Avoid head-on collision? Forward facing LED strobe?

Flarm blind spots are mostly about the aerial placement: you will not see
anyone directly below or above due to signals not going through fuselage.
It works well on the head on case. With the above/below blindspot you
would
have been alerted earlier as the other glider approached out of
blindspot.
They are not perfect and need to be used along with good lookout. With
Flarm you get a directed lookout which is very effective.
Mandatory Flarm in comps and preferably in all gliders/tugs is a small
price to pay for the increased safety, but : YOU STILL NEED TO LOOK OUT!
Tom

It is worth running the range analysis software from the Flarm web site to
check how well your aerial is working, albeit this shows the horizontal
range. I was very pleased to find a similar tool recently on the LX Nav web
site that allows you to do this for a file from an LX8000/9000.

I am experimenting with two commercially available L shaped and T shaped
aerials that are intended to reduce vertical blind spots at the expense of
some horizontal range. So far so good, and that is just with the L aerial
mounted inverted under the glare shield.

Mike

Mike

So what color LED is the best in bright day conditions? All colors are
now available.

At 14:32 25 July 2012, Tom Claffey wrote:
At 11:28 25 July 2012, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
At 10:11 25 July 2012, Michael Clarke wrote:
At 08:14 25 July 2012, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
FLARM tells you that there is another glider. It does not
really
tell you where it is - you need to look and find it. Week ago I
got
FLARM warning, without seeing the another plane.

Kimmo,

It does if you have the right equipment and set it up properly.
LX8000 /
9000 with voice shows you and tells you where the other glider
is.

Link your Flarm to any navigation display, for example LK8000,
you can
maintain awareness of other gliders and will have a vey good
idea where to
look if a glider triggers a warning. This works very much better
than the
standard Flarm display, and IMO better than the various Flarm
analogue
displays (though I have one fitted as belt and braces).

Mike



I agree Mike. Therefore I was involved in development of
Soartronic devices, to make FLARM / PDA connections easy &
low cost. Voice warning might be a good idea, but transferring
information takes time?
FLARM systems seem to have blind points. I would like to have a
system, that helps maintaining awareness of nearby planes,
even when FLARM signal is temporally lost. LK8000 seems to
have some fresh ideas.



Flarm blind spots are mostly about the aerial placement: you will not see
anyone directly below or above due to signals not going through fuselage.
It works well on the head on case. With the above/below blindspot you
would
have been alerted earlier as the other glider approached out of
blindspot.
They are not perfect and need to be used along with good lookout. With
Flarm you get a directed lookout which is very effective.
Mandatory Flarm in comps and preferably in all gliders/tugs is a small
price to pay for the increased safety, but : YOU STILL NEED TO LOOK OUT!
Tom

It is well worth running the range analysis software from the Flarm web
site to check how well your aerial is working, albeit this shows the
horizontal range. I was very pleased to find a similar tool recently on the
LX Nav web site that allows you to do this for a file from an LX8000/9000.

I am experimenting with two commercially available L shaped and T shaped
aerials that are intended to reduce vertical blind spots at the expense of
some horizontal range. So far so good, and that is just with the L aerial
mounted inverted under the glare shield.

Mike

On 7/25/2012 12:50 PM, soartech wrote:
So what color LED is the best in bright day conditions? All colors are
now available.

Why not white?

Vaughn

Am 25.07.2012 10:50, Peter Scholz wrote:
Am 25.07.2012 02:14, son_of_flubber wrote:
So how many of us have flown along close to cloudbase under a cloud
street, and suddenly seen another glider pass us on the opposite heading?

It's obviously hard to see a glider that is coming straight at you.

So what about a narrow beam LED strobe aligned with the glide path
vector... would the other glider see it? Would it be legal? Could
you shine it through the canopy with a baffle to block internal
reflections?

Has anyone done this?

I once saw another glider coming towards me on a ridge with wing tip
strobes. It really got my attention and in plenty of time. So I
kinda think that this would work.


Good idea, several solutions exist, partly professional, partly home
made. A few links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=VRkcJjKEdKE

A solution like this can be integrated into the fin (done at
Schleicher), the additional price will be around 1200 EURO. One glider
at our airport is equipped with this, visibility is excellent.
------------------

http://www.irl-shop.de/advanced_sear...e7f4f&x=15&y=5


This is much cheaper, and can be attached quite easily to any glider.
-------------------------

http://forum.segelflug.de/attachment...d=13 40716667


There was a discussion in the segelflug.de forum some time ago, this is
a selfmade solution from Wolfgang Schmidt.
---------------------

If you run this all day in flash mode, you'll probably need an extra
battery.
--
Peter Scholz
ASW24 JE

Sorry, wrong link for the third solution. Use this for a larger pictu

http://forum.segelflug.de/attachment...1&d=1340716667

--
Peter Scholz
ASW24 JE

Not sure as to the brightest LED color, but I know that in this region (New York, USA) most police, EMS and fire departments have made it a practice to add blue lights to their warning lights as this was supposed to be more visible. If I can find research to support this I'll post it.

I recall during WWII, maritime patrol bombers used bright white lights on
their leading edges as camoflage so they could sneak up on U-boats without
being seen. Seems the lights broke up the silhouette.


"Vaughn" wrote in message
...
On 7/25/2012 12:50 PM, soartech wrote:
So what color LED is the best in bright day conditions? All colors are
now available.

Why not white?

Vaughn

At 23:18 25 July 2012, Dan Marotta wrote:
I recall during WWII, maritime patrol bombers used bright white lights on

their leading edges as camoflage so they could sneak up on U-boats without

being seen. Seems the lights broke up the silhouette.


After a comprehensive study by the RAF it was found that the colour which
was most conspicuous in a wide variety of daylight conditions was black.
The colour which was least conspicuous was, you guessed it, white or light
grey. Strobe lights are not very effective in bright daylight conditions
and when do we do most of our flying? When the sun shines.
There are very good technical reasons why the top surface of a glider must
be white but does the underside have to be?

On 7/25/2012 1:14 AM, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
FLARM tells you that there is another glider. It does not really
tell you where it is - you need to look and find it. Week ago I got
FLARM warning, without seeing the another plane.

LED strobe is not a bad idea. Compared to FLARM the cost is
very small, and installation easy. If you have LED strobe, all
other planes will see you, not only those with FLARM.

Are you still talking about a single, forward facing strobe, like the
original poster? If so, a glider coming up below or behind you will not
see the strobe.

If the strobes are placed so they can be seen from all sides, it might
be more useful; however, gaggling might be very distracting! I think
someone has to try this to determine how well it works.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what
you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

On 7/25/2012 1:14 AM, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
> FLARM tells you that there is another glider. It does not really
> tell you where it is - you need to look and find it. Week ago I got
> FLARM warning, without seeing the another plane.


The original post from Kimmo was that FLARM indicated a glider in his visual range he could not see. This is not an unusual situation for airplanes even where ATC has called out the traffic. Visual aids like lights can be very useful.

Let's imagine a further step in technology. FLARM equipped aircraft know the exact 3D position of each other. An algorithm could operate a small gimbaled device like a remote pan & tilt camera mount which could aim a bright and narrow LED beam directly at the other pilot rendering that aircraft visible.