Powerflarm's unknown effect on the first contests in US

On Jan 8, 7:33*pm, jcarlyle wrote:
Good rant! Some good points in there, too. But I'm not sure that it's
proper to assume that glider pilots with a "new toy" are going to mean
more problems.

I put in a transponder and took a lot of heat for being interested in
"gadgets". That talk stopped abruptly, and the number of transponders
in my circle of glider pilots went up, the evening a friend and I
landed with a tale about a Lear Jet who turned to avoid the two of us
while we were thermalling. The next subject of conversation was how
many new transponder equipped glider pilots saw commuter flights
noticing them, as evidenced by their turning a bit to stay clear of
the glider.

Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

I agree there are considerations for contests. I personally don't
think they're really big, given the European experience, but maybe us
Yanks really are 10x more competitive and will milk any bit of data to
win. Even so, I don't think it's proper to assume all new Flarm owners
will fly automatically be flying heads down. After all, Flarm is sort
of like an audio vario - if it beeps, look at it quickly to see why,
then look out again. Even us old geezers should be able to handle
that...

-John

On Jan 8, 11:09 am, hretting wrote:



I for one fear a disaster in the making and feel Flarm should be
banned from contest to allow a period of familarization. It is my
belief that Pilots + New Toys X unreal expectations + *(venders x $$$)
divided by NPilots(pilots who are looking out the #!%#ing cockpit) =
****ty day at Black Rock (an old Spencer Tracy movie).
But hey, this is the opinion of a 33,000 ++ hour electrojet captain
who has seen more than his share of knuckhead pilots doing stupid
sh_t.
And now we have non-Flarmers being declared automatic leachers and
Charlie Spratt wanna-bees determining how he's going to run a
contest.
Careful.... Careful.....
Get a senior instructor (UH) who is not emotional (UH). Since this is
where we are heading, make him (UH) supreme guru who will create a
blending process to reduce the risk of Techno-Crashes. A phasing in
plan if you will. He's a sucker for extra large T-shirt with a glider
on it.
Flarm at the seniors..good god...might as well put a hood on everyone.
R

Yep, things started going downhill once they allowed those darned
varios to be used in contests. The only instrument decent pilots need
is a yaw string!

Mike

On Jan 8, 12:48*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:
On Jan 8, 7:33*pm, jcarlyle wrote:





Good rant! Some good points in there, too. But I'm not sure that it's
proper to assume that glider pilots with a "new toy" are going to mean
more problems.

I put in a transponder and took a lot of heat for being interested in
"gadgets". That talk stopped abruptly, and the number of transponders
in my circle of glider pilots went up, the evening a friend and I
landed with a tale about a Lear Jet who turned to avoid the two of us
while we were thermalling. The next subject of conversation was how
many new transponder equipped glider pilots saw commuter flights
noticing them, as evidenced by their turning a bit to stay clear of
the glider.

Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

I agree there are considerations for contests. I personally don't
think they're really big, given the European experience, but maybe us
Yanks really are 10x more competitive and will milk any bit of data to
win. Even so, I don't think it's proper to assume all new Flarm owners
will fly automatically be flying heads down. After all, Flarm is sort
of like an audio vario - if it beeps, look at it quickly to see why,
then look out again. Even us old geezers should be able to handle
that...

-John

On Jan 8, 11:09 am, hretting wrote:

I for one fear a disaster in the making and feel Flarm should be
banned from contest to allow a period of familarization. It is my
belief that Pilots + New Toys X unreal expectations + *(venders x $$$)
divided by NPilots(pilots who are looking out the #!%#ing cockpit) =
****ty day at Black Rock (an old Spencer Tracy movie).
But hey, this is the opinion of a 33,000 ++ hour electrojet captain
who has seen more than his share of knuckhead pilots doing stupid
sh_t.
And now we have non-Flarmers being declared automatic leachers and
Charlie Spratt wanna-bees determining how he's going to run a
contest.
Careful.... Careful.....
Get a senior instructor (UH) who is not emotional (UH). Since this is
where we are heading, make him (UH) supreme guru who will create a
blending process to reduce the risk of Techno-Crashes. A phasing in
plan if you will. He's a sucker for extra large T-shirt with a glider
on it.
Flarm at the seniors..good god...might as well put a hood on everyone..
R

Yep, things started going downhill once they allowed those darned
varios to be used in contests. *The only instrument decent pilots need
is a yaw string!

Mike- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

What's your longest flight without a vario? Mine was about 150 Mi.
UH - resident Luddite

On Jan 8, 12:33*pm, jcarlyle wrote:
Good rant! Some good points in there, too. But I'm not sure that it's
proper to assume that glider pilots with a "new toy" are going to mean
more problems.

I put in a transponder and took a lot of heat for being interested in
"gadgets". That talk stopped abruptly, and the number of transponders
in my circle of glider pilots went up, the evening a friend and I
landed with a tale about a Lear Jet who turned to avoid the two of us
while we were thermalling. The next subject of conversation was how
many new transponder equipped glider pilots saw commuter flights
noticing them, as evidenced by their turning a bit to stay clear of
the glider.

Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

I agree there are considerations for contests. I personally don't
think they're really big, given the European experience, but maybe us
Yanks really are 10x more competitive and will milk any bit of data to
win. Even so, I don't think it's proper to assume all new Flarm owners
will fly automatically be flying heads down. After all, Flarm is sort
of like an audio vario - if it beeps, look at it quickly to see why,
then look out again. Even us old geezers should be able to handle
that...

-John

On Jan 8, 11:09 am, hretting wrote:



Yes it would great if everyone had your experience and smarts with
implementing a , what, transponder?, are you kidding. You're comparing
a Flarm with a transponder. And of course you have TCAS in your glider
too! We're talking contest here, not a local jaunt around the area
that encounters a jet, which happens during all your flights, right?
And Mike, I never wrote that Flarm was a bad idea. Go back and read my
thread again. Brillant come back.
We're talking another distraction to the average racer that without
some planning and forethought, could lead to a chain of events not
desired.
The competition committee did good I believe in slowing things (Flarm)
down.
By the way, I have a transponder in my glider too.
R

Wow - a complete inability to comprehend. Explains why you're against
a new instrument in the cockpit.

-John

On Jan 8, 5:07 pm, hretting wrote:
Yes it would great if everyone had your experience and smarts with
implementing a , what, transponder?, are you kidding. You're comparing
a Flarm with a transponder. And of course you have TCAS in your glider
too! We're talking contest here, not a local jaunt around the area
that encounters a jet, which happens during all your flights, right?
And Mike, I never wrote that Flarm was a bad idea. Go back and read my
thread again. Brillant come back.
We're talking another distraction to the average racer that without
some planning and forethought, could lead to a chain of events not
desired.
The competition committee did good I believe in slowing things (Flarm)
down.
By the way, I have a transponder in my glider too.
R

On Jan 8, 9:09*am, hretting wrote:
I for one fear a disaster in the making and feel Flarm should be
banned from contest to allow a period of familarization. It is my
belief that Pilots + New Toys X unreal expectations + *(venders x $$$)
divided by NPilots(pilots who are looking out the #!%#ing cockpit) =
****ty day at Black Rock (an old Spencer Tracy movie).
But hey, this is the opinion of a 33,000 ++ hour electrojet captain
who has seen more than his share of knuckhead pilots doing stupid
sh_t.
And now we have non-Flarmers being declared automatic leachers and
Charlie Spratt wanna-bees determining how he's going to run a
contest.
Careful.... Careful.....
Get a senior instructor (UH) who is not emotional (UH). Since this is
where we are heading, make him (UH) supreme guru who will create a
blending process to reduce the risk of Techno-Crashes. A phasing in
plan if you will. He's a sucker for extra large T-shirt with a glider
on it.
Flarm at the seniors..good god...might as well put a hood on everyone.
R

Wow, who ****ed in your wheaties this morning?

How you can state that Flarm should be banned from contests, after a
season where it would have probably prevented two mid-airs and saved
one life?

Where do you get that "Flarmers" will be able to leach better than non-
flarmers. Really? Kindly explain how that will work. I've never seen
that fear raised in any discussion of Flarm.

The whole leaching question is a tempest in a teapot. If it bothers
you, turn on Stealth mode and you can't be leached (but will still get
collision warning).

So if I understand your position, it's fine for the knuckleheads in
their electrojet to not have to look out the window and be warned of
an impending midair by their TCAS (I see you have a xponder in your
glider) but not OK for glider pilots to have a similar safety net -
despite having to fly in a much more collision-prone environment!

And the Seniors is EXACTLY where Flarm should be MANDATORY. Think
about it, and what age does to vision, flexibility, reaction time,
etc.

Sounds like you need to get that senior instructor and have the whole
concept to Flarm and active collision avoidance explained to you!

Kirk
66

First, my apologies for not spelling " leech" correctly and passing it
on to you. Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.
My stand is that while you believe the two midairs would have been
prevented by FLARM....I believe that the rapid insertion of Flarm into
the contest regime will create a risk greater than the one we are
trying to reduce.
I believe to reduce that specific risk, we allow for the "Novelty"
period followed by the "Functional check-out" period before we include
it into the contest regime.
Flarm will change the "paranoia" level of the group. Not right
away.....but slowly. This is the dynamics that we must guard.
First the dip, then the spike, then the balance.

You're right about the knuckleheads not looking out.....
But I do.
R

On Jan 8, 7:03*pm, hretting wrote:
First, my apologies for not spelling " leech" correctly and passing it
on to you. Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.
My stand is that while you believe the two midairs would have been
prevented by FLARM....I believe that the rapid insertion of Flarm into
the contest regime will create a risk greater than the one we are
trying to reduce.
I believe to reduce that specific risk, we allow for the "Novelty"
period followed by the "Functional check-out" period before we include
it into the contest regime.
Flarm will change the "paranoia" level of the group. Not right
away.....but slowly. This is the dynamics that we must guard.
First the dip, then the spike, then the balance.

