Attitudes & Reality

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 9:50:41 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Recall hearing that combat pilots in Vietnam would shut off all of their enemy radar/SAM missile warnings. relying on their eyes and radio calls from fellow pilots the electronic warnings being a distraction from staying alive. Any jet pilots from that era that can confirm or correct?

Be sure to consult the dead ones, too. You want a fair and representative sample that includes the guys that might want a mulligan.

What's going on in this thread is the construction of edge cases and straw men. Edge cases might be real, but not representative of 95% of reality. The reality w.r.t. Flarm is that the bugs crawl around on the map where you might, or might not look at them and if one manages to get on an intersecting course with predicted close approach of around 25 seconds, the first stage alarm goes off, in my cockpit that's a clear male voice that announces "Traffic, 3 o'clock low" or whatever. There is also a display of relative bearing, relative altitude & distance (which I almost never look at). Alarm fatigue is not a factor.

It's like having a back seater with 4 pi steriradian xray vision, provided the other glider has flarm. It works -really- well. Can it fail? Sure. Would I trust it enough to alter my decision making or lookout in any way? Of course not. Is it worth having in a contest environment or other densely populated airspace (e.g. the Alps)? Yes, indeed.

If flarm is only 90% effective (choose another number if you like, but it appears to be pretty good) at reducing collisions, does this reduce it's value to zero? Of course not. You only need one pilot to take action to avoid a collision. Even if you can't cope, if you have flarm, I can avoid you.

Power flarm adds collision alerts for ADSB traffic transmitting on 1090es. That's a lot of small, fast jets, turbo props and such, in addition to slower GA and airliners. I see this traffic routinely (enough that I filter for relative altitude and distance so as not to clutter the display). I have yet to have a conflict alert for an ADSB contact, but that might come in handy for someone, some day.

Don't want to buy it? Statistically, you'll probably (there's that word) be okay, but please stop making fun of the guys that decided to throw down the money and solve that problem.

The only glider mid air I know of involving a flarm equipped glider in the US was the poor guy who got clobbered by a non-flarm equipped glider. No one died, which is why you haven't heard about it.

Evan Ludeman / T8

Situational awareness is not a bad thing (actually it's a really good
thing), if you know how to make use of it.Â* Yesterday, climbing out in
our airplane, I saw an ADS-B blip on the display.Â* It was 4 or 5 miles
away at about 10 o'clock and about 900 feet above our altitude.Â* As we
climbed, the altitude separation decreased but the clock position did
not change.Â* Still about 3 or 4 miles away, I made a slight turn into
the target to get him moving across our nose.Â* Once he was moving
relative to us, I knew there was no collision possibility unless he did
something to change the setup. At two miles we got a "Traffic, 2 miles,
low" warning and I saw a small helicopter passing below us.

Now that may seem like a lot of attention given to a single target, but
it was only brief glances and quick analyses of the situation. Most of
the time was spent looking at the upcoming mountain pass and keeping
eyes on the outside for traffic.Â* The "fish finder" is simply a backup
device (but a good one for what it does).

On 5/6/2018 8:38 PM, kirk.stant wrote:
On Friday, May 4, 2018 at 5:28:24 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Traffic warnings are no guarantee. Posted one of these before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY
Consider all the gear up warnings that get ignored. Just because something beeps doesn't mean we will notice. And all the traffic alerts that aren't a factor are a distraction from flying and looking for the one with our name on it. ADS-B alerts train pilots to be distracted and stressed by traffic that isn't a collision risk. While adding to risk homeostasis.
With widespread adoption of this stuff you will see just as many if not more midairs.
Damnit, you are SO FULL OF **** it is unbelievable.

If you can't keep track of a collision warning display while flying, you have ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS BEING IN MY SKY.

Pathetic. Go crawl back into your cave and huddle by your fire as the storm goes by. Oh wait, that fire technology is bad and dangerous and makes you more likely to be eaten by a wolf!

Please take your flat-earth chem-trail BS somewhere else.

Kirk
66
NOT scared by technology.

--
Dan, 5J

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 12:36:16 AM UTC-5, 2G wrote:
On Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 7:38:18 PM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:

Hmmm, are you from the FAA? So, it is YOUR sky, is it? You should take a Dale Carnegie course, "How to Win Friends and Influence People." You can get it for free:
http://images.kw.com/docs/2/1/2/2123...58_htwfaip.pdf

Yes, it IS my sky - and yours too. Unfortunately, it's also "Gregg.."'s sky.

And I don't need to win friends, I've got plenty of them - intelligent, open minded people - unlike trolls like Gregg..

If it sounds like I have no patience for fools and idiots - then I'm getting my point across absolutely dead on.

