Is FLARM helpful?

I am always perplexed by the argument that a device that gives you more situational awareness has a cost because you are not looking outside for one bloody second, rather looking inside at something that tells you what you have not been able to see by looking outside. Ever heard of synthetic vision? I have over two thousand hours flying much faster aircraft than gliders equipped with Mode S traffic position displays and/or TCAS. These amazing devices, yes including Flarm, are more about giving you the entire picture that you cannot see, so you can avoid the drama of extreme near misses or of the actual collision. A second looking at an instrument inside the cockpit can tell you more than you have seen with your scan the last 30 or more seconds.

I am not sure why the gliding community resists technology when we fly airfoils that are designed by some of the fastest computers on the planet. This debate is reminiscent of the GPS debate of 18 or so years ago. Looking back on that debate does anyone think the anti-GPS opinion was right or just plain silly. The head in the cockpit was used by the anti-GPS faction also.. Imagine taking photos of turn points. Think of the fancy new instruments we have that would not have been developed had the anti-GPS debate won.

Maybe the Amish have a gliding club with bungee cords, wood and fabric gliders and pellet varios.

No vitriol intended, just trying to make a point that seems so obvious to me and with my real world experience using traffic awareness technology. Again no offense intended to any parties including the anti-GPS faction who were so clearly wrong and short sighted

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 6:51:46 AM UTC-8, John Godfrey (QT) wrote:

An issue with this argument is the assumption that integrating an in-cockpit display into ones awareness has no cost. I believe this is a fallacy. Anything that directs your attention inside the glider potentially adversely affects safety. Folks are making the "situational awareness" argument with the premise that sll objects you need to be aware of are FLARM equipped and that all FLARMs are operating correctly.

WRT thermals, one prior poster observed that Winpilot is excellent for displaying gliders in a thermal. The idea of someone in a thermal not looking out the window 100% of the time is troubling to me. There have been at least two instances I am personally aware of where FLARM equipped gliders have collided in a thermal.

QT

All this talk about speed and distance. Why not combine the two and
think in terms of time?

With a first warning at, say, 15 seconds, make a gentle turn according
to the right of way rules. What could be simpler? Why would you need
anything more complex? The algorithm will compute tracks and issue
warnings. Look outside, make a gentle turn, and enjoy the flight.
Talking about "crossed wings" clouds the issue under discussion. If you
make a small course correction at the initial collision warning, getting
that close won't happen. That's more of a thermalling thing, not a near
head-on approach. Worrying about someone getting a bit of a lead in a
contest at the risk of getting run over is, in a word, stupid.

Full disclosu I do not use Flarm, but that's not to say that it's
not on my list of future upgrades.

On 11/27/2015 9:41 PM, wrote:
My math is correct, my typing was not: 1/4 of a minute warning! That is actually not much time to be alerted, accept the alert, come up with a plan of action and react. This is why it is better to have Flarm set you can see the gliders coming your way, while there is enough to plan not just react. Western flying at speed and altitude under mountain generated clouds streets is different than eastern flying, and requires its own set of safety parameters and flying style. Not every peg fits in every hole.


On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 12:49:53 PM UTC-8, wrote:
"The $PFLAA sentence is info about proximate aircraft displayed on your device. In stealth mode this info limited to aircraft within 2 km and +/- 300 meters vertically. Stealth or competition mode also removes ID, climb rate, track and speed from the display output for these proximate aircraft. It continues to use these variables to calculate the collision avoidance algorithm in $PFLAU."

Imagine two gliders flying in Utah at the nationals at 17,000 feet 100 knots indicated under cloud street on opposite courses. Say the 100 knots indicated is 134 knots true. Closure rate 268 knots or 496 kph, covering 2Km is about 1/4 a second warning. Just saying.



On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 11:57:18 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:
I am still seeing a lot of misinformation out there. I have two points to make supporting the use FLARM stealth mode in contests.

1) Stealth mode still allows the display and audio warning for threat aircraft no matter what the range.

and

2) FLARM used without stealth mode leads to an invalid score sheet. This is more true in eastern U.S. or European contests with lower working bands and more potential landouts.


First, I'd like folks to understand that FLARM sends two different messages to the display devices.

