Anti Collision Warning

I have been playing with a pair of Garmin Rinhos. They are a combination GPS
and Family Radio Transceiver. They have the ability, at about $150 per unit,
to track other units and plot their positions. The presentation of the
relative positions is not good enough to use for collision avoidance in my
opinion, but the esentials are all there at a low price.

Bill Snead
6W

Dave Martin wrote:

Whatever happened to teaching good look out and airmanship?


Nothing. It's still taught and practiced as effectively, efficiently
and thoroughly as it ever was - and has been for many years. And it's
just as ineffective as it ever was.

Are you one of those who see it as simply a problem of laziness and
complacency? You're probably right but they're both endemic in human
nature and won't change now. For jobs as important as this, monitoring
systems designed with built-in tendencies to distraction and complacency
- and with multiple duties just to top it off - are simply inadequate
and always will be.

All forms of training in lookout are doomed to fail because of basic
human limitations. Not just optical limitations. Humans are simply bad
at continuous alertness and monitoring for a very low probability threat
over a long period. That's why we no longer have engineer's panels in
the flight decks of large aeroplanes. There's as much or more to
monitor than there always was - we've just accepted that humans don't do
it well and found other solutions.

Gliders have the highest rate of midairs of all forms of hard wing
aviation. I'm happy with the collision threat and the things I do to
minimise it and I'll go on flying gliders. If you're not happy, Dave,
you need to accept that it won't be improved without electronic
assistance.

Isn't 50 or more years enough?

Graeme Cant

At 05:12 30 April 2004, Graeme Cant wrote:


'Gliders have the highest rate of midairs of all forms
of hard wing aviation.'

Why is that? Are glider pilots in general less capable
of keeping a good lookout? In my experience no, they
are not. It is because we put ourselves in a position
where we are more likely to come into contact with
other gliders. As a matter of course we accept the
need to fly close to one another whereas the rest of
the GA community and commercial sector try to stay
as far apart as possible. The military do deliberately
fly close to one another, is this not the reason why
military aircraft have more mid-airs with each other
than airliners have with each other?

I have to agree that gadgets are not the answer to
the problem, good lookout and situational awareness
is, and the good sense to bug out if you loose that.

Just assume for one minute that a device could do all
that has been proposed, predict a collision with another
thermalling glider. The alarm goes off and the pilot
takes immediate avoiding action, that is what the device
is for, and immediately puts himself in the path of
another glider in the thermal who did not figure in
the prediction. The cure could be worse than the disease,
such a device has the potential of causing the very
event it seeks to prevent. Remember you are never alone
in a thermal for long, if the lift is good others will
want to share it, you only have to look up at the sky
a few minutes before the gate opens at a comp when
there is only one good thermal to see what I mean.
Can you imagine the carnage if they all start to react
to collision alarms? At least at the moment they are
all doing more or less the same thing.

The answer is, good lookout, good situational awareness
and the ability to put safety first, press on itius
second. Don't expect the other guy to get out of your
way, get out of his, and if that means he has an advantage,
sobeit, at least you continue to fly on intact.

DAJ

Whatever happened to teaching good look out and airmanship?


Nothing. It's still taught and practiced as effectively,
efficiently
and thoroughly as it ever was - and has been for many
years. And it's
just as ineffective as it ever was.

Are you one of those who see it as simply a problem
of laziness and
complacency? You're probably right but they're both
endemic in human
nature and won't change now. For jobs as important
as this, monitoring
systems designed with built-in tendencies to distraction
and complacency
- and with multiple duties just to top it off - are
simply inadequate
and always will be.

All forms of training in lookout are doomed to fail
because of basic
human limitations. Not just optical limitations.
Humans are simply bad
at continuous alertness and monitoring for a very low
probability threat
over a long period. That's why we no longer have engineer's
panels in
the flight decks of large aeroplanes. There's as much
or more to
monitor than there always was - we've just accepted
that humans don't do
it well and found other solutions.

Gliders have the highest rate of midairs of all forms
of hard wing
aviation. I'm happy with the collision threat and
the things I do to
minimise it and I'll go on flying gliders. If you're
not happy, Dave,
you need to accept that it won't be improved without
electronic
assistance.

Isn't 50 or more years enough?

Graeme Cant

At 05:12 30 April 2004, Graeme Cant wrote:
Dave Martin wrote:

Whatever happened to teaching good look out and airmanship?


Nothing. It's still taught and practiced as effectively,
efficiently and thoroughly as it ever was - and has
been for many years. And it's just as ineffective
as it ever was.
Are you one of those who see it as simply a problem
of laziness and complacency? You're probably right
but they're both endemic in human nature and won't
change now. For jobs as important as this, monitoring
systems designed with built-in tendencies to distraction
and complacency and with multiple duties just to top
it off - are simply inadequate
and always will be.

