PowerFlarm at Region 9 Contest

On Monday, June 10, 2013 11:21:33 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Yes, but you can't get out of the way of an airliner - you're a stationary

target at his speed. And, if you have a Flarm only and not a transponder,

the airliner won't see you.

In fact, powerflarm gives lots of warning about airliners. They have mode S, ADSB transponders, so you see exact position and altitude from many miles away.

Just last weekend I was looking at my clearnav display, wondering how I was picking up that glider 10+ miles away, then noticed it was above cloudbase and descending 20 knots. Oh, yeah. Hmm, better alter course a bit to the right.

That's not an argument against transponders. I fly with both flarm and transponder. Flarm gives glider to glider collision warnings, especially in contests and densely flown glider areas. Flarm lets you see adsb-equipped aircraft, with enough warning to get out of the way of anything flying subsonic..

Transponders lets the FAA and airliners avoid me. That's very important where I fly since Midway approach seems to love to blast airliners through 20 miles of congested class E airspace right over our club at 4000'. Choose which risk you face most, and cost/benefit.

Contests are verging to large scale voluntary flarm adoption. It's not clear to me that Dan understands this thread is mainly talking about contests. For most contests, flown away from lots of heavy traffic, one can make a case that a transponder is less cost effective, and flarm much more important..

I would imagine that other densely flown glider areas would want to start thinking about heavy flarm adoption too, say up and down the white mountains or the pennsylvania ridges. Operations with lots of glider traffic, so that midairs among pilots based out of the same airport are the prime threat, might consider flarm as well.

If you fly all by yourself in heavy power traffic areas, and you're cheap, then one can make a case for transponder and no flarm. Still, you don't see the other traffic.

John Cochrane

A few months ago I would have agreed with John Cochrane and just let it go when he said: "Transponders lets the FAA and airliners avoid me. That's very important where I fly since Midway approach seems to love to blast airliners through 20 miles of congested class E airspace right over our club at 4000'. But now I know that there is more to it.

I fly near the Class B airspace of PHL and EWR, and have been using a transponder for 5 years. For 4 of those years I've been pleased, as I've seen some airliners (mostly commuters but a few big guys, too) make slight course diversions to avoid me while I was thermalling. Clearly they saw me on their TCAS. But in late March I found out that EWR ATC either filtered out my 1202 squawk or just ignored it, as suddenly I found myself 500 feet below a 747 doing 250 kt. Turned out I was inadvertently flying under an approach path to EWR outside the Class B airspace (I certainly won't be flying near it again)! I'm sure the 747 saw me on his TCAS, but have since found out that he would only deviate if he'd gotten a RA, otherwise he'd be in trouble with ATC.

There are two lessons I learned from this. First, a PowerFLARM and a transponder won't prevent you from getting way too close to other traffic, even if they are under ATC control and have TCAS. Second, if you are a VFR pilot flying outside Class B airspace, you need to educate yourself on likely approach and departure routes that lie outside the Class B, and be very alert and careful if you get near them.

-John, Q3

I have a plan. I'll publish my flight schedule and the Flarm users can stay
on the ground! That way only people looking outside will be in the air.


wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, June 11, 2013 6:56:35 PM UTC-7, mike wrote:

PowerFlarm works best if most gliders use it. Offering not to fly when more
than a few glider are airborne or promising not to climb in the areas of
good lift, while generous offers, strain credulity a bit.

I expect a fair amount of sincere rationalizing between now and broad Flarm
adoption in the US. It's a free country, but I will continue to encourage as
many of my soaring friends to voluntarily adopt Flarm as I can. 100%
adoption at contests is the short-term goal.

9B

I like the way you assume my understanding, John, and my financial position.

I've stated over and over that I don't fly in contests and I don't care
about contest flying. I only care about the bandying about of such terms as
compulsory and mandatory. Those of us who truly care about our freedoms
understand that if we give an inch, those who want to impose their wills
will take the proverbial mile. I won't give that inch. I'll make my own
decisions.

