Experience with Flarm "Stealth" and Competition modes

My experience with US power flarm radar consists of one contest at Perry, where I hooked my flarm brick to my Clearnav. (Other gliders seem to have disappeared from the Clearnav screen with recent updates, which I hope will be fixed.)

Yes, you can see other gliders and Flarm's idea of their climb rates, at distances of a few miles. In my experience, I was never able to successfully join one of them in a thermal. But I guess the potential is there.

On the other hand, I found the greater situational awareness of the Flarm radar, that would not be provided by collision warnings alone, of great benefit, both for safety and for contest enjoyment.

Pre-start gaggles in misty conditions (start height was not set well below cloudbase) showed up very nicely. It was a great benefit to know there were 10 gliders I couldn't see in the cloud ahead, before the collision warnings started going nuts. Collision warning means look down, see where Flarm thinks the glider is, look up, find the glider, avoid it, try not to run in to another one.

A similar thing happened in cruise. I went one way, another half of the gaggle went another way. 15 miles later I could see on the flarm radar that we were converging again, at exactly the same altitude. I like to think we all look 90 degrees to the left and right frequently enough to pick up gliders converging to the cloud ahead. But it sure was nice to know about it all well before collision warnings started going off.

I found it enjoyable too. I would not have known where the other half of the gaggle went. Seeing where they went and where I went in real time, realizing we made exactly the same speed to the next cloud was interesting. It didn't make any difference to the race, but it's fun to know where people are..

Similarly, on one long leg with no turns, it seemed to me looking out the window that I was completely alone. I would not have known about the 10 gliders just behind me without the Flarm radar. Useful for safety, and interesting if not very valuable in the contest.

I see a strong chance that Flarm radar will lead to a bit less gaggling. Now, if you want to fly with the gaggle, you must stay in visual contact which is quite close. If it works to join other gliders by flarm, you can afford to go off a bit more on your own and not worry you'll be alone all day.

In sum, with this experience, I see flarm radar as possibly having a very slight competitive benefit. It has a slight, but definite, enjoyment benefit.. And it has, a substantial safety benefit. Knowing where they are before the collision alarm goes off and I have a Big Problem Right Now is a good thing.

In any case, fear that this is the End Of Soaring As We Know It, that a new generation of techies will take over who just watch screens and leech along like a big video game, seems highly overstated, at least based on my experience with current equipment in this contest.

John Cochrane

On Sunday, May 26, 2013 2:49:39 PM UTC-7, wrote:
My experience with US power flarm radar consists of one contest at Perry, where I hooked my flarm brick to my Clearnav. (Other gliders seem to have disappeared from the Clearnav screen with recent updates, which I hope will be fixed.)



Yes, you can see other gliders and Flarm's idea of their climb rates, at distances of a few miles. In my experience, I was never able to successfully join one of them in a thermal. But I guess the potential is there.



On the other hand, I found the greater situational awareness of the Flarm radar, that would not be provided by collision warnings alone, of great benefit, both for safety and for contest enjoyment.



Pre-start gaggles in misty conditions (start height was not set well below cloudbase) showed up very nicely. It was a great benefit to know there were 10 gliders I couldn't see in the cloud ahead, before the collision warnings started going nuts. Collision warning means look down, see where Flarm thinks the glider is, look up, find the glider, avoid it, try not to run in to another one.



A similar thing happened in cruise. I went one way, another half of the gaggle went another way. 15 miles later I could see on the flarm radar that we were converging again, at exactly the same altitude. I like to think we all look 90 degrees to the left and right frequently enough to pick up gliders converging to the cloud ahead. But it sure was nice to know about it all well before collision warnings started going off.



I found it enjoyable too. I would not have known where the other half of the gaggle went. Seeing where they went and where I went in real time, realizing we made exactly the same speed to the next cloud was interesting. It didn't make any difference to the race, but it's fun to know where people are.



Similarly, on one long leg with no turns, it seemed to me looking out the window that I was completely alone. I would not have known about the 10 gliders just behind me without the Flarm radar. Useful for safety, and interesting if not very valuable in the contest.



