Flarm with Firmware 1.20 update

Evan Ludeman wrote:

To Chris over in Europe... the US situation is rather different in
that a) the US is geographically huge and b) the US glider population
is very small. Glider clubs that launch eight gliders for a total of
perhaps 20 flights on a "busy" day account for a lot of US soaring.

While this is correct, think about what all glider pilots are searching all
the time: lift. As soon as you find a good thermal, the chance is that
another joins you very soon. Circling in thermals can get you very close to
other gliders, even if the airspace around you is empty. My near miss
happened at a small competition, we had a 250 km triangle. Even when we
crossed the starting line at different times we met each other again and
again, sometimes 5 or more gliders circling together at the same altitude.
When then the Flarm shriekes and flashes at another glider coming from
behind you can make a sharp turn out of the circle. Better loose some 20m
than your wing.

Another near miss happened at our airfield in the landing pattern, when an
inexperienced pilot came heading straight against another one who was on
correct course. They did not have Flarm and could avoid a crash in the last
second.

What does it help when there are only 10 gliders in a 1000km radius, but one
that flies directly into your cockpit? Collisions happen where there are
reasons to be at the same place, like traffic patterns and thermals.

Happy landings

In the UK, most glider collisions take place in or close to the
pattern/circuit at gliding sites. Most are with other gliders or tugs
from the same site. A few are with unrelated powered aircraft. (Little
sky, lot of bullets.)

Hardly any are while on cross country flights away from the home site.
(Big sky, few bullets.)

Before we had Flarm, we had 20 fatalities in 23 years, mostly of
glider pilots. We now have over 25 percent of UK glider with Flarm,
and most of those are in the quarter of the England (southern eastern
sector) where most gliding is done.

Is it a coincidence that fatal collisions have not featured as
prominently in the UK accident figures (none since 2009, and that was
a non-Flarm glider colliding with a non-Flarm powered aircraft – both
pilots in the latter were killed) since Flarm grew from a few to over
25 percent uptake? And the most recent (non-fatal) collision of which
I know, in 2011, had no Flarm help in avoiding it? I think it is too
soon for it to be statistically significant, but to me it looks
hopeful.

As for those who say another instrument in the cockpit is too much and
keeps your head down even more, sorry but that is rubbish. Virtually
everyone who flies with it has realized we were not looking out well
enough before, and the bleeps make you look harder. If it goes into
alarm mode – collision imminent if you don’t do something – you are
very glad indeed to have the warning. Been there, done it,

Ditto PCAS.

But, sadly, the unbelievers will remain unconvinced. Those of us old
enough to remember the car seat belt saga will recall those who
opposed them saying they would rather have the chance of being thrown
clear than be strapped in. (Ever hear of many people being so thrown
clear of an otherwise fatal car crash?)

As for those who have no room, yes that can happen. A pity. But the
small Swiss Flarm can go elsewhere in the cockpit than on the panel.

Transponders? For Minden etc., great. But transponders do not detect
each other. Two air cadet aircraft collided in the UK in 2009, killing
both instructors and both cadets - 4 dead. Both aircraft had
transponders. Unless you also have PCAS or better, or have radar
service, they are useless at glider/glider, glider/power, or even
power/power collision avoidance. (Very few UK gliders have
transponders, and most including mine are inhibited by regulations
requiring expensive and/or impractical official modifications and
certification issues, as well as cost etc.. I can’t have one in my
glider, and I had a hole in the instrument panel ready for it.)

My advice to people in thr UK is to get Flarm, and when you do so, get
as many of your buddies at the same gliding site to get them too. You
are all each other’s greatest collision risk, near your own base. In
the USA? Well, where have your glider/glider collisions mostly been?

Chris N.

By the way, if anyone wants a copy of a paper I did on Lookout, Flarm,
PCAS etc., send me an email to which I can reply with an attachment. I
am not an expert, but it was the best I could pull together, with some
help from others including data from people on r.a.s.

Chris N

Very good post, Chris. Your mention of "Swiss FLARM" which you say is small
has me looking. From what I can see, it would require mounting on top of
the glare shield which is unacceptable to me. There's no room in my panel
for another instrument and there's no room behind the panel for a remote
device which could display on my Android.

