The truth about Flarm Stealth and Competition definition...

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 12:01:54 AM UTC-5, Andrew Ainslie wrote:
OK, let's just handle your major point, Sean - the heads down problem. When would you prefer someone to be heads down - 4 minutes before smacking into you, or 60 seconds before smacking into you?

I don't understand your question. I'd rather people not be heads down trying to read the screen and interpreting when a collision alert is active and the audio warning is telling them where to look. I'd rather people not be looking at the screen when in and out the turn point. Same is true of the looking at the flight computer too much.

Of course, I would rather there be no smacking.

XC

The point is simple. Situational awareness. Say it slowly, sound it out ;-).

4 minutes of knowledge knowing a glider is out there, or 60 seconds, or 10?

Cant get much simpler than that. This is not a difficult concept.

The more SA, the safer it is for all, period. This is enitirely independent of any insecurity some feel about potentially giving out actionable BVR leeching info to dozens of gin and tonic siping, sinatra listening leeches who have been stealing medals from you for the past 5 years. ;-) You know, the ones who pass you inverted on final glide, giving your the bird. ;-)

"Fly me to the moon....and let me dance among the stars....!"

Sean (7T)

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 12:38:20 PM UTC-5, smfidler wrote:
The point is simple. Situational awareness. Say it slowly, sound it out ;-).

4 minutes of knowledge knowing a glider is out there, or 60 seconds, or 10?

Cant get much simpler than that. This is not a difficult concept.

The more SA, the safer it is for all, period. This is enitirely independent of any insecurity some feel about potentially giving out actionable BVR leeching info to dozens of gin and tonic siping, sinatra listening leeches who have been stealing medals from you for the past 5 years. ;-) You know, the ones who pass you inverted on final glide, giving your the bird. ;-)

"Fly me to the moon....and let me dance among the stars....!"

Sean (7T)

Is there really a benefit of tracking a glider on your FLARM display for 4 minutes? Take a situation where there are 4 other gliders in your proximity.. Keeping track of them all continuously with FLARM is a lot of heads down time. A lot of the gliders are more than 1000 feet difference in altitude and are no collision threat. Having all that displayed clutters the important info so is really only of tactical benefit.

Now that I think of it - a good competition mode may be unlimited range and just not show targets greater that 1500 differential altitude. Just a thought.

Anyway, the concept is more complex than you are stating. (Is sarcasm-ing a word? Any noun can be verbed I suppose.)

Since you used my name in the post about tasking, want to state that I agree with you that more AT's are a good thing. I like them. When AAT's are called due to possible CB's or the like, I prefer smaller radius turns like 5 nm for the FAI classes.

XC

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 11:01:47 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:
SNIP Is there really a benefit of tracking a glider on your FLARM display for 4 minutes? Take a situation where there are 4 other gliders in your proximity. Keeping track of them all continuously with FLARM is a lot of heads down time. A lot of the gliders are more than 1000 feet difference in altitude and are no collision threat. Having all that displayed clutters the important info so is really only of tactical benefit.

You need a better tactical display. No one I know tracks gliders for 4 minutes. You take a one second glance at the display and notice that there are 4 gliders the direction you are headed. A minute later another one second glance shows that one has headed off so there are still three. 2 minutes later another 1 second glance confirms that the 3 gliders are now pretty close, headed the opposite direction, and you should be looking for them that direction. You opt to alter course slightly right. A minute later a one second glance shows that your course alteration put the 3 other gliders safely to your left with no possibility of a conflict or Flarm alert. Situational awareness is only useful if you use it. You now have 4 seconds total heads down time spent over 4 minutes to completely eliminate any conflict with 4 other gliders with no other tactical benefit.

You need a better tactical display. No one I know tracks gliders for 4 minutes. You take a one second glance at the display and notice that there are 4 gliders the direction you are headed. A minute later another one second glance shows that one has headed off so there are still three. 2 minutes later another 1 second glance confirms that the 3 gliders are now pretty close, headed the opposite direction, and you should be looking for them that direction. You opt to alter course slightly right. A minute later a one second glance shows that your course alteration put the 3 other gliders safely to your left with no possibility of a conflict or Flarm alert. Situational awareness is only useful if you use it. You now have 4 seconds total heads down time spent over 4 minutes to completely eliminate any conflict with 4 other gliders with no other tactical benefit.

I am not believing you when you say you are looking at your display 4 seconds out of every 4 minutes.

