PowerFLARM leeching comments

Regarding stick and rudder skills of the top people, anyone, including them, have bad takeoffs and landings. Percentage wise, they will be less than the average pilot, but they are NOT exempt from screwing it up. Again, I have seen top pilots do ugly things in the pattern that would have got them bounced from a checkride. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. It just takes one time to become a statistic.

Craig R

On Monday, October 29, 2012 6:36:26 PM UTC-7, Craig R. wrote:
Regarding stick and rudder skills of the top people, anyone, including them, have bad takeoffs and landings. Percentage wise, they will be less than the average pilot, but they are NOT exempt from screwing it up. Again, I have seen top pilots do ugly things in the pattern that would have got them bounced from a checkride. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. It just takes one time to become a statistic.



Craig R

The difference between midairs and all other cause of accidents is that it is the only type which you can do almost nothing to prevent it, except using flarm. See and avoid fails to prevent midairs. Yet this is the only type of accident which can be avoided by using relatively low cost and easy to install technology.

Ramy

On Monday, October 29, 2012 7:22:20 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:

The difference between midairs and all other cause of accidents is that it is the only type which you can do almost nothing to prevent it, except using flarm. See and avoid fails to prevent midairs. Yet this is the only type of accident which can be avoided by using relatively low cost and easy to install technology.

Ramy


Exactly. I'm a bit surprised to see the continuing nit-picking about this.

9B

At 02:22 30 October 2012, Ramy wrote:

The difference between midairs and all other cause of accidents is that
it
=
is the only type which you can do almost nothing to prevent it, except
usin=
g flarm. See and avoid fails to prevent midairs. Yet this is the only
type
=
of accident which can be avoided by using relatively low cost and easy to
i=
nstall technology.=20

Ramy

I sincerely hope that no-one believes the above statement because it is
misguided.
The only way of preventing mid air collisions is for pilots to maintain a
good lookout and situational awareness AT ALL TIMES.
By far the most common scenario for a mid air in a glider is in a thermal,
followed by flying in wave. FLARM was designed to address the second cause,
flying in wave, and it does assist a pilot in that it alerts him where to
look for a threat that he has not seen, in theory. It is reasonably
efficient at this task. FLARM is not particulary good at assisting a piot
in a thermal and the effectiveness reduces as the number of gliders in a
thermal increases. Were are we likely to find large numbers of gliders in
the same thermal? in competitions.
If you are sharing a thermal with other gliders outside competition flying,
being the person able to climb faster is a matter of personal pride, not a
high priority you might think. In the competition scenario being able to
outclimb your opponents is a very high priority, you are there to win after
all. Of course a good lookout and situational awareness are essential when
sharing a thermal with others but is this priority degraded by the need to
get the best out of the thermal so climbing better. No pilot deliberately
degrades his lookout and situational awareness to address other priorities
but the need to out perform is always in the mind, that is the paradox of
competition flying. Does FLARM help in a busy thermal? The good people at
FLARM and many pilots will tell you the answer to that is NO, it was not
designed for that situation and given the heading/track problem it can be a
hinderance rather than a help.
The only way to prevent a mid air in a glider is to maintain a good lookout
and situational awareness and anyone who says otherwise is a asking for
trouble. Training people and emphasising that need is what is needed not a
technology solution that gives pilots the idea that their lookout can be
delegated to a machine that has serious limitations.

Don,

I fully agree that maintaining a good lookout at all times
is a good basis for see-and-avoid.

However, we believe that even the best pilot may occasionally fail to detect traffic.
There are a number of human factors which affect perception
(distraction, selective attention, target merging into background, target not
moving wrt. background, etc).

We have a presentation where on one slide we listed the situations where FLARM
has potentially better and/or earlier chances to detect traffic than the human eye.

These situations a
- Head-on and converging course (both gliders in cruise), especially in the
presence of clouds, snow fields etc.
- One glider circling, another one approaching the same thermal.
- Two gliders circling in opposite directions (yes, we know this shouldn't happen...)

As you say, the fewer gliders in a thermal, the more helpful FLARM can be.

FLARM does help in wave, but the indicated relative bearing to the threat may be strongly biased by wind.

Needless to say, whenever a FLARM warning occurs, the pilot should immediately
try to make visual contact with the threat.

In the Classic FLARM manual, we write:

"Under no circumstances should a pilot or crewmember adopt different tactics or deviate from the normal principles of safe airmanship."

I think that summarizes it quite nicely.

Best
--Gerhard

Gerhard,
fully agree with you, but would like to add one situation where
FLARM is useful. When there is someone on your under or
above, in position where you cannot see the other plane, flying
into the same direction. Can be cloudstreet, competition or just
a friend of your's you fly with.
The LED based FLARM displays used in Europa can only show
one target. If there are several planes around you, this display
does not give you very good situation awareness. That caused
here a midair of two FLARM equipped gliders year ago.
The powerflarm has graphical display, that shows several
targets around you. It also has two receivers and antennas, so
the situation of the midair I mentioned should not occur again.
There was no FLARM warning - looks like the carbon fuselages
dampen the radio signal, and the gliders approached each
others from the dipole antenna's blind spots.
-kimmo

(English language summary on page VII)
http://www.turvallisuustutkinta.fi/Satellite?
blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobcol=urldata&SSURIapptype= BlobSer
ver&SSURIcontainer=Default&SSURIsession=false&blob key=id&
blobheadervalue1=inline;%20filename=Tutkintaselost us%20B1_
2011L.pdf&SSURIsscontext=Satellite%20Server&blobwh ere=134
2016078074&blobheadername1=Content-
Disposition&ssbinary=true&blobheader=application/pdf

At 15:06 30 October 2012, wrote:
Don,

I fully agree that maintaining a good lookout at all times
is a good basis for see-and-avoid.

