Announcement: no USA FLARM-related rules changes for 2016

The USA Rules Committee will not recommend any changes to the existing rules related to FLARM for the 2016 season.

John Godfrey (QT), Chair

I think this was a very wise decision. I am pleased to hear that Flarms potential will not be artificially de-tuned for 2016.

Personally, would like to see objective, factual data on how Flarm is being utilized to gain an "unfair advantage" and to win (or finish "undeservedly" high in the standings) US contests (not world championships and major European events) before this conversation topic is brought up again. This debate about what soaring should and should not be (for some) really needs to be fully supported with objective evidence of Flarm being "unfair."

In other words, is this really a problem.

I think the spirited debate here was healthy. Clearly it had value. We know the way the players think.

If Flarm "unfairness" cannot be clearly proven, it does not make any sense to them/us to spend the tremendous effort required to determine requirements/test/implement the "safety/fairness balance" of an admittedly imperfect US Flarm safety system (which only has a 60-70% adoption at current). Especially with our sport now well past the dawn of FAA ADSB mandates.

Sean
7T

On Wednesday, 20 January 2016 08:53:18 UTC-7, John Godfrey (QT) wrote:
The USA Rules Committee will not recommend any changes to the existing rules related to FLARM for the 2016 season.

John Godfrey (QT), Chair

Thanks for getting this message out John

On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 11:31:13 AM UTC-5, smfidler wrote:
Personally, would like to see objective, factual data on how Flarm is being utilized to gain an "unfair advantage" and to win (or finish "undeservedly" high in the standings) US contests (not world championships and major European events) before this conversation topic is brought up again. This debate about what soaring should and should not be (for some) really needs to be fully supported with objective evidence of Flarm being "unfair."

In other words, is this really a problem.

Yes, 7T, it's a problem. More accurately, FLARM does provide a tactical advantage in competition over those who don't have it. The real question is whether the use of FLARM--when most or all of us have it--conflicts with what we want to evaluate when we select our soaring champions.

After six months of fractious, shrill, occasionally rude exchanges, I think certain things have been resolved:

1. FLARM facilitates "leeching", the practice of following another glider closely, relying on the other pilot to make all the decisions. No guarantee you'll win but a "good stick" can climb up the standings by hanging on grimly to the top pilots. FLARM just makes it easier. Whether you think leeching is wrong or a problem depends on what you think good soaring pilots should be able to do. And whether you're a leech.

2. FLARM also aids "tactical following", the practice of using other gliders outside a very small radius as markers or indicators of relative performance. I'm not sure what "proof" 7T needs. A number of pilots have reported this to be the case in RAS. BB finally confessed recently but 9B actually beat him to it 3+ years ago (20 Oct 2012 in "PowerFLARM leeching comments" on RAS: "On one occasion I was able to close on a group of very good pilots by about 2-3 minutes over the first 30-40 miles. They were just outside of visual range most of the time, so PF made a difference."). The benefits are small (9B estimated a 1% advantage) but they exist. Again, no guarantee of success. Is it wrong? We all practice tactical following at every contest, with or without FLARM so we're talking shades of gray here, not black or white. To repeat, what is it that we want soaring champions to be good at?

3. Stealth degrades the safety benefits of FLARM. No argument. The question is by how much? I haven't heard any stealth proponents being cavalier about this but I have heard a few anti-stealth arguments that bordered on the hysterical. We balance safety against cost, practicality, convenience, and other considerations every day of our lives. This is just one more example involving tradeoffs. The debate seems to be shifting away from absolutes ("degrading FLARM by any amount is morally wrong!") and towards a "how much is enough" discussion, which is healthy.