Cheers,

Kirk
66

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 6:48:38 AM UTC-5, wrote:
We have the same problem in medicine, its called Alarm Fatigue. During sedation there are alarms for just about every parameter that we monitor: absolute blood pressure, mean blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen concentration in the blood, carbon dioxide concentration in the breath, body temperature, and more. You can commonly have two or three alarms just on the border of triggering on and off and on and off and on and off throughout a many hour case. The brain can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

And that is why "see and avoid" doesn't work - it is physiologically impossible to maintain a continuous effective scan of a blank sky for very long. Sure, you can look around all day long, fat, dumb, and happy that there is no-one sharing the sky with you, and your eyes are focused on your dusty canopy and won't see the AN225 that is about to run you over.

Effective scanning takes practice, good technique, and is a lot of work. It is NOT just looking out the window! And knowing where and when to look somewhere, cued by whatever technology you have, makes a huge difference in you motivation and ability to look for and actually see traffic.

Kirk
66

Kirk
66

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 8:50:41 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Recall hearing that combat pilots in Vietnam would shut off all of their enemy radar/SAM missile warnings. relying on their eyes and radio calls from fellow pilots the electronic warnings being a distraction from staying alive. Any jet pilots from that era that can confirm or correct?

Yeah, I was a WSO close to that timeframe and had experience with the same early RWR equipment that the "war story" is referring to. That early gear was useful but somewhat limited and when you were deep in the middle of a bunch of threats could get overwhelmed - but it also had a nice little volume knob so you could turn it down and just glance at the scope to see who was lining up to shoot you next. So I have my doubts about that story other than it makes for a great "No **** there I was, flat on my back over Hanoi, out of airspeed and ideas" war story.

Current fighters have a multitude of systems that pretty much show you everything that is flying around you, and if the pilot is wearing one of the newer helmets, all he does is turn his head and any nearby traffic is highlighted on his visor. 5 years from now I hope to have the same thing in my glider... :^)

Kirk
66

Kirk
66

On Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 8:06:32 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Research shows that even highly trained professional pilots carrying passengers ignore alarms.

Clint,
Be careful with stories like this. These stories are practically hoaxes in the sense that they have omitted pertinent facts for the interest of sensationalism. That said, it is important to understand and use the safety equipment installed in your glider or airplane.
Kirk

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 6:50:41 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Recall hearing that combat pilots in Vietnam would shut off all of their enemy radar/SAM missile warnings. relying on their eyes and radio calls from fellow pilots the electronic warnings being a distraction from staying alive. Any jet pilots from that era that can confirm or correct?

Gregg,
Back in my day (WW2, the BIG one) we didn't have those pussy detection systems, SAMs, or Radars, but we did have Flak so thick you could walk on it. I knew, by the virtue of my eagle vision and quick reflexes I would made it home but I always wore my flak jacket. Just sayin...

Kirk

I don't think the New Scientist is a hoax website. There are many scientific studies as to why pilots ignore audio warnings:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25029890/

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/...arning-systems

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ts_in_Aviation

https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&so...s7pE11AB 94Gy

I don't think any of these links can be accused as being hoxes - and yet all indicate that audio alarms and warnings are often ineffective.

I love gadgets - and will happily fill my glider with stuff. But I find the more sources of information I have - the less I focus on each one. And I am often happiest in a simple Bergfalke or Ka8 when there is the simplest instruments.
I then get to spend the time I was looking at all my fancy instruments rather looking at the incredible views and enjoying the simple pleasures of just staying up. And surprising - it's on those flights that I actually see more GA traffic.

Clinton.

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 2:13:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Kirk

I don't think the New Scientist is a hoax website. There are many scientific studies as to why pilots ignore audio warnings:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25029890/

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/...arning-systems

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ts_in_Aviation

https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&so...s7pE11AB 94Gy

I don't think any of these links can be accused as being hoxes - and yet all indicate that audio alarms and warnings are often ineffective.

I love gadgets - and will happily fill my glider with stuff. But I find the more sources of information I have - the less I focus on each one. And I am often happiest in a simple Bergfalke or Ka8 when there is the simplest instruments.
I then get to spend the time I was looking at all my fancy instruments rather looking at the incredible views and enjoying the simple pleasures of just staying up. And surprising - it's on those flights that I actually see more GA traffic.

Clinton.

Nice articles but in a glider you don't have a smoke in the lavatory alarm, etc., to contend with. Other than Flarm, what other alarms are there in a glider? And the Flarm warning changes as the threat gets more severe. I can't imagine anyone ignoring the max threat level warning it puts out (ask me how I know). Further, there is no head down time required to assess and respond to the threat, the audio is all you need. Evan and Kirk are right on here, IMO.

On Monday, May 7, 2018 at 11:13:50 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Kirk

I don't think the New Scientist is a hoax website. There are many scientific studies as to why pilots ignore audio warnings:

Clinton,
I did not mean to accuse New Scientist of perpetrating a hoax. What I meant was, with spurious reporting they are engaging in Hoax-like tactics. You are making a grievous mistake by linking to these old (In one case decades old) articles. The training at airlines is light years ahead of where it was when these stories were written. Never say never but the chances of a crew ignoring or misinterpreting a warning is vastly diminished with on going improvements in training. This does bring up a good point that without proper usage the benefits of safety equipment is marginalized.