Is FLARM helpful?

On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 10:18:11 UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

Continuing the argument, Nephi has conducted a well attended no accident contest (yes, I know it is OLC but try to explain that to a jury) for the last two years, setting tasks and posting the results and requiring Flarm. For the 2016 Nationals in Nephi the SSA has mandated Flarm, but intentional and with forethought, decreased the safety and situational awareness provided by the available and mandated technology.

As one of the organizes for the 2016 Nephi Nationals I would like to set the record straight.

1) There have been 3 years of OLC events in Nephi and in 2014 there was also a SSA sanctioned regional competition.

2) We, the organizers, submitted a waiver request to the SSA competition and rules committee to have Power Flarm Mandatory. This is the actual request that was submittted

PowerFlarm mandatory

Request - Make PowerFlarm (PF) mandatory for all gliders flying within the contest. As far as PF mode is concerned we would leave it in open or standard mode.

Reasoning - Safety. The last 3 years PF has been mandatory at the Nephi based OLC/XC camps with very positive feedback. Also many of the gliders that flew in the 2014 Region 9 contest utilized PF in standard mode with positive comments. The second aspect of safety pertains to the TCAS functionality provided by PF.

Response from the waiver request - Waiver is granted. It was the decision of the Rules Committee that for 2016 National contests, any Flarm use shall be in stealth mode

There was more in the response but I believe it is best for that to come out in meeting minutes published by them.

Response from the waiver request - Waiver is granted. It was the decision of the Rules Committee that for 2016 National contests, any Flarm use shall be in stealth mode


Finally, something makes sense. So, Nephi has a waiver to make flarm mandatory. The RC lets nephi know that it is recommending a new rule that stealth will be mandatory for all nationals. Nothing special for Nephi, and sensible of RC to warn Nephi.

Now we can go on with the regular process. RC will release minutes and proposed rules. Pilots can comment to RC and their regional directors. SSA BOD will or not approve the rules.

And contests that don't like new rules can ask for waivers of those rules, especially contests that put in bids before the rules were changed.

John Cochrane BB

On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 9:52:39 AM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 8:00:23 AM UTC-8, wrote:

Saw FLARM leeching at PAGC. Poor XG couldn't get away to do his own brilliant thing. He expressed his frustrations in passing and very politely at one of the meetings.

I looked at the traces from this race - a couple of days every thermal for every pilot on course. The only guys I could see following XG were his teammates - I assume this was team flying, but maybe that was prohibited? In any case they fell off his trail after a few climbs.


It is not just plain leeching either. Two thermals are ahead on the first leg and marked by other competitors. The guy trailing gets to pick which has a better value and save the time of centering it. Using FLARM, the guy coming from behind uses the talents of the other two and potentially does better than either.

The data just doesn't support the reality of this claim - the VAST majority of the time the climbs achieved by later arrivals decline materially. I'm sure there are occasional cases where it takes you 4, 5, 6 turns to catch the core and annoying to have someone come in right below you and climb with you, but generally using someone else's thermals is a losing proposition - and you can't really pick the ones where the other guy "just found the core after a struggle and will safe you some effort". It's far, far more likely that the strong part of the thermal has passed you buy if you ar trailing by more than a mile or two.

I'll go grind through more contest traces, but I was startled at what a poor proposition "borrowing" thermals is from a long trail position.

Looking forward to flying with you at Nephi - hope you come. You know it'll be fun. We can discuss the various merits of Flarm over beers (I'll be hiding mine though - ;-) )

9B

Andy, I hate it when you bring data to an argument. I suggest that at Nephi, the field be randomly split between stealth and non-stealth mode. It's probably enough gliders to have a valid experiment. Since the theory behind leeching is that it speeds up the slow pilots while not slowing down the fast ones, the aggregate score of the non-steath group should be statistically higher than the stealth group. That could be further refined by looking at the bottom half in each group (presumably, leechers). According the stealth supporters, there is no difference in safety so there should be no objection on that account. Since the fast pilots are going to win anyway (and are not leechers), they should not object to which group they draw.

On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 12:52:39 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 8:00:23 AM UTC-8, wrote:

Saw FLARM leeching at PAGC. Poor XG couldn't get away to do his own brilliant thing. He expressed his frustrations in passing and very politely at one of the meetings.

I looked at the traces from this race - a couple of days every thermal for every pilot on course. The only guys I could see following XG were his teammates - I assume this was team flying, but maybe that was prohibited? In any case they fell off his trail after a few climbs.