The $PFLAU sentence has priority and contains info about intruder alerts and obstacles. The contest ID is removed in stealth mode. Alerts are unaffected no matter the range. It really works quite well with the algorithm the FLARM people have developed.

The $PFLAA sentence is info about proximate aircraft displayed on your device. In stealth mode this info limited to aircraft within 2 km and +/- 300 meters vertically. Stealth or competition mode also removes ID, climb rate, track and speed from the display output for these proximate aircraft. It continues to use these variables to calculate the collision avoidance algorithm in $PFLAU.

Folks should read FLARM release notes for FLARM 6.02 Firmware, FLARM data port specification TFD-12 and FTD-14 FLARM Configuration Specification for full understanding. Anyway, we found in Elmira last year it worked quite well and the contest was definitely still fun for all.

High Western conditions versus lower Eastern (US) conditions: Without the use of stealth mode, in a contest with a lower working band, a pilot relying on FLARM technology can drive harder without fearing a landout, knowing there are gliders ahead to mark thermals. This does work in the east where thermals are closer together and you may be one thermal away from a landout. Even a mediocre pilot who might not even be able to get around the course by him/herself that day can use FLARM to pick the best thermals, found by others, and do fairly well on the score sheet. I agree in most cases this will not get a pilot the win. I do believe FLARM without stealth mode jumbles the middle of the score sheet and leads to an invalid result.

So, do what you want when flying cross countries at home. However, I go to contests to see how I am stacking up against some great pilots. Stealth mode (soon to have more appropriate name) is the way to go here. It retains all the safety features it was designed to deliver, keeps your eyes outside of the cockpit where they should be and at the end of the contest period the score sheet shows which pilots have the best soaring skills.

XC

--
Dan, 5J

John and Richard,

I do remember my cross country skills improved greatly when I was mentored at home by W3. I quickly found that by following him around the course I stopped making my own decisions and I got nothing out of it. We then went to a system where we started together for fun, soon split off to follow our own decisions and raced around the course. Comparing my decisions to a seasoned pilot at the end of the day is very useful and much more gratifying.

I go to contests to do the same thing - put up my best effort against the other pilots at the contest and compare the results in the end. I enjoy this very much. I recommend flying your own flight to anyone who enjoys getting better.

XC

Richard,

Ah, yes, the women and the money - silly me! Or were you referring to the woman I annoy and the money I spend to attend contests?

-John, Q3


On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 11:05:04 AM UTC-5, Richard wrote:
John,

I agree, but! Why would we want to allow mediocre pilots to get a chance for all the woman and money?

This is a game for enjoyment and those that think differently are already racing very few like minded pilots.

Richard

John and Richard,

I do remember the days when I had no clue how to fly cross country. Luckily, I had an experienced pilot like W3 to fly with at the home base. I quickly realized that following him was no way to get better. Instead, we have gone to setting a task and starting together for fun. After a few clouds we end up making different decisions and splitting off. After racing around the course we compare results to see who did it better and how. This is really fun and much more gratifying.

I go to contests to do the same thing. I put up my best effort and compare it to other pilots at the end of the day. Contests are a great way to improve your soaring skills. I recommend making your own decisions and flying your own flight to anyone who enjoys getting better.

Displaying other pilot's contest ID's and climb rates via FLARM not only make the results of other pilots at the end of the day less meaningful, but each pilot will not have the same sense that they accomplished the flight themselves. Not entirely so, but to some extent. Surely, racing pilots will make some use of this data if available. This is what I mean by watering down the sport and decreasing the adventure of it all.

XC

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 5:13:00 AM UTC-8, wrote:

Perhaps a better path for you and Andy would be to get involved in the ongoing discussion about the best range to show proximate traffic in competition (stealth) mode. (Remember intruder traffic is displayed at any range the FLARM set up can detect). Perhaps the range should be configurable to show proximate traffic farther away in western contests. The algorithm could also be modified to identify more threats. These are all possibilities. I still see no need to display contest ID, climb rate, i.e. all the competitive stuff. Relative altitude is displayed.

Good idea. As it happens, that's exactly what's happening. I agree climb rate display is not needed, but undithered altitude difference is important as is Contest ID - or you have no solution to the "you zig, I zag" problem - this is also an issue with ridge flying.