Yes, by all means try to mandate Flarm on the Applichian ridge to prevent
midairs between gliders. Oh, how many have there been there so far?


wrote in message
...
On Monday, June 10, 2013 11:21:33 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Yes, but you can't get out of the way of an airliner - you're a stationary

target at his speed. And, if you have a Flarm only and not a transponder,

the airliner won't see you.

In fact, powerflarm gives lots of warning about airliners. They have mode S,
ADSB transponders, so you see exact position and altitude from many miles
away.

Just last weekend I was looking at my clearnav display, wondering how I was
picking up that glider 10+ miles away, then noticed it was above cloudbase
and descending 20 knots. Oh, yeah. Hmm, better alter course a bit to the
right.

That's not an argument against transponders. I fly with both flarm and
transponder. Flarm gives glider to glider collision warnings, especially in
contests and densely flown glider areas. Flarm lets you see adsb-equipped
aircraft, with enough warning to get out of the way of anything flying
subsonic.

Transponders lets the FAA and airliners avoid me. That's very important
where I fly since Midway approach seems to love to blast airliners through
20 miles of congested class E airspace right over our club at 4000'. Choose
which risk you face most, and cost/benefit.

Contests are verging to large scale voluntary flarm adoption. It's not clear
to me that Dan understands this thread is mainly talking about contests. For
most contests, flown away from lots of heavy traffic, one can make a case
that a transponder is less cost effective, and flarm much more important.

I would imagine that other densely flown glider areas would want to start
thinking about heavy flarm adoption too, say up and down the white mountains
or the pennsylvania ridges. Operations with lots of glider traffic, so that
midairs among pilots based out of the same airport are the prime threat,
might consider flarm as well.

If you fly all by yourself in heavy power traffic areas, and you're cheap,
then one can make a case for transponder and no flarm. Still, you don't see
the other traffic.

John Cochrane

It's a near miracle that a group of "middle-age+" people have quickly adopted an expensive new technology like PowerFlarm. The people in the racing community that have helped ease this along deserve a lot of credit. This is rare and true leadership in the community interest. Congratulation and thank you.

On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 10:27:18 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:

...I only care about the bandying about of such terms as
compulsory and mandatory. Those of us who truly care about our freedoms
understand that if we give an inch, those who want to impose their wills
will take the proverbial mile. I won't give that inch. I'll make my own
decisions.

Dan, you are making it sound like some of the leaders in the racing community wants to take away your guns. Fine, don't install PowerFlarm. But PLEASE STOP mixing the rhetoric of "gun rights" with the PowerFlarm. You are discouraging anyone who owns guns and anyone who listens to gun rights rhetoric from acquiring PowerFlarm. That is how persuasion works. There are a lot of people on the fence about PowerFlarm and you are influencing them. You are leading the charge in the opposite direction. PowerFlarm is not a handgun.

Here is why I would politely ask you to stop beating your drum. YOU MAY BE WRONG ABOUT POWERFLARM. PowerFlarm may be the right decision for someone else who is on the fence. Please consider switching your drum beat to something like, "I considered adopting PowerFlarm and I decided that it is not for me because of how and when I fly. BUT you should make that decision for yourself. PowerFlarm may save YOUR life. Lots of people think it is a wise investment and I may be wrong, but I've chosen to take my chances. In general, I don't like bells and whistles, so it kinda makes sense that I would reject PowerFlarm."

If you can't go that far, how about switching to something neutral like "PowerFlarm is not for me." Surely you have something better to do than lead the charge against PowerFlarm.

