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

On 8/6/2015 11:00 PM, Richard wrote:
On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 8:08:08 AM UTC-6, Papa3 wrote:
The US 15M/Standard Class Nationals required FLARM to be in stealth mode
for the duration of the contest. I have to say, I absolutely enjoyed
the experience. FLARM became what it was always supposed to be - a
collision avoidance tool - rather than a tactical leaching tool. I
found that I would get alerts for gliders in the same thermal or
approaching/exiting the thermal up to about 1 mile away, but no more.
Not a single surprise conflict from a FLARM-equipped glider.

I wonder if others had the same positive experience. I would hope other
contests would consider requiring Stealth Mode.


Erik Mann (P3)

The thing that amazes me most about the contest was that the organizers did
not require PowerFlarm!! But if you had PowerFlarm it had to be in the
stealth mode.

It appears they are much more concerned about leaching than the safety of
the competitors.

Richard


As someone without a horse in this race (no PFlarm/interest in flying
competitions), it has more than once occurred to me while "listening" to these
sorts of (very interesting) discussions that PFlarm is a classic example of
better being the enemy of good enough, where good enough is glider-to-glider
(or even GA-to-glider, if adopted by GA) collision avoidance assistance, while
better is any real-or-perceived technical capability processed through humans'
"What if?" filters.

As for Richard's closing observation, that to me seems pretty strongly toward
relatively inaccurate gross oversimplification, doing little (nothing?) to
further the discussion while having significant potential of encouraging flame
warring. Have you anything new to add to the discussion on your thinking
regarding exactly how glider-to-glider safety is degraded through use of
stealth mode as it's been described throughout the years on RAS?

Respectfully,
Bob W.