Don't forget what got one of our friends killed in Uvalde involved multiple ship formations - which also happens a lot. Who is the alarm for? Is there another glider to one side or the other? You don't know until you have only 10 seconds to (yikes!) look at the display and decide - and hope the other guy(s) don't null out your adjustment. There really is no perfect substitute for better situational awareness. Most pilots I talk to who fly these conditions think it's better to avoid a conflict than react to one where you may (or may not) need to make an impulse move because you don't know which way to turn (and the other pilot(s) may not make complementary turn decisions). Also keep in mind that you are more likely to get an alarm from a glider maneuvering to become a threat than is right on a collision course from max range all the way in. The odds that you will have a track on a glider from max range (and hold it) is low. The idea that Flarm will generate an alarm for conflicts at max range is only a partial solution.

Also, I think we can agree a few degrees of bank is all that is need to avoid traffic at 110 kts.

That's more true the further out the target is so you are making my point for me. A couple of degrees of bank is an easy fix 4-5 miles out because you can observe the change in tracks, it's less certain at 5-15 seconds and there is no backup plan when one glider goes right and the other goes left - that's a very bad oops!

This is analogous to two people walking down the hall at each other. Flarm open mode is with the lights on. Stealth mode is in a pitch black hallway where each person has a small, narrow beam flashlight. Now try it while you're running. Then try it while you're running a gentle slalom.

Note: I realize we flew for years without Flarm and only killed a handful of guys per decade. My main point is that if we have the technology installed to make most of that go away that is amazing! Why are proposing to go to a bunch of trouble to mandate less and require people to enforce rules that make it ANY worse when even the strongest advocates for stealth mode argue that it mostly affects middle of the scoresheet guys on marginal days (days that we already devalue as having a lot of luck factor) and the main benefit is we get more landouts - presumably with some more landout accidents and unhappy pilots. Generating more landouts isn't high on my list of priorities - it's a recipe for a smaller sport.

The pilot community was pretty clear they like flying with more situational awareness - for safety as well as enjoyment reasons. If we chase a lot of pilots out of racing to OLC and XC camp formats (or something else) how valid will contest result be then? Finishing third out of four competitors when the fourth guy was only fourth because he landed out on a marginal day is hardly a podium placing to take much pride in.

9B

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 8:51:52 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:
John and Richard,

I do remember my cross country skills improved greatly when I was mentored at home by W3. I quickly found that by following him around the course I stopped making my own decisions and I got nothing out of it. We then went to a system where we started together for fun, soon split off to follow our own decisions and raced around the course. Comparing my decisions to a seasoned pilot at the end of the day is very useful and much more gratifying.

I go to contests to do the same thing - put up my best effort against the other pilots at the contest and compare the results in the end. I enjoy this very much. I recommend flying your own flight to anyone who enjoys getting better.

XC

True - or mostly true. I learn a bit every time from observing another pilot's decision-making. I think it's important to make your own decisions and observe when others make different ones - what did they see? - what was their reasoning? - did I have a better idea? Sometimes you learn more by going your own way and playing your hunch out, seeing what happens down course, sometimes you learn more by making the mental note that you'd have done it differently, that it was probably not as good a choice and staying together for the next decision. The important point is to always be thinking about what you think you should be doing next. You can't learn with your brain turned off - plus it's super annoying to the people with their brains turned on.

9B

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 1:23:51 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 5:13:00 AM UTC-8, wrote:

Perhaps a better path for you and Andy would be to get involved in the ongoing discussion about the best range to show proximate traffic in competition (stealth) mode. (Remember intruder traffic is displayed at any range the FLARM set up can detect). Perhaps the range should be configurable to show proximate traffic farther away in western contests. The algorithm could also be modified to identify more threats. These are all possibilities. I still see no need to display contest ID, climb rate, i.e. all the competitive stuff. Relative altitude is displayed.

Good idea. As it happens, that's exactly what's happening. I agree climb rate display is not needed, but undithered altitude difference is important as is Contest ID - or you have no solution to the "you zig, I zag" problem - this is also an issue with ridge flying.

