PowerFlarm at Region 9 Contest

John, look at the IFR Low Altitude charts for your area. The IFR High
Altitude charts may also have some points of interest to you.

Note: I'm not current on instruments any more and some of the names I've
used may no longer be applicable.

You're absolutely correct that a face to face chat with a current instrument
pilot would be best.

"John Carlyle" wrote in message
...
On Jun 12, 2:19 pm, Doug Mueller wrote:
Hi John, I applaud you for wanting to learn more. It is often an
overlooked
or forgotten concept in soaring. Most pilots who get their PPL in gliders
think thats all there is to know aside from badge flying and contest
prep.
If one was to pursue a
powered rating they would quickly realize the short sided philosophy.
There
are commercially available courses out there offered by Jeppeson and by
King courses to name a couple on airspace. By looking at airspace use by
the IFR pilot you
can come to the conclusions you have already with VOR's. Although VOR's
are
going to the wayside, it would be good to understand the Lat Long
structure
of GPS. In the IFR world, due to airspace consolidation, aircraft are now
flying along
GPS coordinate system waypoints. There are preferential National Airspace
routing system wayponts in the continental United States. Airspace
highways
for transcontinental flight if you will. Airspace is the most often
misunderstood concept
even in powered flight. It can get you in the most trouble as well. It is
understandable that emphasis is not placed on airspace in the glider
ratings but for the pilots wishing to persue X-C flight, it becomes
critically important to understand. In
the interest of safety I would be glad to answer any questions you might
have if you use this public forum so all could read and understand. Doug

Doug,

Thanks for the offer. The problem with doing such learning via RAS is
that we need more than words only because of the complexity of the
topic and the need to refer to Sectionals, TACs and Approach Plates.
In my case, it also involves learning the proper terminology before
writing! So I think I'm going to have to stick to face to face
conversations.

However, I would like to ask about the King or Jeppesen courses that
you mentioned. I would suspect that commercial courses would be geared
towards obtaining an IFR rating, and as such would be way over the top
for my needs. What I'm looking for instead is knowledge covering IFR
flight paths below 10,000 feet, with emphasis on safely conducting a
VFR flight that cannot maintain alititude while sharing class E
airspace with IFR traffic, particularly in the vicinity (say, 20
miles) of a class B or C boundary. Ideally, I'd like to come away with
the ability to mark up a sectional chart (and in future my moving map
airspace file) with areas to stay away from in my non-altitude
maintaining glider, given that PHL, EWR and JFK are using approaches
X, Y and Z today.

You mentioned the GPS coordinate system waypoints, which is another
complication for me. Some, but not all, are marked on sectionals. This
makes it difficult to take information from an approach plate and
transfer the data to a sectional. I've found that some approaches (for
example, see the one going into EWR that goes through SWEET at 7,000
feet) is marked on the NY TAC, but not marked on a sectional. There
are others (such as the ones that use SPUDS or BUNTS going into PHL)
that aren't marked on either the sectional or the PHL TAC, and don't
have airways associated with them, either. The IFR traffic is
expecting 8,000 feet at these points outside the class B, and
descending to 5,000 feet to points just inside the class B. I'm still
trying to make a map so I can stay away from these approach paths, and
getting more confused...

-John, Q3

OK, I've got to put my two cents in here. First: I'm a CFI, CFII, CFI-G Commercial SEL, MEL, and Glider. Twenty years as an active instructor with over 5000 hours in power and 400 in gliders, most of the time in both as an instructor, over 1000 hours of Instrument instruction and more than 1500 cross-country power. I also have over 1000 hours in TCAS equipped aircraft.

Let's talk transponders and ATC. Regarding "traffic alerts", ATC issues them to PARTICIPATING aircraft. That term means that both aircraft are in radio contact with ATC. ATC does issue alerts that call attention to other radar returns, but without having talked to the pilot, the traffic is "unverified". This makes it a nuisance alert as there is no way to be sure what altitude to scan and it often increases the workload at a critical flight phase.

In high density areas, near major airports the controller can selectively hide non-participating (I.E 1200 or 1202, or any other standard code) to de-clutter the screen. These VFR targets are not called out as they are not SEEN by the controller unless they are an immediate threat to a participating aircraft.