However, we believe that even the best pilot may occasionally
fail to
detect traffic.
There are a number of human factors which affect perception
(distraction, selective attention, target merging into
background, target
not
moving wrt. background, etc).

We have a presentation where on one slide we listed the
situations where
FLARM
has potentially better and/or earlier chances to detect traffic
than the
human eye.

These situations a
- Head-on and converging course (both gliders in cruise),
especially in the
presence of clouds, snow fields etc.
- One glider circling, another one approaching the same
thermal.
- Two gliders circling in opposite directions (yes, we know this
shouldn't
happen...)

As you say, the fewer gliders in a thermal, the more helpful
FLARM can be.

FLARM does help in wave, but the indicated relative bearing to
the threat
may be strongly biased by wind.

Needless to say, whenever a FLARM warning occurs, the pilot
should
immediately
try to make visual contact with the threat.

In the Classic FLARM manual, we write:

"Under no circumstances should a pilot or crewmember adopt
different
tactics or deviate from the normal principles of safe
airmanship."

I think that summarizes it quite nicely.

Best
--Gerhard

At 15:06 30 October 2012, wrote:
Don,

I fully agree that maintaining a good lookout at all times
is a good basis for see-and-avoid.

However, we believe that even the best pilot may occasionally fail to
detect traffic.
There are a number of human factors which affect perception
(distraction, selective attention, target merging into background, target
not
moving wrt. background, etc).

We have a presentation where on one slide we listed the situations where
FLARM
has potentially better and/or earlier chances to detect traffic than the
human eye.

These situations a
- Head-on and converging course (both gliders in cruise), especially in
the
presence of clouds, snow fields etc.
- One glider circling, another one approaching the same thermal.
- Two gliders circling in opposite directions (yes, we know this
shouldn't
happen...)

As you say, the fewer gliders in a thermal, the more helpful FLARM can
be.

FLARM does help in wave, but the indicated relative bearing to the threat
may be strongly biased by wind.

Needless to say, whenever a FLARM warning occurs, the pilot should
immediately
try to make visual contact with the threat.

In the Classic FLARM manual, we write:

"Under no circumstances should a pilot or crewmember adopt different
tactics or deviate from the normal principles of safe airmanship."

I think that summarizes it quite nicely.

Best
--Gerhard

Gerhard

I do not disagree with you, FLARM does help, with the emphasis on help, it
does not replace or indeed lessen the necessity for a good lookout. My
argument was contering the statement that, "The difference between midairs
and all other cause of accidents is that it is the only type which you can
do almost nothing to prevent it, except using flarm." which I think you
will agree is a load of total ********. FLARM can assit the aware pilot, it
is NOT the answer to preventing mid air collisions.
In Europe we do have, or some of us do, the LX8000 which does give the
radar display, however it takes time to see all the other gliders, time
which would be beter spent looking out.

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 5:00:04 PM UTC+1, Don Johnstone wrote:

I do not disagree with you, FLARM does help, with the emphasis on help, it

does not replace or indeed lessen the necessity for a good lookout. My

argument was contering the statement that, "The difference between midairs

and all other cause of accidents is that it is the only type which you can

do almost nothing to prevent it, except using flarm." which I think you

will agree is a load of total ********. FLARM can assit the aware pilot, it

is NOT the answer to preventing mid air collisions.

Statically it is. Midairs, once the number 1 accident cause, are now almost nonexistent in Switzerland, since the introduction of Flarm.

You can also assume that no pilot wants a midair collision and maintains good look out. But there are limitations to the human senses, as stated by Gerhard.

We have to stop threating the glider pilot as a luminous all seeing perfect elite being. (paron the pun.) We make mistakes. Hundreds each flight. In fact its a human quality to err.

Here is where technology helps. It maintains its constant SA and fills in our human attention gaps.

- Folken

Bravo Falken. +1 again and again! I wish we had more folks like you over here. Bravo!

At 17:13 30 October 2012, folken wrote:
On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 5:00:04 PM UTC+1, Don Johnstone wrote:

I do not disagree with you, FLARM does help, with the emphasis on help,
it

does not replace or indeed lessen the necessity for a good lookout. My

argument was contering the statement that, "The difference between
midairs

and all other cause of accidents is that it is the only type which you
can

do almost nothing to prevent it, except using flarm." which I think you

will agree is a load of total ********. FLARM can assit the aware
pilot,
it

is NOT the answer to preventing mid air collisions.

Statically it is. Midairs, once the number 1 accident cause, are now
almost
nonexistent in Switzerland, since the introduction of Flarm.

You can also assume that no pilot wants a midair collision and maintains
good look out. But there are limitations to the human senses, as stated
by
Gerhard.

We have to stop threating the glider pilot as a luminous all seeing
perfect
elite being. (paron the pun.) We make mistakes. Hundreds each flight. In
fact its a human quality to err.

Yes it helps, it does not provide the answer as the statement to which I
objected intimated it might. The only solution is better lookout and
bettter situational awareness however THAT can be achieved, not replacing
them with technology.

In answer to the assertion that mid-air collisions in Switzerland have been
eradicated, mid air collisions are very very rare and relying on statistics
with such a small sample is futile. As I recall the only mid air I can
recall in Switzerland over recent year was between two FLARM equipped
gliders, go figure.

Here is where technology helps. It maintains its constant SA and fills in
our human attention gaps.

- Folken