Don't forget what got one of our friends killed in Uvalde involved multiple ship formations - which also happens a lot. Who is the alarm for? Is there another glider to one side or the other? You don't know until you have only 10 seconds to (yikes!) look at the display and decide - and hope the other guy(s) don't null out your adjustment. There really is no perfect substitute for better situational awareness. Most pilots I talk to who fly these conditions think it's better to avoid a conflict than react to one where you may (or may not) need to make an impulse move because you don't know which way to turn (and the other pilot(s) may not make complementary turn decisions). Also keep in mind that you are more likely to get an alarm from a glider maneuvering to become a threat than is right on a collision course from max range all the way in. The odds that you will have a track on a glider from max range (and hold it) is low. The idea that Flarm will generate an alarm for conflicts at max range is only a partial solution.

Also, I think we can agree a few degrees of bank is all that is need to avoid traffic at 110 kts.

That's more true the further out the target is so you are making my point for me. A couple of degrees of bank is an easy fix 4-5 miles out because you can observe the change in tracks, it's less certain at 5-15 seconds and there is no backup plan when one glider goes right and the other goes left - that's a very bad oops!

This is analogous to two people walking down the hall at each other. Flarm open mode is with the lights on. Stealth mode is in a pitch black hallway where each person has a small, narrow beam flashlight. Now try it while you're running. Then try it while you're running a gentle slalom.

Note: I realize we flew for years without Flarm and only killed a handful of guys per decade. My main point is that if we have the technology installed to make most of that go away that is amazing! Why are proposing to go to a bunch of trouble to mandate less and require people to enforce rules that make it ANY worse when even the strongest advocates for stealth mode argue that it mostly affects middle of the scoresheet guys on marginal days (days that we already devalue as having a lot of luck factor) and the main benefit is we get more landouts - presumably with some more landout accidents and unhappy pilots. Generating more landouts isn't high on my list of priorities - it's a recipe for a smaller sport.

The pilot community was pretty clear they like flying with more situational awareness - for safety as well as enjoyment reasons. If we chase a lot of pilots out of racing to OLC and XC camp formats (or something else) how valid will contest result be then? Finishing third out of four competitors when the fourth guy was only fourth because he landed out on a marginal day is hardly a podium placing to take much pride in.

9B

The initial thought I had at Uvalde is the he probably had his head down adjusting the scale on his PDA as he went into (out of) the turn. This is just speculation but it truly was what we were thinking on that day.

Andy, you're really overselling this. I never said I was in favor of more land outs, just that pilots should not be able to artificially increase their achieved speeds by routinely using other people's thermals which are conveniently labeled with climb rates.

Everyone should count out loud 10 seconds as a worse case scenario and see if it enough time to avoid a glider or a formation of gliders while looking outside your glider. I think it is. If folks want to go back in forth between outside and your cockpit display and analyze things then they are going to get caught looking in the wrong place.

XC

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 11:15:23 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 1:23:51 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 5:13:00 AM UTC-8, wrote:

Perhaps a better path for you and Andy would be to get involved in the ongoing discussion about the best range to show proximate traffic in competition (stealth) mode. (Remember intruder traffic is displayed at any range the FLARM set up can detect). Perhaps the range should be configurable to show proximate traffic farther away in western contests. The algorithm could also be modified to identify more threats. These are all possibilities. I still see no need to display contest ID, climb rate, i.e. all the competitive stuff. Relative altitude is displayed.

Good idea. As it happens, that's exactly what's happening. I agree climb rate display is not needed, but undithered altitude difference is important as is Contest ID - or you have no solution to the "you zig, I zag" problem - this is also an issue with ridge flying.

Don't forget what got one of our friends killed in Uvalde involved multiple ship formations - which also happens a lot. Who is the alarm for? Is there another glider to one side or the other? You don't know until you have only 10 seconds to (yikes!) look at the display and decide - and hope the other guy(s) don't null out your adjustment. There really is no perfect substitute for better situational awareness. Most pilots I talk to who fly these conditions think it's better to avoid a conflict than react to one where you may (or may not) need to make an impulse move because you don't know which way to turn (and the other pilot(s) may not make complementary turn decisions). Also keep in mind that you are more likely to get an alarm from a glider maneuvering to become a threat than is right on a collision course from max range all the way in. The odds that you will have a track on a glider from max range (and hold it) is low. The idea that Flarm will generate an alarm for conflicts at max range is only a partial solution.