I have had TCAS systems alerting me to traffic that is 2 miles away, or less, in VFR conditions, and try as I do, I still cannot find them with the naked eye (my recently measured vision is better than 20/15 in both eyes, just to cover that question). TCAS in any form, including PF, even combined with the old Mark 1 eyeball does not mean you'll acquire all traffic in the area.

I fly for one of the largest flight schools in the PacNW and when I take one of the TCAS equipped aircraft into the practice area I am always amazed at the number of detected A/C that I know are there but cannot see.

The glider club that I belong to has a safety meeting every spring, where we have a number of presentations. One of them is always delivered by an instrument rated pilot that explains how the approaches and departure routes around out area work. In addition, one of the pilots took the time to plot all the "waypoints" and associated altitudes and we added it to our local turnpoint files. I think this puts us already working on two of the points noted before.

Our club bought two PF and the majority of the private gliders owners also bought them. I bought a PF portable so I can have one with me in any of the club gliders I fly. With all of this, I'm convinced that we cannot reduce the risk much more than we have already.

I accept that one of the most frightening scenarios is a mid-air. In reality, I think we need to turn our collective attention to the other, more consistent causes of pilot fatalities having to do with take-off, landing and pilot judgement errors that claim many more lives than the mid-air.

I recommend Tom Knuaff's articles on the causes of accident's, published both in 2010 and this year. PowerFlarm and transponders are not going to fix the major cause of accidents among glider pilots.

Mike

On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 4:20:29 PM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
Son,



It's not my mission or desire to discourage anyone from using Flarm. Nor do

I equate it with guns. I just get riled up at someone telling me what I

must do to share his sky.



I've stated over and over again that I performed my own analysis of cost,

benefit, useability and functionality for the type of flying that I do and

some folks continue to try to convince me that it's best if I get one.



Some day I might get one. Probably not. I encourage everyone who wants a

Flarm to buy, borrow, or rent one. If all of you will stop telling me that

I need one to fly in the same sky as you, I'll stop beating my drum.



I expect delivery of my Zaon MRX tomorrow or Friday. That should alert me

to any transponder equipped aircraft in my vicinity and my transponder

should alert Flarm guys to me.



"son_of_flubber" wrote in message

...

It's a near miracle that a group of "middle-age+" people have quickly

adopted an expensive new technology like PowerFlarm. The people in the

racing community that have helped ease this along deserve a lot of credit..

This is rare and true leadership in the community interest. Congratulation

and thank you.



On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 10:27:18 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:



...I only care about the bandying about of such terms as

compulsory and mandatory. Those of us who truly care about our freedoms

understand that if we give an inch, those who want to impose their wills

will take the proverbial mile. I won't give that inch. I'll make my own

decisions.



Dan, you are making it sound like some of the leaders in the racing

community wants to take away your guns. Fine, don't install PowerFlarm.

But PLEASE STOP mixing the rhetoric of "gun rights" with the PowerFlarm.

You are discouraging anyone who owns guns and anyone who listens to gun

rights rhetoric from acquiring PowerFlarm. That is how persuasion works.

There are a lot of people on the fence about PowerFlarm and you are

influencing them. You are leading the charge in the opposite direction.

PowerFlarm is not a handgun.



Here is why I would politely ask you to stop beating your drum. YOU MAY BE

WRONG ABOUT POWERFLARM. PowerFlarm may be the right decision for someone

else who is on the fence. Please consider switching your drum beat to

something like, "I considered adopting PowerFlarm and I decided that it is

not for me because of how and when I fly. BUT you should make that decision

for yourself. PowerFlarm may save YOUR life. Lots of people think it is a

wise investment and I may be wrong, but I've chosen to take my chances. In

general, I don't like bells and whistles, so it kinda makes sense that I

would reject PowerFlarm."



If you can't go that far, how about switching to something neutral like

"PowerFlarm is not for me." Surely you have something better to do than

lead the charge against PowerFlarm.

So after you made your own analysis of cost you ordered a device who has marginal usability (I have been flying with Zaon since the day it came out, I think it is almost 10 years) for 1/3 of the cost of a device which is in an order of magnitude better than the MRX and have significantly more functionality including alerting you for airliners? Sorry to say but this is silly. If I knew, I would have sold you my old MRX, but I just didnt thought that any glider pilot would want to buy one now that PF is available.

Ramy

Unless, of course, the airliner is also using a FLARM.

