Meeting to discuss FLARM in the USA

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
news:9S1Vi.131$MW.53@trndny05...
Ian wrote:
On 27 Oct, 17:08, pascal wrote:

It's always a shock when you pass a glider coming from
the front without having the warning (because it is not equipped with
flarm); and despite looking out you surprise yourself not having
noticed that particular glider.

I wonder how well you look (ie one looks) out when a little part of
the brain assumes that flarm would have reacted to anything that
mattered?

There is always the problem of adverse compensation when a safety device
is introduced. Monitoring of the situation should continue after the
introduction to ensure the desired increase in safety occurrs. I believe
this is the case with FLARM.

What puzzles me is how skeptical you are about a widely accepted device
you have not used. FLARM has sold 9000 units. 9000! When 9000 pilots
voluntarily equip their aircraft with an $800 device, I am inclined to
think there may be something quite useful there and to look forward to an
opportunity to use one.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

It's just human nature. It's called the "Negative Expert" syndrome. Every
technological advance in soaring has met the same negative initial response.
Later, when everybody is using the technology, the same people will defend
it against the NEXT advance.

The basic concept of real-time position exchange and conflict determination
is an outstanding idea. It's one that, properly implemented, will increase
safety and reduce cockpit workload. The only real thing to discuss is how
to best implement it. All indications are that FLARM is extremely well
executed.

It's true that glider traffic densities are far higher in Europe than in the
US which is why FLARM was developed there first. However, there are some
locations in the US where glider traffic is dense enough to justify FLARM.
There are also benefits beyond mid-air avoidance. For example, knowing
where your soaring buddy is without jamming 123.3.

Absent some wholley unexpected blooming of FAA technological leadership,
ADS-B is far enough in the future for several development cycles of FLARM to
pass before we can afford ADS-B. If FLARM can be adopted to the US legal
and regulatory environment today, I say "bring it on".

Bill Daniels

On 28 Oct, 13:55, Bruce wrote:
Ian wrote:
On 28 Oct, 07:18, "
wrote:
On Oct 27, 11:40 pm, Ian wrote:

On 26 Oct, 18:18, Ramy wrote:
On Oct 26, 9:07 am, Ian wrote:
SNIP
Anyway, my human eyes have successfully detected /all/ threats in time
to avoid them so far. How common are midair glider collisions?

How do you know what you have detected *all* threats in time.

Because nobody has ever hit me. Therefore I and/or the other pilots
have /always/ managed to detect and deal with threats successfully.

What
margin of safety is that down to?

Can you define "margin of safety" in this case, please?

How do you know other aircraft (and/
or ATC) did not take action to avoid you and you were never aware of
them?

It doesn't really matter to me whether I successfully avoided them or
they successfully avoided me (that will almost certainly have happened
a lot, as I fly wood) - but I can say that "looking out" has always
worked for me. That's not to get complacent, of course, but I would
feel a lot happier if I knew that other pilots were not, to some
inevitable extent, relying on a magic gadget to lookout for them.

I personally do not use logic like "my past landing attempt did
not kill me so my landings are great" but I look at what you are
saying as "I've not run into anything sofar therefore my visual
lookouts are perfectly adequate"

How about "unless you buy a radio altimeter you will never be able to
plan an outlanding properly?"

Lots of non believers until one or two glider pilots start
using them and then start reporting they really work, especially all
the traffic they otherwise would not notice...

This is where I am sceptical. Yes, I am sure these things will give
lots of extra alerts - they'd hardly be worth buying if they didn't.
But we are not exactly plagued, world wide, by glider-glider
collisions, are we? So what this means is that pilots will spend a lot
more time reacting to false alarms (they must be false, because if
they weren't they'd end in a collision without the magic gadgets).

Don't let the fact that you have not had or realised that you have had a near
miss to date blind you to the risks. Even when everyone is being careful things
can, and do, go wrong. It is generally not the aircraft we saw that represent
the highest risk we have encountered. It is the ones we failed to observe.