The real question is whether the use of open FLARM changes the nature of soaring competition in a negative fashion. I'm tired of reading profound platitudes about "it's useless to fight change" or "we must embrace technology, not oppose it" or "you can't get the genie back in the bottle." BS. We do all those things now. Aluminum bats are still prohibited in professional baseball games. Drafting is prohibited in the cycling legs of amateur triathlons. Golf is replete with rules that disallow certain ball and club technologies that fundamentally change that game. Auto racing is full of rules that aim to control costs or equalize the competition or make it more enjoyable for race fans or make it safer. Flaps, which improve performance at both low and high speeds, are prohibited in the Standard Class. For decades we outlawed the use of VOR and other radio navigation equipment in U.S. contests. Paragraph 6.6 of the 2015 Rules contains a long list of restricted/prohibited equipment. The truth is that we can permit whatever we want based on what we wish to evaluate in our contests...and (yes) what we can enforce.

To the point, I've read some good posts recently by XC and 9B on this very subject. Neither pilot has made an overwhelming case for or against the concept of pilots using information gained from gliders beyond visible range. But that's where we're going: what do we want our top soaring pilots to be good at?

Being skilled at what works at the world class level is only one factor: e.g., American pilots have sometimes suffered because we don't practice team flying. But it's not definitive. The U.S. has regularly gone its own way in competitions, from using different turnpoint photography methods to temporarily allowing flap timers for certain 15M gliders in Standard Class to the different tasking types about which 7T is so, uh, passionate. The point is that WE can decide what we want to do and the rest of the world be damned. Hey, our State Department and Executive Branch do it all the time; why not?

I agree with those who say we can't ignore the "fun" component. There are no cash incentives (or screaming groupies) in soaring so we all do this for fun. We just define it in different ways. What's fun for me--measuring myself against the best pilots, sometimes on tasks I wouldn't think of tackling alone--isn't the same as someone else's idea of fun; e.g., flying in the company of other pilots in relaxed fashion and enjoying the camaraderie, excitement, and social aspects of a contest. Neither one is bad or good. We all look for different things. The conflicts occur in situations like FLARM, where some pilots have more fun being able to see and perhaps benefit from gliders around them and other pilots resent not being forced to sink or swim, so to speak, on their own merits.

The argument isn't really over FLARM or even ADS-B technology. I'm in the technology business but I'm the first to say that technology is never a goal.. It's a means to an end. Doing something with technology just because it's there is playing games compared with using technology to accomplish goals that are otherwise difficult or even impossible.

The debate is really over how we want to evaluate our soaring pilots to determine who is "best". I've heard a lot of people saying that we must allow FLARM--and then trying to bend the philosophical debate over competition around that position. In my days in engineering school, that was referred to as "first you draw the curve, then you plot the points."

Forget FLARM. Forget what might or might not happen with ADS-B next week or 10 years from now. Let's agree on what should distinguish our top pilots and how much we should redefine how we set them loose to compete. Let's agree on to what extent we should moderate or flex that philosophy to allow and encourage pilots in the middle and lower ranks to participate (else every task we set to challenge the best will be unflyable for the rest of us). The standards may be quite different at the regional and national levels.

THEN let's decide how we will allow FLARM--which, in my experience, is a nice but, as 7T contends, imperfect enhancement to safety--to be used in these contests. Ditto for how to deal with ADS-B, to the extent that we can.

For the record, I borrowed FLARM for Elmira for both safety and tactical reasons. Having decided--naively, as it turned out--that Elmira's successful (IMO) experiment presaged a likely use of stealth at national contests in the future, I then bought my own FLARM device for safety reasons. As should be clear, I don't like leeching; it doesn't effect the scores and relative placings of the top pilots nearly as much as it effects pilots like me. It's not as prevalent now as when the national contests regularly maxed out at 65 but leeching still occurs and you're either oblivious or a leech if you insist otherwise.

Just my suggestion. New thread: "What Makes a Good Contest Pilot Good?" In the meantime, I have to spend some more money because the limited range on my portable PowerFLARM with the standard stick antenna will put me at a disadvantage compared to a lot of pilots. It's safe enough, but I'm not seeing out as far as some. At a minimum I need new antenna(s). Or maybe leave the stick antenna on transmit to limit others' awareness of my position and add a dipole for receiving so I can see theirs. Yeah, another chapter in the technology wars.

