If You've Flown a FLARM Stealth Contest, Vote Here

On Friday, December 4, 2015 at 10:30:42 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Lots of earnest opinions, some more strident than others. Lots of confident statements about what works, doesn't work, is possible, is futile, is inevitable.

So let's keep it simple: if you have flown in a contest at any level where stealth was mandated (not necessarily mandatory FLARM, but if FLARM was used, it had to be in stealth mode), what was your experience?

If you HAVEN'T flown in a stealth-mandatory contest, DON'T POST. You had your chance to speculate and make your opinions heard (some of you many, many times) over in "Is FLARM Helpful?" We could run this over on Survey Monkey, et al., but I think it's useful to track the responses on this forum..

My view based on the Elmira nats in 2015: FLARM under stealth provided the collision avoidance and situational awareness intended without changing the tactics or strategy of the competitive flying significantly.

My vote: "yes" for mandatory stealth mode.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

I helped organize the 2015 Std./15m Nationals in Elmira where we used FLARM in stealth mode. Flying with the stealth was fine with plenty of collision avoidance. Administratively, it presented no real problems.

I also flew the Pan American Glider Contest with IGC rules. I liked the IGC rules generally. The rules allow team flying and full usage of FLARM. Because of this I know FLARM displays are definitely being used tactically. I even used FLARM this way myself. Any pilot would be at a disadvantage if they didn't. I feel strongly this use of FLARM is a bad thing for sailplane racing.

To use another analogy because some think I am being a luddite. When we went from maps and cameras to GPS it was like writers moving from pen and paper or a typewriter to a word processor or a computer. It made writing, or in our case navigating, easier and faster. Unlimited use of FLARM in contests often amounts to plagiarism or stealing some else's work. The idea that everyone doing it will lead to some bright new future for our sport is wrong minded in my opinion. Use of unlimited FLARM displays in contests will lead to reduced brilliance.

XC

Two points:

Elmira flying is very different than the flying in Utah, or in the west in general. Thus the results of Elmira are not valid universally applied.

Hasn't the ICG already concluded that the current stealth mode does not provide enough situational awareness, and is not acceptable for mandated use due to safety, coupled with the fact that the company that developed and makes Flarm recommends against the use of stealth? This is why the IGC is working with Flarm to develop a modified stealth mode that provides more situational awareness while removing tactical information?

On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 7:39:29 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:

To use another analogy because some think I am being a luddite. When we went from maps and cameras to GPS it was like writers moving from pen and paper or a typewriter to a word processor or a computer. It made writing, or in our case navigating, easier and faster. Unlimited use of FLARM in contests often amounts to plagiarism or stealing some else's work. The idea that everyone doing it will lead to some bright new future for our sport is wrong minded in my opinion. Use of unlimited FLARM displays in contests will lead to reduced brilliance.

_______________________

Luddite is an overly dramatic term - but I do think you are revising history a bit. I recall serious and impassioned debates over the years on lots of technology topics. I recently spoke to one of the former members of the RC who voted against allowing GPS. His reasons were about changing the spirit of glider racing.

I got lost every single day one particularly hazy Regionals at Cordele. Not just a little lost - a LOT lost. I got so lost one day at the Standard Class Nationals at Hutchinson that I had to land in a plowed field (every small town in Kansas looks the same from the air unless they label their rooftops - which only some do). Navigation by dead reckoning is definitely a skill and managing final glides without a computer to do all the math for you was part of how races were won and lost back in the 70s and 80s. There was a time when having a calculator in a high school math test was considered cheating. Same argument for gliding - 'stupid' people who couldn't work a wiz wheel would achieve scores they didn't deserve and contest results would be invalid.

We got over it.

I truly don't see material differences in the principles involved here and I see the magnitude of the changes in racing from Flarm or weather radar or even a God-map of every track on course as less transformative to the sport than, say, being able to mark a thermal I climbed in, head out in to the blue to make some needed miles or a turnpoint, and come back to it for a saving climb (though not always - and rarely as good the climb as when I left). Speed to fly variometers make much more difference in scores than tracking a pilot 3 miles ahead of you - who you would otherwise track at 1.5 miles ahead of you (with a much better result if actual data from races is a guide). Materials technologies have transformed glider performance enabling thinner, lighter, ultra laminar flow airfoils that allow for cruise climbing, leaving thermalling skills - and older generations of gliders - effectively in the dustbin competitively.

We ought to come to a collective view on what is the most perfect and pure technology level for the sport, that of 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 or 2015? Our views of these things evolve over time - perhaps it is generational or perhaps we all get comfortable with technological progress. As a person who needs to think up rules and procedures to restrict, inspect, detect, report, enforce and penalize when we want to hold back the tide of technological progress I can tell you that this is one of the more challenging and onerous ones for organizers because it will all work on the one thing no one is going to get pilots to give up - the $50-500 phone they already carry in their pocket. The pace of technological change from the Internet of Things, Cloud and Mobile is only accelerating, so fasten your safety belts.

Even for pilots who flew the 2015 Nationals the view on what to do for Nationals was statistically evenly split between stealth mandatory and not mandatory by rule. Nationals pilots voted slightly against mandating stealth by rule for Regionals. For everyone else expressing an opinion it was more than 2:1 against - and we didn't even poll all the OLC guys we'd like to attract to racing, but you probably know already what they think. However, rule-making is not purely democratic, and it shouldn't be the case that we simply take votes and write rules to enforce the popular views of the moment. We elect people to the RC to take a deeper and longer view of things and help keep the sport thoughtfully ahead of the evolutions and trends that impact it - and hopefully make it more accessible, enjoyable and fair in the process. What pilots want and think is an input - but only an approximate guide.

As for me, I prefer more contest participation over more contest technology inspection. Putting up technological barriers is mostly a wasteful and ultimately fruitless exercise - and I believe fruitless in this case will get here faster than most people think - perhaps as fast as 2016 or 2017.

9B

(Sorry Chip I didn't fly Harris Hill - but I plan to fly Nephi if that helps)