I agree with everything you say. I only have three concerns:

1) flarm (and the like) alarms must divert the pilot's attention from
something else.

2) pilots will inevitably, and with the best will in the world, start
relying on flarm to tell them when something's approaching - "I'll
just reprogramme the GPS with a better turning point - the magic
machine will keep me safe"

3) the laws of the air very carefully specify who has right of way and
whose duty is to make to change to their course. Information on
impending conflict only, without right-of-way/stand-on responsibility,
will potentially be very difficult to interpret.

I can see some places where it could be very useful.

Ian

On 28 Oct, 14:53, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Ian wrote:

The pilots of these gliders should be able to see me - if they are not
busy concentrating on yet another electronic gadget in the cockpit.

You haven't flown with a FLARM, yet you keep saying this. Why do you
think they are "concentrating" on FLARM? From what I've read about it,
and from what users say, there is no "concentrating": you go about your
flying until it alerts you.

.... at which point, if I interpret the pictures at www.flarm.com
correctly, you have to look at the thing to get an idea of where it
thinks trouble is coming from, then work out of its real or not, then
work out what to do?

Ian

On Oct 28, 8:23 pm, Ian wrote:
I agree with everything you say. I only have three concerns:

Those are quite common ones, but I don't think they hold much water.
Flarm's beep is quite distinctive and no pilot would ever have a
problem discerning it from his vario. The display is a bit small from
the units I've looked at, but clear. It uses the o'clock system - it
lights up to let you know another Flarm equipped glider is about, and
only beeps if it thinks there's a problem. There's no need to touch
the unit in flight. I've not heard of a pilot who has fitted Flarm and
stopped looking out - pilots aren't _that_ stupid.

If your Flarm is beeping at you, paying attention to it should be your
top priority - then searching for the conflict, and figuring out what
to do as per normal when you've sighted it.


Dan

On Oct 28, 6:40 am, Ian wrote:
How common are midair glider collisions?

http://glidemet.co.uk/?p=414


Dan

On Oct 26, 4:07 pm, Ian wrote:
I have never used it myself [1] but I was chatting about it just a few
days ago with an instructor at a busy ridge site here. His view was
that it's a menace: it generates far too many false alarms, and pilots
who try to evade non-existent hazards may thereby cause significant
danger. What are you supposed to do, he asked, if you get a six-second-
t-death warning about a glider which is supposedly dead ahead but
which you can't see? He reckoned the main problem was that the system
only believes in "cruising" and "thermalling" and gets hopelessly
confused by the turn at the end of a beat on the ridge.

Sounds like you're talking about the SGU trial at Portmoak (or at
least, that's the same as the opinion of one vocal instructor there -
whether or not those are the conclusions the SGU arrive at themselves
remains to be seen). They fly a rather short ridge (only a few km)
which is not representative of normal glider operations - not sure
that their findings, when published, can be extrapolated beyond their
own circumstances.

Lasham, by contrast, did find that Flarm met their needs (no doubt
partly motivated by the fatal collision there in 2004). They're a flat-
land thermal site - probably the busiest in the UK. I think the fact
that their entire fleet (some thirty gliders and tugs) has been fitted
with Flarm, and that many more units are being fitted to the private
fleet there, is a strong endorsement.


Dan

I don't think that people in the US are against FLARM or a similar type of
device. I think that the risk environment in the US is different than in
Europe due to the much larger amount of power VFR traffic, which poses at
least as much of a threat to gliders as other gliders. My concern is with
introducing another technology that doesn't address the entire problem,
which then diverts everyone from implementing the technology (ADS-B) which
really could solve this for everyone.

The only negatives that I can see with an ADS-B based approach is the cost,
and the very slow FAA rollout schedule. I don't understand why inherently
ADS-B technology needs to be more expensive than FLARM. If it's a
certification issue, I would suspect that the FAA would be willing to be
flexible if the options are certified units that are unaffordable, vs. cheap
units that are self certified (like Light Sport Aircraft) which would be
widely deployed by gliders, ultralights, LSAs and UAVs which otherwise
couldn't afford the technology.