Chip Bearden

On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 5:05:22 PM UTC-8, wrote:

BB finally confessed recently but 9B actually beat him to it 3+ years ago (20 Oct 2012 in "PowerFLARM leeching comments" on RAS: "On one occasion I was able to close on a group of very good pilots by about 2-3 minutes over the first 30-40 miles. They were just outside of visual range most of the time, so PF made a difference."

Chip Bearden

Good research skills Chip.

I still remember that day at Parowan. Mostly I was able to catch up by getting a better climb out the top of the start cylinder and picking my own thermals along the way. It was fun to know that I was catching up where otherwise I would have been mostly blind to the fact that I was even racing. I used the same first thermal as the leaders after the start, but don't recall gaining on them in the climb. It was a good thermal that I likely would have found flying without Flarm (or with Stealth) since we were all pretty close at the start. Most of the rest of the way we just cruised. At the first turn we went our separate ways towards the second turn and came together at the turnpoint. I'd gained a little more because I knew I'd gone a bit deeper in the first turn. It was like we were, um, racing - super enjoyable to have a sense of how I was doing along the way. Of course I gave it all away by missing a climb at the third turn and getting low at the fourth followed by an agonizing 2-knot climb while other pilots zipped home at comfortable altitudes. So much for tactical benefits, but I was sold on the idea that flying with Flarm was much more enjoyable.

9B

This debate went on for months over multiple threads. It is amazing to me that what is obvious to one, is equally yet diametrically obvious to another. Over all this we generally kept it civil, maybe a few frustrations showed.

I wanted to thank the RC for the time they donate to Soaring and for their care in difficult position. Also, wanted to thank all who took the time to post their positions.

As a side note, spoke with two world team members today (neither follow RAS) and told them of the decision to not require stealth, both thought it was the right decision. One actually told me he thought Flarm was the best development in soaring technology ever.



On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 5:05:22 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 11:31:13 AM UTC-5, smfidler wrote:
Personally, would like to see objective, factual data on how Flarm is being utilized to gain an "unfair advantage" and to win (or finish "undeservedly" high in the standings) US contests (not world championships and major European events) before this conversation topic is brought up again. This debate about what soaring should and should not be (for some) really needs to be fully supported with objective evidence of Flarm being "unfair."

In other words, is this really a problem.

Yes, 7T, it's a problem. More accurately, FLARM does provide a tactical advantage in competition over those who don't have it. The real question is whether the use of FLARM--when most or all of us have it--conflicts with what we want to evaluate when we select our soaring champions.

After six months of fractious, shrill, occasionally rude exchanges, I think certain things have been resolved:

1. FLARM facilitates "leeching", the practice of following another glider closely, relying on the other pilot to make all the decisions. No guarantee you'll win but a "good stick" can climb up the standings by hanging on grimly to the top pilots. FLARM just makes it easier. Whether you think leeching is wrong or a problem depends on what you think good soaring pilots should be able to do. And whether you're a leech.

2. FLARM also aids "tactical following", the practice of using other gliders outside a very small radius as markers or indicators of relative performance. I'm not sure what "proof" 7T needs. A number of pilots have reported this to be the case in RAS. BB finally confessed recently but 9B actually beat him to it 3+ years ago (20 Oct 2012 in "PowerFLARM leeching comments" on RAS: "On one occasion I was able to close on a group of very good pilots by about 2-3 minutes over the first 30-40 miles. They were just outside of visual range most of the time, so PF made a difference."). The benefits are small (9B estimated a 1% advantage) but they exist. Again, no guarantee of success. Is it wrong? We all practice tactical following at every contest, with or without FLARM so we're talking shades of gray here, not black or white. To repeat, what is it that we want soaring champions to be good at?

3. Stealth degrades the safety benefits of FLARM. No argument. The question is by how much? I haven't heard any stealth proponents being cavalier about this but I have heard a few anti-stealth arguments that bordered on the hysterical. We balance safety against cost, practicality, convenience, and other considerations every day of our lives. This is just one more example involving tradeoffs. The debate seems to be shifting away from absolutes ("degrading FLARM by any amount is morally wrong!") and towards a "how much is enough" discussion, which is healthy.