John, I would like to share this with you and the entire glider community.
FWIW. I fly transport category aircraft for a living. I fly gliders and
small prop jobs for a hobby. I cannot over emphasis how critical
transponder usage is in this day and age. The airspace system has seen huge
pressure to condense for the number of airspace users. For example a
transport category aircraft is separated from another aircraft by only 1000
ft vertically above Flight Level 290(29000ft.)
The terminal airspace that is a 25 mile radius of a major airport is
overflowing and the Air Traffic Controllers are now spilling aircraft over
into other airspaces. Your EWR example is a perfect case.
In the lower altitudes of the controlled D airspace below 18000 along
airways and terminal areas, the transports rely on TCAS because we are
generally travelling anywhere from 4 to 9 miles per minute. I am a trained
general aviator and my head is outside of the cockpit 75% of the time. For
whatever reason sitting in the transport I can never see traffic with the
use of my own eyes before TCAS spots the traffic. It is probably because of
my focal length is geared to looking farther down the road at 4 to 9 miles
per minute. When I get a TCAS alert I change my focal range to look for
traffic that is within 5 miles of my aircraft. At the speeds I fly I have
approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute to acquire visual contact before I fly
past the vfr target. I have flown in and out of RENO and a lot up and down
the CA coast. Looking for gliders in the owns valley has always been a
challenge. I have not seen one yet. I have seen them on TCAS but have never
visually acquired one.
The day is coming when a glider or a small aircraft will collide with a
transport. The day that happens all gliders and GA aircraft will be
grounded since the transport industry is an economic contributor and will
not be punished or the incident. All General Aviators have a responsibility
to try to postpone that day. The transponder is a simple solution to
postponing that day. You can be part of the problem or part of the
solution. I wanna keep having the freedom to fly my glider. Thanks for
listening. Doug


At 14:12 12 June 2013, John Carlyle wrote:
A few months ago I would have agreed with John Cochrane and just let it
go
=
when he said: "Transponders lets the FAA and airliners avoid me. That's
ve=
ry important where I fly since Midway approach seems to love to blast
airli=
ners through 20 miles of congested class E airspace right over our club
at
=
4000'. But now I know that there is more to it.=20

I fly near the Class B airspace of PHL and EWR, and have been using a
trans=
ponder for 5 years. For 4 of those years I've been pleased, as I've seen
so=
me airliners (mostly commuters but a few big guys, too) make slight
course
=
diversions to avoid me while I was thermalling. Clearly they saw me on
thei=
r TCAS. But in late March I found out that EWR ATC either filtered out
my
=
1202 squawk or just ignored it, as suddenly I found myself 500 feet below
a=
747 doing 250 kt. Turned out I was inadvertently flying under an
approach
=
path to EWR outside the Class B airspace (I certainly won't be flying
near
=
it again)! I'm sure the 747 saw me on his TCAS, but have since found out
th=
at he would only deviate if he'd gotten a RA, otherwise he'd be in
trouble
=
with ATC.=20

There are two lessons I learned from this. First, a PowerFLARM and a
transp=
onder won't prevent you from getting way too close to other traffic, even
i=
f they are under ATC control and have TCAS. Second, if you are a VFR
pilot
=
flying outside Class B airspace, you need to educate yourself on likely
app=
roach and departure routes that lie outside the Class B, and be very
alert
=
and careful if you get near them.=20

-John, Q3

On Monday, June 10, 2013 8:57:16 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
"Compulsory" for contests - fine with me since I don't fly in contests, but

you'll never get me to install one.



I'd much rather have ATC keeping power traffic, e.g., airliners, away from

me than seeing other gliders in my vicinity.
Dan

Dan,
Why the hard-on toward PF? Because of my abrasive personality around the gliderport I fly alone most of the time myself (Kidding, My job keeps me busy most weekends so I fly gliders mostly weekdays). I was out midweek at CV (Next to SLC) about 100 miles South of any metropolitan area and came across a glider out of Parawan right at cloudbase. At the time Parawan didn't have a regular or full time operation and the guy was on a different freq.(He never saw me and I had a hard time seeing him because I was looking up at cloudbase and I climbed right up at him). I never took flying alone for granted again.
I purchased one of the first portables sold in the US and transitioned to a Core on my new ship and I would not fly without it for several reasons. Especially at a contest. For those of you who believe airliners make "course diversions" for you do not understand how TCAS works. The best practice would be to study the STARs and DPs and stay clear of these areas.
Dan, Try this; borrow someones PF portable and try it for a couple of flights and then come back here and rant about your freedoms. Chances are you will be amazed at all the traffic that you did not see before. Hatches just blow, condoms break, and occasionally PF might miss an alert, but the technology is valid.