I see a strong chance that Flarm radar will lead to a bit less gaggling. Now, if you want to fly with the gaggle, you must stay in visual contact which is quite close. If it works to join other gliders by flarm, you can afford to go off a bit more on your own and not worry you'll be alone all day.



In sum, with this experience, I see flarm radar as possibly having a very slight competitive benefit. It has a slight, but definite, enjoyment benefit. And it has, a substantial safety benefit. Knowing where they are before the collision alarm goes off and I have a Big Problem Right Now is a good thing.



In any case, fear that this is the End Of Soaring As We Know It, that a new generation of techies will take over who just watch screens and leech along like a big video game, seems highly overstated, at least based on my experience with current equipment in this contest.



John Cochrane

As always John is right on. Stealth mode eliminates the increase situational awareness that Flarm provides. Normal mode does not provide much if any benefit in contests. More than half the time I followed a flarm target which appeared to climb well did not pay off and I wish I didnt. Also the climb rate which flarm shows is not compensated nor a good averager. I often see 9.9 knots when the glider is only climbing at 1-2 knots on average. Totally misleading. But it is sure helpful for team flying to know where your buddy is.
Also the original poster claimed that he reduced flarm alerts in gaggles by turning stealth mode. I am not sure how this will be possible. Flarm collision alerts are not suppressed by stealth mode.

Ramy

On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:52:20 AM UTC-4, Ramy wrote:

Also the original poster claimed that he reduced flarm alerts in gaggles by turning stealth mode. I am not sure how this will be possible. Flarm collision alerts are not suppressed by stealth mode.

Read it again. Competition mode and stealth mode are two completely different things.

T8

At 10:13 28 May 2013, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:52:20 AM UTC-4, Ramy wrote:

Also the original poster claimed that he reduced flarm alerts in
gaggles
by turning stealth mode. I am not sure how this will be possible. Flarm
collision alerts are not suppressed by stealth mode.

Read it again. Competition mode and stealth mode are two completely
different things.

T8

Evan, Iam not yet Flarm enabled but my airspace is pretty
uncrowded.

However, you seem to be behind Butterfly on audio deadband.
I sure would like to have this.

John Firth

An old no longer bold pilot.

Also the climb rate which flarm shows is not compensated nor a good averager. I often see 9.9 knots when the glider is only climbing at 1-2 knots on average. Totally misleading.

Flarm knows groundspeed which is usually close enough to airspeed to allow a first order TE compensation calculation. I think we should expect Flarm to get that on their To-Do list. Also, Flarm should not pass any number for climb rate until enough integration time has passed that the number has become usefully stable and meaningful (until the reading stabilizes, we should just see two dashes in the display).

Now that all of the basic functions of PowerFlarm are working, this is the time to do refinement. The ability to read a meaningful climb rate for other gliders is potentially a very nice feature. When this is working right, I suspect that folks will be less likely to choose stealth mode.

On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:06:45 PM UTC-4, Steve Koerner wrote:
Also the climb rate which flarm shows is not compensated nor a good averager. I often see 9.9 knots when the glider is only climbing at 1-2 knots on average. Totally misleading. Flarm knows groundspeed which is usually close enough to airspeed to allow a first order TE compensation calculation. I think we should expect Flarm to get that on their To-Do list. Also, Flarm should not pass any number for climb rate until enough integration time has passed that the number has become usefully stable and meaningful (until the reading stabilizes, we should just see two dashes in the display). Now that all of the basic functions of PowerFlarm are working, this is the time to do refinement. The ability to read a meaningful climb rate for other gliders is potentially a very nice feature. When this is working right, I suspect that folks will be less likely to choose stealth mode.

