FLARM in Stealth Mode at US 15M/Standard Nationals - Loved It!

On Thursday, August 6, 2015 at 3:31:54 PM UTC-4, XC wrote:
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But that's my view. All I've heard is grumbling about how terrible it is that the sport is changing. That's not a problem. I've heard hypotheticals about new instruments someone might make someday. That's not a problem today. Just what is the real problem we're trying to fix here?

John Cochrane BB

Let me make my case another way, using an example from this past week at the 15m/Std. Nat's. On day three the sky looked great. I started alone with high hopes of blasting down the course line to catch others.

It turned out the day was much trickier than that. I failed to recognize this early, failed to properly evaluate the risk/reward, kept my water too late and landed out on the first leg. My performance was not good enough that day and I paid the price receiving 136 out of a possible 1000 points.

I would have loved to have had full FLARM capabilities as I got lower that day. I might have headed directly for someone's thermal and climbed out of a bad position. This would have effectively spackled over a major divot in my soaring performance.

Instead others who truly performed better were rewarded with a better score. My hat is off to the pilots who figured it out consistently at Harris Hill, you can be proud of your performance. I'll learn from mine.

Again, I feel that using the full capabilities for FLARM smoothes out these lows and highs, making for a duller contest with less valid results. Plus, I may never have visited Almond, NY.

XC

really well said sean!