GliderLink - New team soaring app for airborne location sharing

In Europe and it would appear in many parts of the US most cross country gliders are flying with Flarm.

To improve safety we want as many people as possible to use Flarm.

While this is cheaper and has longer range, I worry that it may discourage some from biting the bullet and getting Flarm. And personally I wouldn't want to carry an additional traffic display (I get Flarm contacts on a Butterfly display and an LX 9000).

If you can (legally and for free) send data at any bandwith between ground station and glider, this is just amazing. I do not see problem with competing technologies, they just drive prices down and at some point everything will be integrated (like flarm and transponder targets on current generation collision avoidance systems).

On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 5:11:43 AM UTC-4, waremark wrote:
In Europe and it would appear in many parts of the US most cross country gliders are flying with Flarm.

To improve safety we want as many people as possible to use Flarm.

While this is cheaper and has longer range, I worry that it may discourage some from biting the bullet and getting Flarm. And personally I wouldn't want to carry an additional traffic display (I get Flarm contacts on a Butterfly display and an LX 9000).

Progress isn't going to stop to cover the emotional cost of spent money on old tech. Flarm will be done in by something app based soon enough. The last guy to buy a barograph didn't care for GPS scoring.

Integrating this into XCSoar is the most viable and valuable way to get widespread adoption of this solution. I really like the goTenna mesh concept, but I thought the Skylines interface with XCSoar was supposed to do the same inflight buddy-watch function down the road via cellular data.

The mesh network concept is intriguing, but with unlimited data plans on our phones in South Florida, it would only be more advantageous than Skylines at low altitudes over remote areas.

Interesting possibilities, though. Imagine synced mesh network integration with Skylines to improve coverage.

Paul A.

On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 4:11:43 AM UTC-5, waremark wrote:
In Europe and it would appear in many parts of the US most cross country gliders are flying with Flarm.

To improve safety we want as many people as possible to use Flarm.

While this is cheaper and has longer range, I worry that it may discourage some from biting the bullet and getting Flarm. And personally I wouldn't want to carry an additional traffic display (I get Flarm contacts on a Butterfly display and an LX 9000).

Except the highest traffic density is often local training gliders near the glider field - and towplanes. Good luck getting Flarm into 2-33s and L-23s in the US! At our club field, with 8 club gliders, 13 private gliders, and 3 towplanes, only 4 of the private ships have Flarm. Some of the training gliders don't even have radios! And yes, we have had at least two glider/towplane incidents (no one hurt, fortunately) that could have been avoided with this kind of technology. So to me, this could be an absolute no brainer.