Of course, right now they're not and I'm the
first to admit that we do have a long way before we get there
(provided we want).

However, in Europe lots of commercial operators are in fact starting
to adopt FLARM simply because they know that they can avoid
gliders that way. Not only SEP 2t. Also, light GA is gaining momentum.

FLARM is *not* a replacement for see-and-avoid. You need
to maintain lookout just the same as if you hadn't installed it.
That's covered in all the manuals. Consider it an 'attention trigger'.

FLARM's added value is mostly in less crowded areas: It's hard
to overlook 20+ gaggle. It's much less hard to overloog a single
white glider approaching head-on against a background of mountains
and snow, or against the sun.

Best
--Gerhard (FLARM dev mgr)

On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 7:20:26 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
I have a plan. I'll publish my flight schedule and the Flarm users can stay
on the ground! That way only people looking outside will be in the air.


You suggested the opposite in your earlier post Dan. I quote:

"I generally fly alone or with one other glider and then we're in
constant communication. If we lose sight, we leave the thermal.
Look back at my OLC traces and you'll see that I don't follow the shear
lines all day to maximize speed and distance points. I fly for fun and I
enjoy exploring those places where the really fast guys don't go that often
because it slows them down."

I suspect neither of your statements are totally serious/accurate. Heat of debate.

Those of us who generally fly with other gliders in the vicinity and who try to fly where the best lift is have found Flarm to be a Godsend, not a fad and a complement to transponders, not a substitute. Some have had to try it to be convinced and certainly there are still improvements to be debated over.

Flarm's arrival has underscored one thing that I always knew to be true intellectually: humans are terrible at estimating the probability of rare, catastrophic events. Relying on past experience ("that's never happened to me") is a poor way to evaluate something like Flarm - particularly if you haven't tried it. My first flight I was shocked at how many gliders come close to you that you never see.

As I said it's a free country. If you fly alone all the time, not a problem, but don't be surprised if on occasions when more than a couple of glider pilots come together to fly they start treating you a bit like you have a bad odor. That may not matter to you at all, just understand that they are acting that way because it matters to them.

9B

Very informative, thanks!

I was speaking to an airline captain/glider pilot this morning. He told me
that, when he flies around Moriarty he keeps his radio tuned to ABQ approach
so he can monitor traffic. He also talks with ABQ to insure they know that
he's there. He uses a transponder and MRX. I'll be equipped that wan next
time I fly.

I'm going to start doing that, too.

Dan


"SoaringXCellence" wrote in message
...
OK, I've got to put my two cents in here. First: I'm a CFI, CFII, CFI-G
Commercial SEL, MEL, and Glider. Twenty years as an active instructor with
over 5000 hours in power and 400 in gliders, most of the time in both as an
instructor, over 1000 hours of Instrument instruction and more than 1500
cross-country power. I also have over 1000 hours in TCAS equipped aircraft.

Let's talk transponders and ATC. Regarding "traffic alerts", ATC issues them
to PARTICIPATING aircraft. That term means that both aircraft are in radio
contact with ATC. ATC does issue alerts that call attention to other radar
returns, but without having talked to the pilot, the traffic is
"unverified". This makes it a nuisance alert as there is no way to be sure
what altitude to scan and it often increases the workload at a critical
flight phase.

In high density areas, near major airports the controller can selectively
hide non-participating (I.E 1200 or 1202, or any other standard code) to
de-clutter the screen. These VFR targets are not called out as they are not
SEEN by the controller unless they are an immediate threat to a
participating aircraft.

I have had TCAS systems alerting me to traffic that is 2 miles away, or
less, in VFR conditions, and try as I do, I still cannot find them with the
naked eye (my recently measured vision is better than 20/15 in both eyes,
just to cover that question). TCAS in any form, including PF, even combined
with the old Mark 1 eyeball does not mean you'll acquire all traffic in the
area.

I fly for one of the largest flight schools in the PacNW and when I take one
of the TCAS equipped aircraft into the practice area I am always amazed at
the number of detected A/C that I know are there but cannot see.

The glider club that I belong to has a safety meeting every spring, where we
have a number of presentations. One of them is always delivered by an
instrument rated pilot that explains how the approaches and departure routes
around out area work. In addition, one of the pilots took the time to plot
all the "waypoints" and associated altitudes and we added it to our local
turnpoint files. I think this puts us already working on two of the points
noted before.

