragic accident. With that in mind - (as a Contest
Manager or Competition Director) I would never enforce any rule that reduces
safety. Therefore I am strongly opposed to any rule that requires the use
of Competition Mode or Stealth Mode. Also, doing so would increase the
workload of the contest volunteers (because they would need to chase down
FLARM logs every day) - who are working quite hard already.

I hope that the U.S. Contest Rules Committee finds through this thread that
forcing the use of Stealth or Competition modes is not being done anywhere
in the world. I don't know whether or not that is true - but I suspect it
is from what I have heard from my customers around the world. I believe
that people at FLARM recommend not using Stealth or Competition modes. I
hope that Urs (from FLARM) can comment on his thoughts about those modes.

Best Regards,

Paul Remde

"John Cochrane" wrote in message
...
As the US gets ready for the arrival of flarm, a big question on many
US pilot's minds is, what about stealth mode? From an armchair
piloting point of view, it seems that seeing gliders in a several km
range, with climb rates attached, could be a major competitive
issue. With this in mind, whether to require stealth mode in
competitions is being actively debated.

I'd like to hear from our European friends with lots of contest
experience, just how this is playing out. Do you find that non-stealth
displays are in fact very useful? Where stealth mode is either not
required or not enforced (WGC), is it becoming de rigeur to have a
secondary display and follow the gaggle with your flarm? Or are the
theoretical advantages overstated, and in the real world flarm
leeching isn't that big an issue; you're better off looking out the
window and seeing who is racked up in a tight turn?

Where stealth mode is required, is it being enforced, and how much of
a pain is that proving to be? Certainly the obvious protocol,
involving cockpit checks for hidden flarms, daily submission of flight
logs, and penalties for absence of such logs, seems rather onerous.

Thanks in advance. We are fortunate to have your experience so we
don't have to rethink this all from scratch!

John Cochrane

See www.lk8000.it/about.html for what you can actually do with a flarm
when you want to follow someone..

You can actually "see" the IAS, and thus know its MC, and even if the vario
values are scrambled when you are far away from the "target", still their
averages is valid.
I mean, in 4-5 years we discovered, here in europe, many different
applications for Flarm.

Something that has not been discussed here, is the fact that Flarm does
actually stores in the log the position of gliders seen during the fligth.
This was critical to find a friend lost during a competition in Rieti, last
year.

Everything is nice and smooth in Flarm, except for one thing: they use a
closed proprietary protocol, and thus they operate in monopoly.
However, to be honest their products are excellent and they have a really
good pricing policy.
When you buy a Flarm IGC you also get a logger, at an unbeatable value for
that price.

Also Butterfly avionics are doing wonderful things.

paolo

On Oct 29, 7:57*am, "Paul Remde" wrote:
Therefore I am strongly opposed to any rule that requires the use
of Competition Mode or Stealth Mode. *

And I'm just as strongly opposed to any device that returns us to
endless start gate roulette and reduces sailplane racing to Nascar
style "drafting". But so what? That isn't what John was asking for.

It would be a nearly trivial matter in software to block all
communication with other flarm devices more than (pick a number) two
miles away. No impact at all on safety w.r.t. midair collision
avoidance. Being able to detect climbing gliders and knowing their
climb rate at 5 miles (as PowerFlarm is said to be capable of doing)
is a *huge* potential game changer and John is absolutely right to be
thinking forward on this.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

In the UK Flarm has to be set to stealth mode for use in
competitions. This was introduced this year. Organisers may
make spot checks for compliance, but I'm not aware of any checks
being made. It didn't seem to cause any issues, apart from the
minor hassle of making the file change on the sd card.

At 11:57 29 October 2010, Paul Remde wrote:

I hope that the U.S. Contest Rules Committee finds through this
thread
that
forcing the use of Stealth or Competition modes is not being done
anywhere

in the world. I don't know whether or not that is true - but I
suspect it

is from what I have heard from my customers around the world.