The FAA rollout schedule is also not necessarily a show stopper. Without
FAA ground stations, ADS-B equipped gliders won't be visible to air traffic
control or TCAS equipped planes. However, ADS-B equipped aircraft are fully
visible to each other, just like FLARM equipped planes are in Europe. The
bonus, once the FAA catches up with everybody else, is that ADS-B users will
then be fully integrated into the air traffic control system (plus be able
to receive Nexrad weather, etc.).

Mike Schumann

"Robert Danewid" wrote in message
...
There are ca 9 000 FLARM units in use in Europe, and all who use them
seems to be in favour of it. There seems to be no FLARMs in the US, but a
lot of people who is against it.

When I bought my ASW 28-18E last winter it was already equipped with a
FLARM. I used to be against FLARM for all the reasons listed in this
thread, now that I have flown with it I am in favour of it.

Robert Danewid
ASW 28-18E RD




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

The discussion of using FLARM in the USA is just so much self
flagulation. I have flown in France and used FLARM. A very nice,
compact, and simple system that is easy to understand while flying.
The primary problem is exactly the same as gliders having a
transponder in the USA. There are many, many gliders flying around
the Alps that do not have FLARM. You get comfortable with responding
to the signals from FLARM and then WHAM...there is a glider headed
right at your nose and no FLARM !

I feel that for the USA it would be a much better course to encourage
the installation of transponders and development of systems that use
transponder technology to do the work of FLARM. These chat groups
seem dominated by people constantly arguing that they won't buy a
transponder because a new system is just over the horizon whether it
is ADS-B or Mode S. The reality that we all see is that the existing
system is going to be it for some time. By working with the existing
system you get gliders to become full fledged members of the aviation
community that exists today. You become better friends with other
traffic because they can see you on their collision avoidance
systems. Having FLARM means you are still invisable to commercial
traffic and the air traffic controllers. It means that instead of
having just two groups of gliders in the USA (with or without
transponders) you create a microscopic group that have FLARM and are
still invisable to the air traffic control system.

Flying around Reno became DRAMATICALLY better after installing a
transponder. AIr traffic control sees you and directs all of their
traffic away from you without any effort on the glider pilot's part.
Commercial traffic and others with "fish finders" happily see you and
avoid without any sweat being shed. Work should be put into small,
modestly expensive collision avoidance systems that use the existing
transponders.

Guy Acheson "DDS"

wrote:
Work should be put into small,
modestly expensive collision avoidance systems that use the existing
transponders.

Do you mean something like the Zaon XRX (modestly expensive at a list
price of $1800) or the Zaon MRX ($550)?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

Hi,

there is no "concentrating": you go about your
flying until it alerts you.

... at which point, if I interpret the pictures at www.flarm.com
correctly, you have to look at the thing to get an idea of where it
thinks trouble is coming from, then work out of its real or not, then
work out what to do?

It then does indeed divert your attention away from whatever your are
currently doing so you can check for the incoming. If you didn't spot
them yet that diversion is a useful change of priorities I'd say. If
you did spot them before it's time to think of something to do NOW
anyway.

About the "work out what to do": Yes. You will definitely have to work
that out. Quickly. Without FLARM you would have to do it more quickly
when you notice the traffic (or just the conflict, if you had seen them
before) without electronic aid a few moments later. I prefer to have
more time.

Note that if you noticed the potential problem before the alarm as in
the vast majority of cases you will likely have manoevered long before
so there won't be an alarm at all.

Ciao, MM
--
Marian Aldenhövel, Rosenhain 23, 53123 Bonn
http://www.marian-aldenhoevel.de
"Success is the happy feeling you get between the time you
do something and the time you tell a woman what you did."