The level one warnings begin to go off 13-18 seconds before a collision would happen. They are independent of the any stealth mode setting. That's a long time to make the small flight path adjustment necessary to avoid another glider. They are really pretty good but not perfect. Layer on top of that 2 km radius (going to 5 km now) and plus or minus 300 meters and you have all the situational awareness that is necessary.

The ongoing overstatements about degraded safety are folks who want to use open FLARM tactically (or, for the fun/learning of watching what others are doing.) Let's talk about that if you want to but let's not continue turn that into a safety argument.

XC

"The ongoing overstatements about degraded safety are folks who want to use open FLARM tactically (or, for the fun/learning of watching what others are doing.) Let's talk about that if you want to but let's not continue turn that into a safety argument.

XC "

Sean, this is just complete crap. This is ONE folk that doesn't want this for tactical advantage, this is a folk who wants to maximize safety.

You are, in essence, calling me and others liars. Based on what evidence?

What evidence do you have that I want farm to leach?

Just stop this bull****, Sean. On the offside that uppercase gets your attention, WE DON'T WANT TO DIE. Simple. One of the scariest and most off putting aspects of competitive flying is the continuous proximity of other pilots. I and many others think it asinine, foolish and cavalier to compromise safety to make the sport more manly.

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 7:02:55 PM UTC-6, Andrew Ainslie wrote:
"The ongoing overstatements about degraded safety are folks who want to use open FLARM tactically (or, for the fun/learning of watching what others are doing.) Let's talk about that if you want to but let's not continue turn that into a safety argument.

XC "

Sean, this is just complete crap. This is ONE folk that doesn't want this for tactical advantage, this is a folk who wants to maximize safety.

You are, in essence, calling me and others liars. Based on what evidence?

What evidence do you have that I want farm to leach?

Just stop this bull****, Sean. On the offside that uppercase gets your attention, WE DON'T WANT TO DIE. Simple. One of the scariest and most off putting aspects of competitive flying is the continuous proximity of other pilots. I and many others think it asinine, foolish and cavalier to compromise safety to make the sport more manly.

Not speaking for XC, but I'll take you at your word that you are sincerely interested in Flarm for the safety aspects. So am I. And, I'll say again, for me, I do not care about leeching, regardless of whether it's good 'ol visual leeching or Flarm enabled. As hard as I have tried, I can't making leeching work for me, and god help anyone who follows me. However, it is known, or at least strongly suspected, that pilots are turning off or suppressing Flarm output to deny tactical information to competitors. Imagine someone being just out of reach of the podium on the last day by just a point or two. Inbound to the last turn, that pilot sees a chance to break from the pack and maybe grab a win. However, our pilot knows everyone and his brother will see him on their Flarms and rush in to exploit our intrepid pilot's good fortune. How tempting to just turn off the Flarm and zoom away for the win, but putting fellow competitors are risk. You and I, holding safety paramount, would never do such a thing. However, there will always be those who will (or are already doing it) for the sake of a win.

Limiting the tactical use of Flarm is at least worth exploring IF it will contribute to safety.

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 8:02:55 PM UTC-5, Andrew Ainslie wrote:
"The ongoing overstatements about degraded safety are folks who want to use open FLARM tactically (or, for the fun/learning of watching what others are doing.) Let's talk about that if you want to but let's not continue turn that into a safety argument.

XC "

Sean, this is just complete crap. This is ONE folk that doesn't want this for tactical advantage, this is a folk who wants to maximize safety.

You are, in essence, calling me and others liars. Based on what evidence?

What evidence do you have that I want farm to leach?

Just stop this bull****, Sean. On the offside that uppercase gets your attention, WE DON'T WANT TO DIE. Simple. One of the scariest and most off putting aspects of competitive flying is the continuous proximity of other pilots. I and many others think it asinine, foolish and cavalier to compromise safety to make the sport more manly.

it's 8 am and that's enough internet for me today already..... i get what you both (VW / XC) are saying and i'm not getting ****ed. i want to put something in perspective though; i don't have a flarm and you happily fly in my vicinity all summer. things get blown out of proportion on the internent. how about you two discuss it over a beer at the hill, eh? the internet makes people lose their **** unnecessarily. and andrew, this is NOT pointed directly at you at all. i think the entire discussion is getting a little too heated.

