Flarm and stealth

Hi John,

Well said.

Just to be clear - I am not in favor of mandating anything. I don't want to
mandate the use of FLARM at all. My hope is that enough people will start
using FLARM that the others will hear how great it is and then also buy one.
If there are a few hold-outs (after a year or 2 or 3) that are the only
people not using FLARM at a contest or crowded gliderport or along a crowded
ridge - I imagine they will be pressured by the other competitors (hopefully
in a friendly way) to buy one.

I agree that it will be tough to make any big decisions until we have a lot
more experience. But that makes it tough to make rules for 2011 contests.
I'm glad I'm not on the U.S. Contest Rules Committee this year. : )

Best Regards,

Paul Remde

"John Cochrane" wrote in message
...
As we think about this, I also think we need help on the
practicalities of a stealth mode requirement.

First, It seems we would need a cockpit check to make sure a
competitor doesn't have a second flarm driving his PDA, so a few
buddies can fly "team mode" while everyone else has stealth on. Then
we need to demand Flarm IGC files every day from every competitor, the
scorer would have to know what to look for to check both stealth
status and security. Finally we would need a system of penalties for
missing flarm files or security failures of the flarm files (can't
have guys editing it on notepad to change the stealth indication).

Is this how it works in countries (UK?) that are imposing a stealth
mode requirement? Is all that working out? I know at WGC there was a
stealth mode requirement that everybody ignored. This does not seem
like the right outcome.

Second, how do you insist on stealth and not also ban PCAS (zaon xrx),
or ADS-B traffic receivers and displays? Many gliders are equipped
with transponders, and more so will be in the future. GA ADS-B
receivers are on their way as their many advocates on other flarm
threads like to point out; not very good for glider collision
avoidance, but inevitably will show you everything with a transponder
in a 5 mile range. Are we going to ban all traffic alert systems, or
without glider specific filters? This doesn't seem possible or wise.

From those with strong opinions we should require stealth mode right,
now, explaining the practicalities would help. And I'm curious how
other countries that are requiring stealth mode are dealing with these
problems. My brain hurts...

John Cochrane