You're right about the knuckleheads not looking out.....
But I do.
R

Thats fine, but I have to disagree. FLARM is not a complex system,
and if you have advanced to the point that you can race a glider while
watching your PDA, glide computer, etc., adding FLARM to the mix is
not going to be a big change.

In fact, it's a lot less of a distractor than the current fad of huge
color moving map displays in racing cockpits. Yeah, I need a Clearnav/
Ultimate so I don't get lost. Just like the guy in the Cirrus (the
one with 4 seats, a motor and a parachute, not the nice glider) with
his Garmin 1000 needs it on a CAVU day in Arizona, where you can see
every mountain in the state at the same time. Look out the window?
That's so 20th Century!

If nothing else, just mute it and don't look at it, that way at least
others will know you are there. Kinda like a transponder/TCAS setup.
I've got some nice black duct tape you can use to cover the display if
it distracts you...

Anyway, the experience in the rest of the world with FLARM seems
pretty positive. That's good enough for me.

Check 6, and Cheers!

Kirk
66

On Jan 8, 6:03*pm, hretting wrote:

Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.

Sorry. That was a joke - it's what the winking emoticon means.

The climb rate displays in WinPilot/SeeYou do look pretty
interesting. We'll have to see how much they really turn out to be
useful - or a distraction. It's one thing to be able to see a glider
with a good climb rate on a screen and quite another to be able to get
to the indicated location, find the thermal and actually achieve the
same climb rate.

The only way to know is to try it. I think the RC approach for 2011 is
a responsible and balanced one given both the safety potential and the
uncertainties. I for one would feel pretty bad if we lost another
pilot having ignored the opportunity to do something significant.

Stealth Mode on/off will, I suspect, be a major decision to make as we
get going. I'd encourage the RC to collect feedback contest-by-contest
so we can learn and adapt with each contest experience.

9B

On Jan 9, 8:06*am, Andy wrote:
On Jan 8, 6:03*pm, hretting wrote:

Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.

Sorry. That was a joke - it's what the winking emoticon means.

The climb rate displays in WinPilot/SeeYou do look pretty
interesting. *We'll have to see how much they really turn out to be
useful - or a distraction. *It's one thing to be able to see a glider
with a good climb rate on a screen and quite another to be able to get
to the indicated location, find the thermal and actually achieve the
same climb rate.

The only way to know is to try it. I think the RC approach for 2011 is
a responsible and balanced one given both the safety potential and the
uncertainties. I for one would feel pretty bad if we lost another
pilot having ignored the opportunity to do something significant.

Stealth Mode on/off will, I suspect, be a major decision to make as we
get going. I'd encourage the RC to collect feedback contest-by-contest
so we can learn and adapt with each contest experience.

9B

Hi,
I've updated my web site with details and pricing on the new
PowerFlarm Antileaching Device.
It looks very interesting. Its ability to totally prevent leaching is
amazing.
It will be compatible with all Flarm Units and PowerFlarm Units. I
have many pre-orders. It will be ready for immediate shipment soon.
You can see details and pre-order he

http://www.craggyaero.com/cloaking.htm

I can’ wait to fly with one!

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

I think there is too much FUD around Flarm (That's IBM speak for Fear
Uncertainty and Doubt)

Experience of introducing Flarm in the south African racing environment
was effectively painless. There was never a decrease in safety
attributable to Flarm.

To my knowledge there was no material increase in leeching. If you can
keep up to leech, the Flarm is unlikely to help much...
If you are close enough to the other thermal to be able to use the
information about relative climb rate - you can probably verify the
differential as effectively visually. Certainly I am not aware of anyone
gaining advantage this way.

Have contests become safer? Hard to say - but I am a lot more
comfortable with no beeps emanating from the flarm. OK - in my case that
is generally because the others are so far ahead.

And yes - mid airs, in contests and others were a significant percentage
of fatals in SA. There are at least three pilots who would still be with
us if they had Flarm working. Since Flarm became common we have not had
any. Apparently Flarm does what it says on the box - improves safety in
glider operations...

Some use it well, some don't - as with everything.

Cheers
Bruce

On 2011/01/09 4:03 AM, hretting wrote:
First, my apologies for not spelling " leech" correctly and passing it
on to you. Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.
My stand is that while you believe the two midairs would have been
prevented by FLARM....I believe that the rapid insertion of Flarm into
the contest regime will create a risk greater than the one we are
trying to reduce.
I believe to reduce that specific risk, we allow for the "Novelty"
period followed by the "Functional check-out" period before we include
it into the contest regime.
Flarm will change the "paranoia" level of the group. Not right
away.....but slowly. This is the dynamics that we must guard.
First the dip, then the spike, then the balance.

You're right about the knuckleheads not looking out.....
But I do.
R






--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771 & Std Cirrus #57