Flarm with Firmware 1.20 update

I am not asking the FAA to mandate this. It needs to happen sooner. I am EXPECTING intelligent glider pilots (and glider operations) to buy them out of respect for themselves and out of respect for their fellow pilots.

I am expecting unintelligent and stubborn pilots to resist, downplay and make excuses as to why they do not need flarm.

Once the next needless collision accident happens, with flarm commercially available, unfortunately, the late adopters will finally understand.

Sean

Dan Marotta wrote:

That all sounds great except for the "mandatory" part. STAY THE HELL OUT
OF MY COCKPIT!

You Americans have a strange attitude to your freedom, even when your own
safety is involved. In Europe most glider clubs have accepted that Flarm is
a simple, working and affordable solution. The installation base is already
significant and rising. The system should be installed in each glider and
motor glider, it is mandatory to yourself, this must not be declared by some
government deparment.

Had a near miss myself last year. Flarm was working. I am not sure I had
seen the other if not equipped.

Save landings

Chris, well said. Everything is politics over here lately.

Otherwise...I rest my case.

This has nothing to do with government...IMO. It has to do with glider pilots, high risk, safely and needless death that is assured of happening without a broad effort by intelligent people. Stop hiding behind the word mandate. It IS a free country so you make your own call and excuses (3 pages full...). The FAA takes way too long. More pilots will die in the US before FLARM is widely enough adopted and has a chance to reach its full safety potential.

Well, its back to playing darts with our fellow glider, power and airline traffic for awhile. Enjoy!

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:57:08 -0700, Dan Marotta wrote:

I was amazed to hear that serious consideration was given to cancelling
a contest because GPS might have been unavailable due to testing.

Scoring.

Under current rules scoring flights is probably impossible if GPS is
being interfered with. Yes, I know you can use cameras for turnpoints but
they don't work too well for assessing airspace violations or minimum
height finishes: for that you need a logger to provide a continuous
trace.



--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

* * |
"
Maybe I'm wrong (it's happened before), but it's my understanding that
FLARM
only works with other FLARM-equipped aircraft. Maybe it was
originally that
way and has since been corrected, but, if my assumption is correct,
how
would it prevent a collision with an airliner?"

PowerFLARM as is being sold in the US and Canada certanly detects
other FLARM-equiped aircraft as in Europe and elsewhere. However
PowerFLARM also detects ADS-B, Mode-A and Mode-S equipped aircraft, so
can give a warning against impending doom from "regular" aircraft
traffic. You don't look at the thing unless it's screaming at you,
then it tells you at a glance which way to look for your traffic. Of
course you still need to be looking out the window for those people
who have mandated themselves off the grid...

Cheers,

Derek

On Jan 26, 3:13*pm, Sean Fidler wrote:
Chris, well said. *Everything is politics over here lately.

Otherwise...I rest my case.

This has nothing to do with government...IMO. *It has to do with glider pilots, high risk, safely and needless death that is assured of happening without a broad effort by intelligent people. *Stop hiding behind the word mandate. *It IS a free country so you make your own call and excuses (3 pages full...). *The FAA takes way too long. *More pilots will die in the US before FLARM is widely enough adopted and has a chance to reach its full safety potential.

Well, its back to playing darts with our fellow glider, power and airline traffic for awhile. *Enjoy!

And the purpose of your rant is... what, exactly?

I cannot install in my panel what my dealer cannot ship. I've had a
Power Flarm on order since the middle of 2010 (I selected the brick
option when the choice was made available). A few hundred other would
be customers are in the same situation.

To Chris over in Europe... the US situation is rather different in
that a) the US is geographically huge and b) the US glider population
is very small. Glider clubs that launch eight gliders for a total of
perhaps 20 flights on a "busy" day account for a lot of US soaring.
There's no earthly reason to require or even strongly encourage Flarm
technology for such sparse traffic.