Thanks for posting that Mike.
Seems that the people who don't like these things are the ones that haven't used them. Only takes one alarm for traffic you weren't aware of...
You can install FLARM and TXP at the same time, Dan et al. TXP won't be much help with pilots not talking to ATC. I've seen plenty of aircraft up close while squawking with (certified) transponders made by Becker (two installations) Terra (one) and Trig (two). There are no guarantees.
Jim

On Wednesday, June 12, 2013 11:36:50 AM UTC-4, K wrote:
Hatches just blow, condoms break, and occasionally PF might miss an alert, but the technology is valid.

Enjoying the discussion...

About PF... it's worth breaking down the package a bit for discussion of merits (and not-so-merits), especially for benefit of newcomers and skeptics. It's two very well integrated technologies with a third total lashup (barely) along for the ride. I'm speaking of flarm and ADSB on the one hand and PCAS transponder alerts on the other. For those of you with power flarm and a third party display capable of plotting ADSB traffic (e.g. ClearNav), you've probably already seen as I have just how much commercial and biz jet turbo traffic has adopted ADSB and it's great. Range is tens of miles, I now filter this in the interest of clutter removal to delta altitudes and ranges that I care about. It works *really* well. And if you get close, powerflarm will call out the traffic just as it does for flarm targets. Flarm, as already covered at length, works well too (given proper installation).

PCAS on the other hand is just a bad joke, especially if you are flying in proximity to gliders with transponders. The "alerts" in that case are continuous and therefore completely useless. PCAS may have some utility in a really empty sky, but being non-directional, it's a pretty limited sort of utility. It would be enhanced somewhat if we could differentiate 1200 from 1202 from everything else, which I am told we cannot due to technical limitations in what is still largely 1950s technology. With any density of "friendly" transponder traffic (for example at a contest), you'll want to turn PCAS off.

My $0.02

Evan Ludeman / T8

Sorry this did not format correctly.

John, I would like to share this with you and the entire glider community
FWIW. I fly transport category aircraft for a living. I fly gliders and
small prop jobs for a hobby. I cannot over emphasis how critical
transponder usage is in this day and age. The airspace system has seen a
huge pressure to condense for the number of airspace users. For example
transport category aircraft is separated from another aircraft by only 1000
ft vertically above Flight Level 290(29000ft.)
The terminal airspace that is a 25 mile radius of a major airport is
overflowing and the Air Traffic Controllers are now spilling aircraft over
into other airspaces. Your EWR example is a perfect case.
In the lower altitudes of the controlled D airspace below 18000 along
airways and terminal areas, the transports rely on TCAS because we are
generally travelling anywhere from 4 to 9 miles per minute. I am a trained
general aviator and my head is outside of the cockpit 75% of
the time. For whatever reason sitting in the transport I can never see
traffic with the use of my own eyes before TCAS spots the traffic. It is
probably because of
my focal length is geared to looking farther down the road at 4 to 9 miles
per minute. When I get a TCAS alert I change my focal range to look for
traffic that is within 5 miles of my aircraft. At the speeds I fly I have
approximately 30 seconds to 1 minute to acquire visual contact
before I fly past the vfr target. I have flown in and out of RENO and a lot
up and down the CA coast. Looking for gliders in the owens valley has
always been
challenge. I have not seen one yet. I have seen them on TCAS but have never
visually acquired one.
The day is coming when a glider or a small aircraft will collide with
transport. The day that happens all gliders and GA aircraft will be
grounded since the transport industry is an economic contributor and will
not be punished for the incident. All General Aviators have a
responsibility to try to postpone that day. The transponder is a simple
solution to postponing that day. You can be part of the problem or part of
the solution. I wanna keep having the freedom to fly my glider. Thanks for
listening. Doug