Also, I think we can agree a few degrees of bank is all that is need to avoid traffic at 110 kts.

That's more true the further out the target is so you are making my point for me. A couple of degrees of bank is an easy fix 4-5 miles out because you can observe the change in tracks, it's less certain at 5-15 seconds and there is no backup plan when one glider goes right and the other goes left - that's a very bad oops!

This is analogous to two people walking down the hall at each other. Flarm open mode is with the lights on. Stealth mode is in a pitch black hallway where each person has a small, narrow beam flashlight. Now try it while you're running. Then try it while you're running a gentle slalom.

Note: I realize we flew for years without Flarm and only killed a handful of guys per decade. My main point is that if we have the technology installed to make most of that go away that is amazing! Why are proposing to go to a bunch of trouble to mandate less and require people to enforce rules that make it ANY worse when even the strongest advocates for stealth mode argue that it mostly affects middle of the scoresheet guys on marginal days (days that we already devalue as having a lot of luck factor) and the main benefit is we get more landouts - presumably with some more landout accidents and unhappy pilots. Generating more landouts isn't high on my list of priorities - it's a recipe for a smaller sport.

The pilot community was pretty clear they like flying with more situational awareness - for safety as well as enjoyment reasons. If we chase a lot of pilots out of racing to OLC and XC camp formats (or something else) how valid will contest result be then? Finishing third out of four competitors when the fourth guy was only fourth because he landed out on a marginal day is hardly a podium placing to take much pride in.

9B

The initial thought I had at Uvalde is the he probably had his head down adjusting the scale on his PDA as he went into (out of) the turn. This is just speculation but it truly was what we were thinking on that day.

Andy, you're really overselling this. I never said I was in favor of more land outs, just that pilots should not be able to artificially increase their achieved speeds by routinely using other people's thermals which are conveniently labeled with climb rates.

Everyone should count out loud 10 seconds as a worse case scenario and see if it enough time to avoid a glider or a formation of gliders while looking outside your glider. I think it is. If folks want to go back in forth between outside and your cockpit display and analyze things then they are going to get caught looking in the wrong place.

XC

XC

I absolutely agree compromising safety will increase the adventure of it all.

As for the approximately 14 seconds you get at 2km. Let us start the count after you identify a head on glider with a closure rate of 260 knots. Assuming you ever see the glider. Eyes don't see point sources that don't have relative movement. I suggest much less time to avoid.

Richard

Sean,

I'm not saying "follow the better pilots", I'm saying be aware of where other pilots are and factor that into your own decision making. That way, if you become aware you're out in left field because you read the sky wrong, you have a chance to correct your mistaken judgment before it's too late.

I agree with you, following someone without thinking (ie, leeching) teaches you nothing. But going to a tricky site, making poor decisions and landing out denies you a lot of in-flight learning opportunity that you sacrificed a good deal of time and money to try and get.

What I'm saying is that less experienced pilots can use non-stealthed Flarm to get hints during contest flights and use those hints to make their own decisions without leeching. Denying them those hints is equivalent to teaching someone to swim by throwing them in deep water.

-John, Q3

On Saturday, November 28, 2015 at 12:50:10 PM UTC-5, wrote:
John and Richard,

I do remember the days when I had no clue how to fly cross country. Luckily, I had an experienced pilot like W3 to fly with at the home base. I quickly realized that following him was no way to get better. Instead, we have gone to setting a task and starting together for fun. After a few clouds we end up making different decisions and splitting off. After racing around the course we compare results to see who did it better and how. This is really fun and much more gratifying.

I go to contests to do the same thing. I put up my best effort and compare it to other pilots at the end of the day. Contests are a great way to improve your soaring skills. I recommend making your own decisions and flying your own flight to anyone who enjoys getting better.

Displaying other pilot's contest ID's and climb rates via FLARM not only make the results of other pilots at the end of the day less meaningful, but each pilot will not have the same sense that they accomplished the flight themselves. Not entirely so, but to some extent. Surely, racing pilots will make some use of this data if available. This is what I mean by watering down the sport and decreasing the adventure of it all.

XC