I will continue doing research, but let me ask a couple of questions of the
board: Is there a FLARM unit which could be mounted, say, behind the seat
back bulkhead and provide alarms and display on my Android running XCSoar?
Would such a mount require penetrating my carbon fuselage for an external
antenna? Maybe an antenna (only) on top of the glare shield considering
vertical clearance with the canopy.

So far, what I've found on FLARM websites states that it provides warning of
other FLARM-equipped aircraft. I've not yet found where it provides warning
against all transponder-equipped aircraft. Could somebody please guide me
in the right direction?


"Chris Nicholas" wrote in message
...
In the UK, most glider collisions take place in or close to the
pattern/circuit at gliding sites. Most are with other gliders or tugs
from the same site. A few are with unrelated powered aircraft. (Little
sky, lot of bullets.)

Hardly any are while on cross country flights away from the home site.
(Big sky, few bullets.)

Before we had Flarm, we had 20 fatalities in 23 years, mostly of
glider pilots. We now have over 25 percent of UK glider with Flarm,
and most of those are in the quarter of the England (southern eastern
sector) where most gliding is done.

Is it a coincidence that fatal collisions have not featured as
prominently in the UK accident figures (none since 2009, and that was
a non-Flarm glider colliding with a non-Flarm powered aircraft – both
pilots in the latter were killed) since Flarm grew from a few to over
25 percent uptake? And the most recent (non-fatal) collision of which
I know, in 2011, had no Flarm help in avoiding it? I think it is too
soon for it to be statistically significant, but to me it looks
hopeful.

As for those who say another instrument in the cockpit is too much and
keeps your head down even more, sorry but that is rubbish. Virtually
everyone who flies with it has realized we were not looking out well
enough before, and the bleeps make you look harder. If it goes into
alarm mode – collision imminent if you don’t do something – you are
very glad indeed to have the warning. Been there, done it,

Ditto PCAS.

But, sadly, the unbelievers will remain unconvinced. Those of us old
enough to remember the car seat belt saga will recall those who
opposed them saying they would rather have the chance of being thrown
clear than be strapped in. (Ever hear of many people being so thrown
clear of an otherwise fatal car crash?)

As for those who have no room, yes that can happen. A pity. But the
small Swiss Flarm can go elsewhere in the cockpit than on the panel.

Transponders? For Minden etc., great. But transponders do not detect
each other. Two air cadet aircraft collided in the UK in 2009, killing
both instructors and both cadets - 4 dead. Both aircraft had
transponders. Unless you also have PCAS or better, or have radar
service, they are useless at glider/glider, glider/power, or even
power/power collision avoidance. (Very few UK gliders have
transponders, and most including mine are inhibited by regulations
requiring expensive and/or impractical official modifications and
certification issues, as well as cost etc.. I can’t have one in my
glider, and I had a hole in the instrument panel ready for it.)

My advice to people in thr UK is to get Flarm, and when you do so, get
as many of your buddies at the same gliding site to get them too. You
are all each other’s greatest collision risk, near your own base. In
the USA? Well, where have your glider/glider collisions mostly been?

Chris N.

On 1/28/2012 4:56 PM, Dan Marotta wrote:


So far, what I've found on FLARM websites states that it provides
warning of other FLARM-equipped aircraft. I've not yet found where it
provides warning against all transponder-equipped aircraft. Could
somebody please guide me in the right direction?

Stop looking at FLARM and look at PowerFLARM (which also does PCAS and
ADS-B), the device that is used in the USA. Go here for information on
it's capabilities:

http://www.gliderpilot.org/Flarm

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:56:36 -0700, Dan Marotta wrote:

I will continue doing research, but let me ask a couple of questions of
the board: Is there a FLARM unit which could be mounted, say, behind
the seat back bulkhead and provide alarms and display on my Android
running XCSoar? Would such a mount require penetrating my carbon
fuselage for an external antenna? Maybe an antenna (only) on top of the
glare shield considering vertical clearance with the canopy.

This may not help Dan or other folks who need PCAS-like abilities. As
Eric says, that needs PowerFLARM. However, the LX Red Box may be worth
considering if you have limited panel space and/or can't fit things that
stick out over the edges of the panel.