It is not just plain leeching either. Two thermals are ahead on the first leg and marked by other competitors. The guy trailing gets to pick which has a better value and save the time of centering it. Using FLARM, the guy coming from behind uses the talents of the other two and potentially does better than either.

The data just doesn't support the reality of this claim - the VAST majority of the time the climbs achieved by later arrivals decline materially. I'm sure there are occasional cases where it takes you 4, 5, 6 turns to catch the core and annoying to have someone come in right below you and climb with you, but generally using someone else's thermals is a losing proposition - and you can't really pick the ones where the other guy "just found the core after a struggle and will safe you some effort". It's far, far more likely that the strong part of the thermal has passed you buy if you ar trailing by more than a mile or two.

I'll go grind through more contest traces, but I was startled at what a poor proposition "borrowing" thermals is from a long trail position.

Looking forward to flying with you at Nephi - hope you come. You know it'll be fun. We can discuss the various merits of Flarm over beers (I'll be hiding mine though - ;-) )

9B

No worries I'll be there. I am very much looking forward to flying at a beautiful place like Nephi. Looking forward to the beers, too. Let's make sure we don't talk only about FLARM though...
XC

Another important consideration is the non-contest pilot. Perhaps someone flying out of a nearby airport will be in some of the same airspace as the contest pilots. These pilots flying with Flarm have purchased a Flarm with the expectation of more situational awareness. Now they encounter a mass of sailplanes flying with Farm limited by stealth mode. By mandating stealth you have essentially taken some of the situational awareness thus safety from a pilot that has not agreed to these conditions.

The RC, SSA and contest organizers may want to get a legal opinion before agreeing to Stealth Mode on all contestants Flarms.

On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 12:26:42 PM UTC-8, Ron Gleason wrote:
On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 10:18:11 UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

Continuing the argument, Nephi has conducted a well attended no accident contest (yes, I know it is OLC but try to explain that to a jury) for the last two years, setting tasks and posting the results and requiring Flarm. For the 2016 Nationals in Nephi the SSA has mandated Flarm, but intentional and with forethought, decreased the safety and situational awareness provided by the available and mandated technology.

As one of the organizes for the 2016 Nephi Nationals I would like to set the record straight.

1) There have been 3 years of OLC events in Nephi and in 2014 there was also a SSA sanctioned regional competition.

2) We, the organizers, submitted a waiver request to the SSA competition and rules committee to have Power Flarm Mandatory. This is the actual request that was submittted

PowerFlarm mandatory

Request - Make PowerFlarm (PF) mandatory for all gliders flying within the contest. As far as PF mode is concerned we would leave it in open or standard mode.

Reasoning - Safety. The last 3 years PF has been mandatory at the Nephi based OLC/XC camps with very positive feedback. Also many of the gliders that flew in the 2014 Region 9 contest utilized PF in standard mode with positive comments. The second aspect of safety pertains to the TCAS functionality provided by PF.

Response from the waiver request - Waiver is granted. It was the decision of the Rules Committee that for 2016 National contests, any Flarm use shall be in stealth mode

There was more in the response but I believe it is best for that to come out in meeting minutes published by them.

In the tradition of lies, damned lies, and statistics, I see that a plurality of pilots in the Opinion poll supported making stealth mode mandatory for Nationals--30% (vs. 19% organizer choice, 24% pilot choice, and 13% stealth prohibited). So instead of disenfranchising anyone, the Rules Committee appears (without knowing the back story) to have responded to pilots' preferences.

I strongly suspect that if the responses were broken down into those who had flown a stealth-mode-mandatory contest vs. those who had not, the results would have been much more lopsided in favor of mandatory stealth. I've done both and much preferred mandatory stealth mode. My sense of the Elmira nats where it was mandatory was that most pilots thought it worked very well, but that's an unscientific opinion.

The percentage of pilots who support prohibiting stealth mode ranges from 13% (at nationals) to 17% (at regionals). It seems logical that if you're really opposed to stealth for safety instead of tactical reasons, you should be strongly opposed to stealth being allowed OR mandated, and that didn't come out.

