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

Your club is really doing great. No doubt. We need 20 more like it and 6 more years with a national plan...

Both JP and Daniel are currently right in the middle of college. So are many of the other Junior world competitors. It's a challenge, but it's also a strength. It's simply a matter of perspective. I view it as a matter of helping them understand the value of the effort and the accomplishment on their resume.

For me at that age, being 21 and on the US sailing team didn't hurt in job interviews. It was an extremely valuable tool and really set me apart from my competition for jobs.

For me today, hiring a normal, smart kid with average life experience on their resume, and in the interview is fine...but a kid who is, say, a highly competitive glider pilot who trains and travels to international competitions is going to stand out a little bit. I personally view it almost as a military level of self discipline and focus. I imagine many others would view it similarly.

And, the Europeans and the Australians and most other gliding countries are doing much better overall at developing, maintaining and growing junior talent. There are many reasons and we can study them for sure. The truth is that we are INCREDIBLY lucky to have JP, Daniel and Boyd flying for the USA. They are anomalies really. If they didn't fall out of the sky we might not even have a Jr team at all this year. And behind them are not that many others...

We (the SSA) really do need to focus much more seriously on this challenge. We need to get out of SSA maintenance mode and get into SSA innovation and rebuilding mode. The value all the way around the table is much larger than the average person here is realizing. We absolutely need a vibrant junior soaring competition culture in the USA! A big challenge but essential.

On Wednesday, December 9, 2015 at 11:36:33 AM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
Your club is really doing great. No doubt. We need 20 more like it and 6 more years with a national plan...

Both JP and Daniel are currently right in the middle of college. So are many of the other Junior world competitors. It's a challenge, but it's also a strength. It's simply a matter of perspective. I view it as a matter of helping them understand the value of the effort and the accomplishment on their resume.

For me at that age, being 21 and on the US sailing team didn't hurt in job interviews. It was an extremely valuable tool and really set me apart from my competition for jobs.

For me today, hiring a normal, smart kid with average life experience on their resume, and in the interview is fine...but a kid who is, say, a highly competitive glider pilot who trains and travels to international competitions is going to stand out a little bit. I personally view it almost as a military level of self discipline and focus. I imagine many others would view it similarly.

And, the Europeans and the Australians and most other gliding countries are doing much better overall at developing, maintaining and growing junior talent. There are many reasons and we can study them for sure. The truth is that we are INCREDIBLY lucky to have JP, Daniel and Boyd flying for the USA. They are anomalies really. If they didn't fall out of the sky we might not even have a Jr team at all this year. And behind them are not that many others...

We (the SSA) really do need to focus much more seriously on this challenge. We need to get out of SSA maintenance mode and get into SSA innovation and rebuilding mode. The value all the way around the table is much larger than the average person here is realizing. We absolutely need a vibrant junior soaring competition culture in the USA! A big challenge but essential.

One small correction. They did not fall out of the sky. They were identified, supported, nurtured, and sponsored to allow them to get to where they are.
I only wish the next group coming up was over there to watch and learn.
UH

Power pilots have a different name for what glider pilots call lift - turbulence. I can't imagine any serious power flight deciding to run glider lift lines to save energy or gain speed.

errrm....

"In 1947, two pilots from Bishop began a flying service in the area and soon were spending much of their time exploring the dynamics of the Bishop Wave, as it was initially called. In 1950, one of the pilots, Bob Symons, flew his P-38 powered aircraft into the Bishop Wave, cut the engines, feathered the propellers and soared for more than an hour on the powerful lift. Afterwards, several entities joined forces to sponsor the Sierra Wave Project, the first international meteorological study of these amazing mountain winds."

I also heard of a guy who thermalled a j3 cub on his check-ride and actually gained altitude after the examiner cut the engine on him. examiner was speechless.

Bit off subject but, Cal City used to have a photo of a Pawnee panel, engine stops and the vertical speed indicator indicating up (no sure how much but I kind of remember 500 ft/min). Have many times used ridge lift in a helicopter or wave lift in a heavy pressurized twin. Now if I could only find a thermal while flying a glider


On Wednesday, December 9, 2015 at 12:10:48 PM UTC-8, ND wrote:
Power pilots have a different name for what glider pilots call lift - turbulence. I can't imagine any serious power flight deciding to run glider lift lines to save energy or gain speed.

errrm....

"In 1947, two pilots from Bishop began a flying service in the area and soon were spending much of their time exploring the dynamics of the Bishop Wave, as it was initially called. In 1950, one of the pilots, Bob Symons, flew his P-38 powered aircraft into the Bishop Wave, cut the engines, feathered the propellers and soared for more than an hour on the powerful lift. Afterwards, several entities joined forces to sponsor the Sierra Wave Project, the first international meteorological study of these amazing mountain winds."

I also heard of a guy who thermalled a j3 cub on his check-ride and actually gained altitude after the examiner cut the engine on him. examiner was speechless.

Standing corrected. Let me clarify. I meant they were not part of a strong national junior development program since early youth. They had to be lucky enough, talented enough, dedicated enough and determined enough to develop the skills to fly cross country at this level without an organized national junior program, system and culture, like the other major soaring countries seem to have. That is a significant handicap that we can eliminate for them and those coming up behind them.

Great point about why don't we have some 15, 16, and 17 year olds over there experiencing the event and being motivated by the accomplishments of their older peers to achieve this level. Very good point...

It all comes down to an organized, strategic program to accomplish a goal in terms of US junior soaring and the US junior soaring team...

Sean

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.