The Red Box electronics are in a small metal box measuring 50x27x97mm
(2"x1"x4") which weighs 150g and draws 60 mA at 12v. Antennae, display
etc. are all separate so the box can be placed anywhere convenient.

In addition the Red Box needs a display and two antennae, a GPS 'puck'
and a transceiver antenna. You have a choice for the latter: either a
160mm (6.5") dipole or an 80mm (3.5") rod on an 80mm diam ground plane.

The standard display is a 25x50x4.5mm (1"x2"x3/16") surface-mount unit
with an RJ45 socket in its back surface. You can also connect the Red Box
to a PNA running XCSoar or LK8000 if you can't squeeze that small display
onto your panel but already carry a PNA.

You can optionally add an SD card reader, which I'd recommend for two
reasons:
(1) I find it the easy way to update the FLARM firmware because it avoids
having to connect the FLARM to a PC.
(2) FLARM downloads logs to it, which can be uploaded to the FLARM
website to check your antenna placement.

The SD card and IGC logger are separate options: you can do the antenna
checks without needing the IGC logger option which is merely a firmware
upgrade and can be added later if you need it.

I have a Red Box installed in my Libelle with the dipole antenna, and as
many will know, the Libelle panel isn't the biggest one around and does
not allow anything to overhang its edges. Pictures of the front and rear
of my panel are he
http://www.gregorie.org/gliding/libelle/FLARM_panel.jpg
http://www.gregorie.org/gliding/libe...RM_install.jpg

The FLARM display is the small rectangle between the radio and the ASI.
You can just see the SD card reader to the right of the FLARM display,
half-hidden behind the PNA.

A description of how I made the dipole mount and the reasons behind its
design are he
http://www.gregorie.org/gliding/libe...ole_mount.html

I hope this is useful to other people with limited panel space.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Thanks Martin, but Red Box is not available in USA; it
does not meet FCC requirements and cannot be sold here.

For USA we have PowerFLARM. Currently PowerFLARM portable
is shipping, with the blind-mounting unit (analog to Red Box)
Real Soon Now (Urs will give a timeline update at the
SSA convention next week). PowerFLARM incorporates transponder
detection (Mode C, Mode S, ADS-B in).

Thanks for the comments,
Best Regards, Dave

PS details he
http://www.gliderpilot.org/FLARM

On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:19:00 -0800, Dave Nadler wrote:

Thanks Martin, but Red Box is not available in USA; it does not meet FCC
requirements and cannot be sold here.

Yes, I know that.

There are plenty of non-USAians on r.a.s and what I wrote was primarily
for them, though I imagine most of it would also apply to the PowerFlarm
'brick' when it appears. The portable PowerFLARM isn't exactly large, so
it follows that the 'brick' will be quite a bit smaller since it has no
battery compartment and, if I didn't misread anything, the display is
separate too.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Jan 29, 8:19*am, Dave Nadler wrote:
Thanks Martin, but Red Box is not available in USA; it
does not meet FCC requirements and cannot be sold here.

For USA we have PowerFLARM. Currently PowerFLARM portable
is shipping, with the blind-mounting unit (analog to Red Box)
Real Soon Now (Urs will give a timeline update at the
SSA convention next week). PowerFLARM incorporates transponder
detection (Mode C, Mode S, ADS-B in).

Thanks for the comments,
Best Regards, Dave

PS details hehttp://www.gliderpilot.org/FLARM

With the 1.20 update in my box, I drove to the local airport and
observed for about an hour. Local Cessna tookoff and it showed a red
circle that expanded then turned green when it was 1 mile away. Next I
painted an airliner with ADS-B and I got a black arrow showing
position, about 2 miles north and tracking N/E with altitude +9.9
(above 10K). Next another mode C arrival marched down to 1 mile
showing a green circle that turned red as he entered the pattern and
landed. All of these contacts showed their altitude. The only thing I
didn't get was any audio warning, even inside 1/4 mile and zero
altitude difference?
I really like the unit and believe it will give me a reading on most
of the aircraft near my airspace. A majority of the ships flying at my
gliderport have Power flarm and the real threat of hitting another
glider should be greatly reduced. We often run a clearly defined shear-
line in the local mountains and there is lots of head-on traffic as we
all follow the good stuff that is in a narrow band.
See you on my Powerflarm,
JJ