So on a tactical basis, regarding whether leeching works, I respect Andy's analytical approach studying past data when he says leeching doesn't pay off. But based on experience, I would offer that this tactic is like anything else in soaring (or life): i.e., it's no panacea. Some pilots really know how to use it, even to the point of being able to win national contests. Others are less skilled. I can say for certain that it's very frustrating to take your turns leading out or to fly by yourself when you have the courage of your convictions and then have a top pilot sweep into your thermal closely followed by half a dozen leeches who are focused so grimly on keeping him in sight that they barely acknowledge your existence. Indeed, I've had to take evasive action when the trailing pilot(s) didn't see me.

So, yes, leeching works for some. And FLARM makes it easier to leech. The reason it doesn't effect top pilots most of the time is that they're better than the rest of us and don't need it. Duh. It's middle-of-the-pack pilots who want to place high but don't want to fly their own flights who can benefit.

To be completely honest, leeching using FLARM probably enhances safety compared with leeching based on eyeballing because it gives everyone a better view of other gliders. But that's like saying that tailgating a fast-moving car on the freeway at 80 mph is safer with one of the new automatic emergency braking systems or self-driving cars than by driving manually. You shouldn't be doing it either way.

Just my opinion.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 3:26:42 PM UTC-5, Ron Gleason wrote:
On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 10:18:11 UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

Continuing the argument, Nephi has conducted a well attended no accident contest (yes, I know it is OLC but try to explain that to a jury) for the last two years, setting tasks and posting the results and requiring Flarm. For the 2016 Nationals in Nephi the SSA has mandated Flarm, but intentional and with forethought, decreased the safety and situational awareness provided by the available and mandated technology.

As one of the organizes for the 2016 Nephi Nationals I would like to set the record straight.

1) There have been 3 years of OLC events in Nephi and in 2014 there was also a SSA sanctioned regional competition.

2) We, the organizers, submitted a waiver request to the SSA competition and rules committee to have Power Flarm Mandatory. This is the actual request that was submittted

PowerFlarm mandatory

Request - Make PowerFlarm (PF) mandatory for all gliders flying within the contest. As far as PF mode is concerned we would leave it in open or standard mode.

Reasoning - Safety. The last 3 years PF has been mandatory at the Nephi based OLC/XC camps with very positive feedback. Also many of the gliders that flew in the 2014 Region 9 contest utilized PF in standard mode with positive comments. The second aspect of safety pertains to the TCAS functionality provided by PF.

Response from the waiver request - Waiver is granted. It was the decision of the Rules Committee that for 2016 National contests, any Flarm use shall be in stealth mode

There was more in the response but I believe it is best for that to come out in meeting minutes published by them.

Hmm, I wonder what will happen when I show up with an ADS-B out. My new glider is equipped with a certified ADS-B out unit, probably first such installation in a glider in US. I will see all transponder traffic including gliders miles ahead and so will everyone else around me who has PowerFlarm installed. There will be plenty of transponder equipped gliders at Nephi. Will RC ban me from contests? Stealth mode will not be worth much then. Time to move on with times or maybe RC will ask me to get the ADS-B out of my glider, hmm can you imagine that...

At 21:59 01 December 2015, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Another important consideration is the non-contest pilot. Perhaps
someone
=
flying out of a nearby airport will be in some of the same airspace as
the
=
contest pilots. These pilots flying with Flarm have purchased a Flarm
with=
the expectation of more situational awareness. Now they encounter a
mass
=
of sailplanes flying with Farm limited by stealth mode. By mandating
steal=
th you have essentially taken some of the situational awareness thus
safety=
from a pilot that has not agreed to these conditions.

Simply not true

On Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 2:06:59 PM UTC-8, wrote:
In the tradition of lies, damned lies, and statistics, I see that a plurality of pilots in the Opinion poll supported making stealth mode mandatory for Nationals--30% (vs. 19% organizer choice, 24% pilot choice, and 13% stealth prohibited). So instead of disenfranchising anyone, the Rules Committee appears (without knowing the back story) to have responded to pilots' preferences.



Hey Chip,

Hope you come to Nephi! I think the last time we flew together was the first "Big Ridge" contest day at New Castle in 1983 - 469 miles. I know Mark was there because he was flying Standard Class.

There is a slightly different interpretation I put on the data. How many want Stealth mode mandatory versus not mandatory. Pilot choice is definitely NOT mandated, as is stealth banned (obviously). I'd put organizer choice more on the not mandated than mandated, but even if you put it aside you get 30% for mandatory and 37% percent for no stealth or the original concept form Flarm - stealth at the pilot's option.

That's for Nationals - Regionals was definitely far more in favor of openness.

9B