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

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 7:43:49 PM UTC-4, wrote:
This is how I see it.
People are talking about situational awareness, and being able to look at your flarm scope and see where other gliders are (without climb rates etc).. Okay so, think about all the years that contests had a waiting list because they filled up, so there were a ton of gliders all flying in close proximity without flarm and they didn't have an overwhelming amount of mid-airs, pretty much because everyone was looking out the window. Now if every one has flarm with just gliders no climb rates, altitudes, or contest ids. Now people are going to be looking at their flarm scope for traffic and not looking out the window, where that guy who's flarm antenna got obstructed is, or that power traffic who doesn't use flarm is . . .

----

Hmmm. If one owns POWERFLARM and is moderately experienced at flying contests with it...one would know that a pilot very rarely looks at the FLARM display. When a pilot does get an unexpected warning the first thing you do is redo your visual scan. If that scan fails, you "might" quickly glance at the display in an effort to better ID the conflict location.

That said, glancing at the FLARM display is almost always unnecessary as FLARM also gives the pilot an audio call for the traffic immediately following the beep warning (Example: traffic, 3 O'Clock, Above). If you do decide to look at the display (once you have checked visually and heard the audio prompt) it only takes a small fraction of a second to glance down at the display and see where the traffic is (relative to your current position) and then get eyes back out again continue trying to find it.

All of this happens in a few seconds, max. The warning, the audio prompt, the scan which began immediately upon the initial beep, the glance, the continued scan, etc. Remember, without FLARM you would not know anything was wrong at all at this point.

A competent competition pilot is constantly scanning (visually, not Flarm). Flarm is your traffic co-pilot, helping you scan with audio cues primarily. When you do get a warning on the Flarm (perhaps the glider in a thermal ahead tightens up the turn) and you hear the initial conflict warning beeps, you almost always expect it and knew it was coming based on what you see visually. The timing of this FLARM warning is incredibly accurate and virtually instantaneous. You actually learn what maneuvers will set off a warning and what won't. As a courtesy to other pilots I try not to set the warning off for them if at all possible (it can be irritating).

Back on the other hand, if you get a FLARM warning that you are not expecting (you see no gliders nearby)...its quite startling (and also, unfortunately, just as accurate). You know there is a problem.

One of the most frightening warnings is when a glider that is following you pulls in close behind you on a pull up. You usually cannot see them and the FLARM audio might say...6 o'clock, below and the display shows a glider right on top of you. One just has to deal with those and have a bit of trust.

I must say that I feel the constant stream of statements about FLARM taking pilots eyes off their visual scan out the window is a VERY large misconception. It simply is not true. At least in my experience.

The audio beeps (and synthesized speech guidance) is 99% of what FLARM is to me. I listen to FLARM....and rarely need to look at anything inside the cockpit from a safety perspective. The main reason I have the FlarmView is to download flights more easily.

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 8:33:06 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
That said, glancing at the FLARM display is almost always unnecessary
as FLARM also gives the pilot an audio call for the traffic immediately
following the beep warning (Example: traffic, 3 O'Clock, Above).

Sorry, the audio output is provided by downstream display devices.
For example Triadis voice product for FLARM, LX9000, ClearNAV, IIRC Oudie, etc.
Voice (audio other than beeps) is not part of FLARM (PowerFLARM core or portable).

A good audio ennuciator is an extremely helpful addition to FLARM!

Hope that helps,
Best Regards, Dave

What equipment do you have? It sounds really good. (This is to the pilot who says he hardly looks at a display).

I have LX 9000 and Butterfly display. I get voice warnings when I don't need them (I think I get them up to 1000 foot vertical seperation, not interested over 500 feet) and often don't get them when a glider is too close. The Butterfly does not show ID's (I was unable to get it to accept the Flarm database).

I have an Oudie 2 that does the "talking." If you look at some of my soaring videos on YouTube you can hear the Oudie2 "talking" fairly often. I'll try and find some and post links here.

Thanks for th correction Dave N. I thought it was native to the Flarm Brick/Core. It really should be. Perhaps a speaker option (or standard). Without the audio cues, I think it is a bit dicey trying to cross check location visually on the display. Again, I almost never look at the display anymore.

I am shocked if the LX(xxxx)and ClearNAV do not give audio cues. They don't?

At the very beginning of this video there are some audio calls from the Oudie via FLARM. If you watch the other videos in the series you will hear numerous others.

http://youtu.be/tW-YF-mePXk