Based on casual conversation with numerous other pilots, likewise
waiting on delivery, I think we will find that Power Flarm gets well
adopted on the contest circuit and in the areas of the US that are
glider traffic dense. However, because the portable unit has only
just started shipping this Winter and the brick is still months off,
it will be 2013 before we have any sort of objective measure of how
well the device works and how many staunch anti-flarm pilots we have
to worry about in glider dense environments.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

Evan,

That is all you can do. Your unit will be here in the spring. That is intelligent.

FLARM is proven in Europe. There is no question that it fundamentally improves safety in very much the same way that GPS improved navigation and radio's improved communication. No need to wait until 2013 for measurement.

I completely disagree with you that US operations have no earthly reason to use FLARM. I find that statement embarrassing for soaring. All it takes is once. All it takes is one glider and one tow plane. All it takes is one glider and one airplane flying by the airport. Should they not have radio's? Should the not have parachutes? Safety paint?

On Jan 26, 2:31*pm, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Jan 26, 3:13*pm, Sean Fidler wrote:

Chris, well said. *Everything is politics over here lately.

Otherwise...I rest my case.

This has nothing to do with government...IMO. *It has to do with glider pilots, high risk, safely and needless death that is assured of happening without a broad effort by intelligent people. *Stop hiding behind the word mandate. *It IS a free country so you make your own call and excuses (3 pages full...). *The FAA takes way too long. *More pilots will die in the US before FLARM is widely enough adopted and has a chance to reach its full safety potential.

Well, its back to playing darts with our fellow glider, power and airline traffic for awhile. *Enjoy!

And the purpose of your rant is... what, exactly?

I cannot install in my panel what my dealer cannot ship. *I've had a
Power Flarm on order since the middle of 2010 (I selected the brick
option when the choice was made available). *A few hundred other would
be customers are in the same situation.

To Chris over in Europe... the US situation is rather different in
that a) the US is geographically *huge and b) the US glider population
is very small. *Glider clubs that launch eight gliders for a total of
perhaps 20 flights on a "busy" day account for a lot of US soaring.
There's no earthly reason to require or even strongly encourage Flarm
technology for such sparse traffic.

Based on casual conversation with numerous other pilots, likewise
waiting on delivery, I think we will find that Power Flarm gets well
adopted on the contest circuit and in the areas of the US that are
glider traffic dense. *However, because the portable unit has only
just started shipping this Winter and the brick is still months off,
it will be 2013 before we have any sort of objective measure of how
well the device works and how many staunch anti-flarm pilots we have
to worry about in glider dense environments.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

Evan,
We currently have 18 portable PowerFlarms that are in the possession
of pilots based at Moriarty. They have all received the recent
firmware and antenna upgrades. We have already seen some excellent
performance in the detection of transponder equipped aircraft, and
once the season gets going this spring, we should be able to provide
everyone some "real world" feedback on its Flarm to Flarm
performance...

Thx,
Renny

On Jan 26, 5:39*pm, Sean Fidler wrote:
Evan,

That is all you can do. *Your unit will be here in the spring. *That is intelligent.

FLARM is proven in Europe. *There is no question that it fundamentally improves safety in very much the same way that GPS improved navigation and radio's improved communication. *No need to wait until 2013 for measurement.

On 1/26/2012 8:37 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
Maybe I'll change my opinion when there's something that doesn't depend
on equipment not likely to ever appear in the vast majority of other
aircraft, ADS-B, perhaps. When the airlines and general aviation crowd
install FLARM, come talk to me about it.

Possibly there is some communication issue he the US pilots are
actually talking about PowerFLARM, not the original FLARM. PowerFLARM
also has PCAS capability to detect transponder equipped aircraft, and
ADS-B capability to detect aircraft so equipped. It's all in one box,
with the data merged onto one screen.

If you haven't already read this article, now would be good time:

http://www.gliderpilot.org/Flarm

--
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