Our club bought two PF and the majority of the private gliders owners also
bought them. I bought a PF portable so I can have one with me in any of the
club gliders I fly. With all of this, I'm convinced that we cannot reduce
the risk much more than we have already.

I accept that one of the most frightening scenarios is a mid-air. In
reality, I think we need to turn our collective attention to the other, more
consistent causes of pilot fatalities having to do with take-off, landing
and pilot judgement errors that claim many more lives than the mid-air.

I recommend Tom Knuaff's articles on the causes of accident's, published
both in 2010 and this year. PowerFlarm and transponders are not going to
fix the major cause of accidents among glider pilots.

Mike

"PowerFlarm and transponders are not going to fix the major cause of accidents among glider pilots."

I'm going to be purchasing and installing a PowerFLARM core this winter so I'm by no means "anti-FLARM" but I do agree with that statement. I lost two friends a little while back due to a glider-glider midair (both of them had PowerFLARM on early order but were still waiting for it to be produced when they collided) but I've lost several more in the dozen years I've been flying in other types of crashes.

Back to PowerFLARM itself, one thing I can't understand is why is the core unit so big? I made a mock up of the portable and the core to check out installation options. They're almost the same size even though the core doesn't need to house a display, control knob and batteries. It looks like I'll be able to fit it on top of the chassis holding my Dittel FSG-50 comm but it'll be tight.

By the time I finish paying for the core unit, 57mm display (nothing else will fit my panel without serious layout modifications and instrument changes), installing it according to the relevant Schleicher TN, and revising the W&B and equipment list I figure it's going to cost me a fair chunk more cash than the commonly bandied about "$1500" too.

What I would really like to see, and presumably it will come in time, would be the option to purchase a vario-nav system with built in integrated PowerFLARM similar to what's available now with the "classic" European FLARM system.

By the time I finish paying for the core unit, 57mm display (nothing else will fit my panel without serious layout modifications and instrument changes), installing it according to the relevant Schleicher TN, and revising the W&B and equipment list I figure it's going to cost me a fair chunk more cash than the commonly bandied about "$1500" too.

What I would really like to see, and presumably it will come in time, would be the option to purchase a vario-nav system with built in integrated PowerFLARM similar to what's available now with the "classic" European FLARM system.

There is no Schleicher TN on flarm installation, which will make your life easier.

Most of the current NAV systems allow you to display flarm data without the additional flarm display. Most clearnav pilots that I know are not using the flarm display, and just showing flarm data on clearnav.

John Cochrane

On Friday, June 14, 2013 7:10:14 AM UTC-7, wrote:
By the time I finish paying for the core unit, 57mm display (nothing else will fit my panel without serious layout modifications and instrument changes), installing it according to the relevant Schleicher TN, and revising the W&B and equipment list I figure it's going to cost me a fair chunk more cash than the commonly bandied about "$1500" too.



What I would really like to see, and presumably it will come in time, would be the option to purchase a vario-nav system with built in integrated PowerFLARM similar to what's available now with the "classic" European FLARM system.



There is no Schleicher TN on flarm installation, which will make your life easier.



Most of the current NAV systems allow you to display flarm data without the additional flarm display. Most clearnav pilots that I know are not using the flarm display, and just showing flarm data on clearnav.



John Cochrane

I found that I could squeeze the Butterfly display under my glare shield and I am porting the Flarm data to my Oudie. It's the antennas that I find difficult to mount neatly.

Mike

"There is no Schleicher TN on flarm installation, which will make your life easier."

There's nothing specific to FLARM but TN 02-2008 16.01.08 provides guidelines for installing additional equipment. This will actually make my life easier as it gives something for my AMO to refer to when documenting the installation. Having to make up the installation standards from scratch, get them approved by Transport Canada and hoping they consider it a minor mod would be a headache in comparison. The standards in the TN are pretty much common sense things that are what I would do anyways (if something's heavy enough to injure you if it breaks free you secure it well, don't block any of the primary flight instruments, use a fuse or breaker on electrical equipment etc. etc.)

Of the vario/nav systems I'm interested in I've been told the LX 7007C Basic won't display PowerFLARM but the LX 8080 Simple will. That's probably the one I'm going to buy. I'll still be using the dedicated 57mm Butterfly display with it.