All forms of training in lookout are doomed to fail
because of basic human limitations. Not just optical
limitations. Humans are simply bad at continuous alertness
and monitoring for a very low probability threat over
a long period. That's why we no longer have engineer's
panels in the flight decks of large aeroplanes. There's
as much or more to monitor than there always was -
we've just accepted that humans don't do it well and
found other solutions.

Gliders have the highest rate of midairs of all forms
of hard wing aviation. I'm happy with the collision
threat and the things I do to minimise it and I'll
go on flying gliders. If you're not happy, Dave, you
need to accept that it won't be improved without electronic
assistance.

Isn't 50 or more years enough?

Graeme Cant

Graeme

Where did I say I wasn't happy with the present situation
?

Adding an electronic device will not ease the problem,
in the majority of cases it could compound the problems
faced by the average pilot.

Large aircraft do not fly in close proximity to others
in great numbers such as a thermal gaggle. They also
have such things as transponders, outside radar support
from control towers and other sophisticated equipment
plus the electronic power to support all the devices.
In the main they fly in regulated airspace, where everyone
has the same equipment

Flying in isolation such a device may help but in crowded
skies I suspect the information supplied would overload
the equipment and pilot, as you say above, 'Humans
are simply bad at continuous alertness and monitoring
for a very low probability threat over a long period.'


How does this equate with a large competiton gaggle
who must monitor high probability threats over long
periods say several hours and during their flight will
meet others not in their competition on their flight
path. I suppose someone will say they train for this
type of flying.

Fitting units to gliders in isolation will also give
the pilot a false sense of security.

You ask, 'Isn't 50 or more years enough?'

1 year is too long!

Dave

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
news:sofkc.273$ts3.24024@attbi_s02...

"303pilot" brentUNDERSCOREsullivanATbmcDOTcom wrote in message
...
snip

This still leaves the problem I think Andy was getting at of what is the
acceptable false positive:false negative ratio?
Too many false positives and pilots won't use it.
False negatives would lead to collisions, deaths and, at least in the
US,
lawsuits that would likely put the manufacturer out of business.

Brent



We can't ask for perfection or nothing will ever be available. It seems
to
me that there are two indications we should be looking for in a basic
anti-collision device.

I'm not one to make perfection the enemy of improvement....


1, There are (n) gliders in close proximity - say 1 kilometer. Even
simple
GPS broadcast devices should be able to determine the number of gliders
nearby. It should beep softly when the number changes. (If the device
says
there are 3 gliders nearby and you can only see 2, you need to keep
looking.)

I think stopping here would be a good trade-off between improvement and
perfection. Helping me identify that there's something I don't know that I
don't know is very valuable. While we're dreaming, how about the ability to
verbally acknowledge visual contact with 2 of the 3 ships and let the
computing & display power focus on helping us find the unseen ship?

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message news:sofkc.273
2, If one of these represents a collision danger, the device should give a
bearing. The device need only determine that the target is at or near the
same altitude, the distance is closing and the relative bearing is nearly
constant. If there is only 1% chance of an actual collision, that would get
my undivided attention.

And that's the part that really scares me! It's is far to easy to
focus on a known threat to the total exclusion of searching for the
unknown threats. I've seen far too many airplane drivers place full
reliance on ATC traffic calls and more recently on TCAS advisories.
As glider pilots we face the same problem when joining thermals. It's
far too easy to narrow one's scan to all the known traffic, to plan
the entry based on that knowledge, and then to be surprised by another
glider that could have been seen with a wider scan.

Collision warning devices can increase safety if all gliders have them
and they are working. When only a few gliders are equipped there
could be a reduction in safety.


Andy

"303pilot" brentUNDERSCOREsullivanATbmcDOTcom wrote in message

1, There are (n) gliders in close proximity - say 1 kilometer. Even
simple
GPS broadcast devices should be able to determine the number of gliders
nearby. It should beep softly when the number changes. (If the device
says
there are 3 gliders nearby and you can only see 2, you need to keep
looking.)

I think stopping here would be a good trade-off between improvement and
perfection. Helping me identify that there's something I don't know that
I
don't know is very valuable. While we're dreaming, how about the ability
to
verbally acknowledge visual contact with 2 of the 3 ships and let the
computing & display power focus on helping us find the unseen ship?



Unfortunately, discrete tracking and acknowledgement will add an order of
magnitude to the computing power needed. Providing bearing and distance to
any glider that presents greater than zero probability of a collision is
pretty easy by comparison. The number of glider thus reported will be low
even in a large gaggle.

Bill Daniels

Mid Air collisions are a problem. Maybe we need to
pull together more information about them.

There are a number of different phases of flight
during which they occur:

Climbing phase (high Angle of Attack)
(power planes only)
Circuit phase (all planes)
Aerobatics (all planes)
IFR & low visibility flight (all planes)
Normal flight (all planes)
Thermalling (soaring planes only)

We need to understand the proportion of collisions
occurring in the different phases and the potential
contributory factors. Road Traffic Accidents happen
more often in good weather than bad. It is not
entirely clear that thermal collisions happen more
often in competition gaggles than when there are only
two in a thermal, whatever our instincts.