My vote is "yes for mandatory stealth mode.
SM

I'm voting NO with John Cochrane BB at this time for mandated stealth mode at contests. True... I've never flown a mandated stealth only contest. But, I've flown enough FLARM contests to see it's value. Here's my thinking behind it:

1) Given that one only hears collision advisories with 15-20 secs from impact... I seriously wonder if a little more situational awareness would further mitigate mid air collisions. There really haven't been any studies or tests that show stealth mode as NOT DEGRADING its collision advisory effectiveness.

2) FLARM the manufacturer doesn't recommend stealth mode.

3) The advantage FLARM gives allowing leeching on other pilots is probably over rated. Sure... it helps in some situations. But, I don't think it overwhelmingly distorts a competition. The very best competitors always seems to prevail no matter what.

4) Let's not make things harder for contest management... and simplify it for competitors.

5) Does stealth mode filter out ADS-B warnings also? Docs from FLARM do not make that clear. I certainly do NOT want to filter out power traffic advisories.

Walt Rogers WX

On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 3:29:43 PM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:
Actually, sane pilots have been afraid of midairs, west and east, for a long time. In my time on the rules committee, concern over midairs has been most pilots' number one safety worry. The owens valley pilots developed a whole protocol about high speed oncoming traffic.

Then flarm came along, offering some - -not perfect -- help on this topic.. Wise pilots should still be very "afraid" of midairs.

Now it is proposed to force all pilots to intentionally degrade flarm. You can't argue that this does not have some safety implications. The question is simple: how much safety degradation it has, how much you care about that, how much loss of enjoyment it has (knowing where your buddies are, etc..) vs. how much doing so improves (or not) the quality of contest soaring. Once everyone has gotten used to the technology (see the GPS wars)

John cochrane BB



I flew in the Stealth-mandatory Nationals at Elmira. It was my first
experience with Stealth mode, I liked it, and I found that it in no way
degraded the safety benefits of Flarm.

In fact, I say Stealth makes contests safer. Eliminating all the TMI leeching
stuff from the radar screen, means there is less reason for the pilot's eyes
to be on that screen. His eyes can then spend more time outside the cockpit,
where true situational awareness will be found.

For John Cochrane to flatly state that Stealth mode degrades Flarm safety, is
just plain wrong. He has not flown in an all-Stealth contest, and is
providing us with a textbook example of the word "prejudice".

So I vote "yes" on Stealth, but I frankly don't care if the SSA makes it
mandatory for contests or not. Leading by example, my PowerFlarm will be in
stealth mode for all future SSA contests, and the only way to force P7 back
into Open mode is to make a rule forbidding Stealth mode in SSA contests.

And if that happens, then it's time to make an aluminum foil hat; not for my
Flarm antenna, but for Cochrane's head.

Gary Ittner P7

Responding to Gary Ittner's take on stealth with FLARM...

My concern with using "stealth" mode is the uncertainty of whether or not we are losing a safety factor by using FLARM. I respect Gary's experience and judgement and am willing to change my mind if we only had some definitive analysis on the performance of stealth vs non-stealth mode regarding the safety of collision avoidance. My concern is primarily midair safety... not the competitiveness change to the sport, recognizing that seeing fellow competitors within a 3-5sm range does change things.

Why can't FLARM Inc step in and provide an analysis of an entire contest using the FLARM data in the igc files? It certainly would be more convincing to see a replay of competition days from various glider pilots Flarmview display... comparing that to the reality of where the glider targets are actually located.

I recognize that would be a research and comprehensive data analysis project... quite valuable to add to this discussion.

Walt Rogers WX

On Friday, December 11, 2015 at 4:10:10 PM UTC-8, Gary Ittner wrote:
On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 3:29:43 PM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:
Actually, sane pilots have been afraid of midairs, west and east, for a long time. In my time on the rules committee, concern over midairs has been most pilots' number one safety worry. The owens valley pilots developed a whole protocol about high speed oncoming traffic.

Then flarm came along, offering some - -not perfect -- help on this topic. Wise pilots should still be very "afraid" of midairs.

Now it is proposed to force all pilots to intentionally degrade flarm. You can't argue that this does not have some safety implications. The question is simple: how much safety degradation it has, how much you care about that, how much loss of enjoyment it has (knowing where your buddies are, etc.) vs. how much doing so improves (or not) the quality of contest soaring.. Once everyone has gotten used to the technology (see the GPS wars)

John cochrane BB



I flew in the Stealth-mandatory Nationals at Elmira. It was my first
experience with Stealth mode, I liked it, and I found that it in no way
degraded the safety benefits of Flarm.

In fact, I say Stealth makes contests safer. Eliminating all the TMI leeching
stuff from the radar screen, means there is less reason for the pilot's eyes
to be on that screen. His eyes can then spend more time outside the cockpit,
where true situational awareness will be found.

For John Cochrane to flatly state that Stealth mode degrades Flarm safety, is
just plain wrong. He has not flown in an all-Stealth contest, and is
providing us with a textbook example of the word "prejudice".

So I vote "yes" on Stealth, but I frankly don't care if the SSA makes it
mandatory for contests or not. Leading by example, my PowerFlarm will be in
stealth mode for all future SSA contests, and the only way to force P7 back
into Open mode is to make a rule forbidding Stealth mode in SSA contests.

And if that happens, then it's time to make an aluminum foil hat; not for my
Flarm antenna, but for Cochrane's head.

Gary Ittner P7

There will be no way to prove that stealth mode makes contests safer or more dangerous in the forseeable future. The number of participants is too small, and the number of incidents far too small, to have a valid experiment. I do applaud your example though of voting with your stealth bit. One question: will you also fly in stealth mode while touring?