So now that Flarm folks have finally provided the deliverables promised, i.e reliable collision avoidance and flight logging, both of which are/were needed, and were the selling points, they should get to work and make it a better leeching tool than it already is, which more than a few of us think we do not need.
Hopefully they will be as slow in that effort as they were on the primary product.
More work will be needed by "someone" to develop a way to get information without giving it. That would be the obvious next step in Flarm Radar wars.
The "situational awareness" argument is simply a canard to get people to buy this device in order to try to remain competitive. Collision avoidance as currently provided, is a good improvement to our safety margins. That is all we really need.
One guy's opinion.
UH

The holy grail of glider technology is the ability to read the strength of thermals at a distance. So far, accomplishing that has evaded all those who have tried. PowerFlarm offers the best hope for doing just that on a limited scale when there are other gliders in a cooperating network. If you want to view that as a leeching tool, so be it. Glider racing is inherently a cooperating process.

There are folks now that are advocating voice cooperation between racers. Certainly the subject PowerFlarm functionality is fairer and more benign than having guys off on a separate frequency discussing strategies.

On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:09:07 PM UTC-5, Steve Koerner wrote:
The holy grail of glider technology is the ability to read the strength of thermals at a distance. So far, accomplishing that has evaded all those who have tried. PowerFlarm offers the best hope for doing just that on a limited scale when there are other gliders in a cooperating network. If you want to view that as a leeching tool, so be it. Glider racing is inherently a cooperating process.



There are folks now that are advocating voice cooperation between racers. Certainly the subject PowerFlarm functionality is fairer and more benign than having guys off on a separate frequency discussing strategies.

Cooperating network and racing used in the same sentence? We're going down the road of bicycle racing team type strategy? My "go racing fund" just became my extra tows, go to Hawaii fund. Ya'll have fun out there racing/cooperating. WR

Steve,

The holy grail of glider technology is the ability to read the strength of thermals at a distance. So far, accomplishing that has evaded all those who have tried. PowerFlarm offers the best hope for doing just that on a limited scale when there are other gliders in a cooperating network. If you want to view that as a leeching tool, so be it. Glider racing is inherently a cooperating process.

This holy grail has been working for decades already: Look
out and see how fast the others climb. If they're up faster than yourself,
join them.

Works for me (well, on a moderate scale proportional to my training level).

Having my eyes inside the cockpit and trying to match little dots
with associated numbers on a display with gliders out there does not help
particularly. Neither does it improve safety.


WRT Stealth mode: I reiterate, we do *not* recommend it. Neither does it
make you intrackable. What it does: It removes some information: Ground
speed, track and in particular, vertical speed. It also 'obfuscates' altitude
by adding some random numbers.

Best
--Gerhard (FLARM dev mgr)

On Wednesday, May 29, 2013 5:53:34 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Steve,



The holy grail of glider technology is the ability to read the strength of thermals at a distance. So far, accomplishing that has evaded all those who have tried. PowerFlarm offers the best hope for doing just that on a limited scale when there are other gliders in a cooperating network. If you want to view that as a leeching tool, so be it. Glider racing is inherently a cooperating process.



This holy grail has been working for decades already: Look

out and see how fast the others climb. If they're up faster than yourself,

join them.



Works for me (well, on a moderate scale proportional to my training level).



Having my eyes inside the cockpit and trying to match little dots

with associated numbers on a display with gliders out there does not help

particularly. Neither does it improve safety.





WRT Stealth mode: I reiterate, we do *not* recommend it. Neither does it

make you intrackable. What it does: It removes some information: Ground

speed, track and in particular, vertical speed. It also 'obfuscates' altitude

by adding some random numbers.



Best

--Gerhard (FLARM dev mgr)

Thanks for clearing this up Gerhard. I was under the impression that the position reporting (or lack of) was a bit more symmetric in stealth mode... and I would strongly encourage you to make it so.

It may seem silly in Europe, but US racing puts a premium on independent action. (Speaking to Steve' point) The day that Pez D. Spencer can plot thermal strength and location via flarm data at 6 miles or more is not one I personally look forward to. That's no more "holy grail" to competition soaring than "Guitar Hero" is to performance music.

The hope here is that "lone wolf" US competitors will see enough value in stealth mode used *voluntarily* that we won't see either a drop in racing participation or a push for mandatory stealth mode.

Best,

Evan Ludeman / T8