For the different flight phases, different factors
will be more or less important and the solutions and
devices to prevent collisions may be different.

Personnally I would be surprised if TCAS devices could
cope with resolving the trajectories of thermalling
gliders other than the basic level of identifying
another nearby plane. Thus I suspect that the main
detection instrument in thermals remains the eyeball.
In which case, every effort should be made to ensure
the best use of the eyeball in thermals.

There may be a role for such devices in other phases
eg normal flight and IFR.

The only power planes that regularly fly close
together are the military and aerobatic display teams.
I am sure that the Red Arrows are fitted with the
instruments that they best require, but I would be
most surprised if they have any electronic device
warning them that they are about to hit a team-mate.
I expect that they do a lot of training, have superb
lookout and excellent communications.

I would assume that a TCAS/GPS device will be making
noises at 1 mile and probably very loud noises at 1/4
mile (1500 ft). With a typical thermalling diameter
of 200-600 feet and circling period of less than 20
seconds, any normal TCAS would be screaming fit to be
turned off!

We are also entering the area where the margin of
error for a GPS (30 ft horizontally, 100 ft
vertically) is a significant issue. GPS is not
accurate enough to tell which side of the highway you
are driving on, nor probably to determine the correct
seperation of two thermalling gliders when the pilots
using their eyeballs consider that they are adequately
seperated.

I cannot envisage an electronic GPS device for
avoiding intra-thermal collisions, assuming that the
planes are going to remain in the same thermal.

Rory

This is what it boils down to EDUCATION/TRAINING

Training pilots how to look out.
How to concentrate,
What the dangers are, real and perceived and potential
and where these danger lurk in a particular phase of
flight.

We will never eliminate accidents but by education
we can reduce the opportunities. Train hard fly easy
as some one said!

Dave

At 17:00 30 April 2004, Rory O'Conor wrote:
Mid Air collisions are a problem. Maybe we need to
pull together more information about them.

There are a number of different phases of flight
during which they occur:

Climbing phase (high Angle of Attack)
(power planes only)
Circuit phase (all planes)
Aerobatics (all planes)
IFR & low visibility flight (all planes)
Normal flight (all planes)
Thermalling (soaring planes only)

We need to understand the proportion of collisions
occurring in the different phases and the potential
contributory factors. Road Traffic Accidents happen
more often in good weather than bad. It is not
entirely clear that thermal collisions happen more
often in competition gaggles than when there are only
two in a thermal, whatever our instincts.

For the different flight phases, different factors
will be more or less important and the solutions and
devices to prevent collisions may be different.

Personnally I would be surprised if TCAS devices could
cope with resolving the trajectories of thermalling
gliders other than the basic level of identifying
another nearby plane. Thus I suspect that the main
detection instrument in thermals remains the eyeball.
In which case, every effort should be made to ensure
the best use of the eyeball in thermals.

There may be a role for such devices in other phases
eg normal flight and IFR.

The only power planes that regularly fly close
together are the military and aerobatic display teams.
I am sure that the Red Arrows are fitted with the
instruments that they best require, but I would be
most surprised if they have any electronic device
warning them that they are about to hit a team-mate.
I expect that they do a lot of training, have superb
lookout and excellent communications.

I would assume that a TCAS/GPS device will be making
noises at 1 mile and probably very loud noises at 1/4
mile (1500 ft). With a typical thermalling diameter
of 200-600 feet and circling period of less than 20
seconds, any normal TCAS would be screaming fit to
be
turned off!

We are also entering the area where the margin of
error for a GPS (30 ft horizontally, 100 ft
vertically) is a significant issue. GPS is not
accurate enough to tell which side of the highway you
are driving on, nor probably to determine the correct
seperation of two thermalling gliders when the pilots
using their eyeballs consider that they are adequately
seperated.

I cannot envisage an electronic GPS device for
avoiding intra-thermal collisions, assuming that the
planes are going to remain in the same thermal.

Rory

"Andy Durbin" wrote in message
om...
"Bill Daniels" wrote in message news:sofkc.273
2, If one of these represents a collision danger, the device should give
a
bearing. The device need only determine that the target is at or near
the
same altitude, the distance is closing and the relative bearing is
nearly
constant. If there is only 1% chance of an actual collision, that would
get
my undivided attention.

And that's the part that really scares me! It's is far to easy to
focus on a known threat to the total exclusion of searching for the
unknown threats. I've seen far too many airplane drivers place full
reliance on ATC traffic calls and more recently on TCAS advisories.
As glider pilots we face the same problem when joining thermals. It's
far too easy to narrow one's scan to all the known traffic, to plan
the entry based on that knowledge, and then to be surprised by another
glider that could have been seen with a wider scan.

Collision warning devices can increase safety if all gliders have them
and they are working. When only a few gliders are equipped there
could be a reduction in safety.


Andy

So, another argument for doing nothing.

Bill Daniels