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 3:16:36 PM UTC-8, XC wrote:
You need a better tactical display. No one I know tracks gliders for 4 minutes. You take a one second glance at the display and notice that there are 4 gliders the direction you are headed. A minute later another one second glance shows that one has headed off so there are still three. 2 minutes later another 1 second glance confirms that the 3 gliders are now pretty close, headed the opposite direction, and you should be looking for them that direction. You opt to alter course slightly right. A minute later a one second glance shows that your course alteration put the 3 other gliders safely to your left with no possibility of a conflict or Flarm alert. Situational awareness is only useful if you use it. You now have 4 seconds total heads down time spent over 4 minutes to completely eliminate any conflict with 4 other gliders with no other tactical benefit.

I am not believing you when you say you are looking at your display 4 seconds out of every 4 minutes.

The level one warnings begin to go off 13-18 seconds before a collision would happen. They are independent of the any stealth mode setting. That's a long time to make the small flight path adjustment necessary to avoid another glider. They are really pretty good but not perfect. Layer on top of that 2 km radius (going to 5 km now) and plus or minus 300 meters and you have all the situational awareness that is necessary.

The ongoing overstatements about degraded safety are folks who want to use open FLARM tactically (or, for the fun/learning of watching what others are doing.) Let's talk about that if you want to but let's not continue turn that into a safety argument.

XC

You may believe as you like. I probably look at the display somewhat less than 1 second/minute on average. My point is to look at and assess every glider on the display takes very little time, no more than one second, on a good display. Perhaps you have a poor one.

The 13 - 18 seconds you talk about is under ideal conditions. This is provably not the case in all situations. I have played around with friends to see just how close we can get before getting a warning and it is damn close under some circumstances. 2-3 seconds from potential impact. Come fly with me and I will prove it. These are not obscure situations, but ones you might easily find yourself in through a loss of situational awareness. This is why I concur with others who say that the situational awareness aspect is 80% of the value.

In stealth mode (and I assume the vaporware competition mode, but who knows?) you DO NOT get all of the situational data within 2, or 5 km. Read the spec. Altitude, track, and speed are not available until you get a collision warning. ID is not available ever. You literally do not know if a glider is coming or going.

I have been quite up front in saying that I want to use Flarm as an entertainment and educational tool. It's tactical use is quite limited (I have tried), and while it is a great safety tool, it protects against only a very rare event. I would say instead that the ongoing comments about heads down time is being made by those with a religious argument against Flarm technology who want to perpetuate the current status quo of tactics without objective reason. Let's not turn that into a safety argument.

One change that would make me and some others happier, is to make stealth non-reciprocal. That is, if you are flying in stealth it works as it does now, but if I am not I see everything. Since stealth is implemented on the receiving side, this would be easy to do and as risk free as a firmware change can get. In a Flarm and stealth mandated contest, you can still check to see if anybody in the contest cheated from the IGC file. But you would not be affecting everyone in the area, who may not even know a competition is going on.

On Monday, January 4, 2016 at 11:01:47 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:

Is there really a benefit of tracking a glider on your FLARM display for 4 minutes? Take a situation where there are 4 other gliders in your proximity. Keeping track of them all continuously with FLARM is a lot of heads down time. A lot of the gliders are more than 1000 feet difference in altitude and are no collision threat. Having all that displayed clutters the important info so is really only of tactical benefit.


I think 4 minutes was meant as part of a general visual scan rather than continuously fixating on the display. A scan that returns to the display within about 1/2 the lead time you'd expect to have for a target seems reasonable. If you only scan at the maximum lead-time a target can sneak in pretty close before you pick it up.

Four minutes of situational awareness lead time means scanning every minute or two. One minute of lead time means scanning every 30 seconds and 10 seconds of lead time would require you to have your head down pretty much continuously if you were concerned about nasty surprises. If you want to just wait for a target to become a collision threat and react to the collision alarm then by definition maintaining situational awareness to prevent conflicts is not part of your approach.

Because the "wait for the alarm to go off" makes some of us uncomfortable - the OODA loop is just too long with Flarm alarms in some cases - we prefer to keep track of aircraft in a bigger envelope before they get to alarm mode. Doing that is easier if you don't have to keep going back to the display to see what's new. For instance, I scan more frequently running cloud streets and convergence lines - particularly if I know there is traffic likely ahead because of an out and back course configuration, etc. I know that converging traffic can come up in a hurry and I want to be ahead of it if I can.

9B