The real question is whether the use of open FLARM changes the nature of soaring competition in a negative fashion. I'm tired of reading profound platitudes about "it's useless to fight change" or "we must embrace technology, not oppose it" or "you can't get the genie back in the bottle." BS. We do all those things now. Aluminum bats are still prohibited in professional baseball games. Drafting is prohibited in the cycling legs of amateur triathlons. Golf is replete with rules that disallow certain ball and club technologies that fundamentally change that game. Auto racing is full of rules that aim to control costs or equalize the competition or make it more enjoyable for race fans or make it safer. Flaps, which improve performance at both low and high speeds, are prohibited in the Standard Class. For decades we outlawed the use of VOR and other radio navigation equipment in U.S. contests. Paragraph 6.6 of the 2015 Rules contains a long list of restricted/prohibited equipment. The truth is that we can permit whatever we want based on what we wish to evaluate in our contests...and (yes) what we can enforce.

To the point, I've read some good posts recently by XC and 9B on this very subject. Neither pilot has made an overwhelming case for or against the concept of pilots using information gained from gliders beyond visible range.. But that's where we're going: what do we want our top soaring pilots to be good at?

Being skilled at what works at the world class level is only one factor: e.g., American pilots have sometimes suffered because we don't practice team flying. But it's not definitive. The U.S. has regularly gone its own way in competitions, from using different turnpoint photography methods to temporarily allowing flap timers for certain 15M gliders in Standard Class to the different tasking types about which 7T is so, uh, passionate. The point is that WE can decide what we want to do and the rest of the world be damned. Hey, our State Department and Executive Branch do it all the time; why not?

I agree with those who say we can't ignore the "fun" component. There are no cash incentives (or screaming groupies) in soaring so we all do this for fun. We just define it in different ways. What's fun for me--measuring myself against the best pilots, sometimes on tasks I wouldn't think of tackling alone--isn't the same as someone else's idea of fun; e.g., flying in the company of other pilots in relaxed fashion and enjoying the camaraderie, excitement, and social aspects of a contest. Neither one is bad or good. We all look for different things. The conflicts occur in situations like FLARM, where some pilots have more fun being able to see and perhaps benefit from gliders around them and other pilots resent not being forced to sink or swim, so to speak, on their own merits.

The argument isn't really over FLARM or even ADS-B technology. I'm in the technology business but I'm the first to say that technology is never a goal. It's a means to an end. Doing something with technology just because it's there is playing games compared with using technology to accomplish goals that are otherwise difficult or even impossible.

The debate is really over how we want to evaluate our soaring pilots to determine who is "best". I've heard a lot of people saying that we must allow FLARM--and then trying to bend the philosophical debate over competition around that position. In my days in engineering school, that was referred to as "first you draw the curve, then you plot the points."

Forget FLARM. Forget what might or might not happen with ADS-B next week or 10 years from now. Let's agree on what should distinguish our top pilots and how much we should redefine how we set them loose to compete. Let's agree on to what extent we should moderate or flex that philosophy to allow and encourage pilots in the middle and lower ranks to participate (else every task we set to challenge the best will be unflyable for the rest of us). The standards may be quite different at the regional and national levels.

THEN let's decide how we will allow FLARM--which, in my experience, is a nice but, as 7T contends, imperfect enhancement to safety--to be used in these contests. Ditto for how to deal with ADS-B, to the extent that we can.

For the record, I borrowed FLARM for Elmira for both safety and tactical reasons. Having decided--naively, as it turned out--that Elmira's successful (IMO) experiment presaged a likely use of stealth at national contests in the future, I then bought my own FLARM device for safety reasons. As should be clear, I don't like leeching; it doesn't effect the scores and relative placings of the top pilots nearly as much as it effects pilots like me. It's not as prevalent now as when the national contests regularly maxed out at 65 but leeching still occurs and you're either oblivious or a leech if you insist otherwise.

Just my suggestion. New thread: "What Makes a Good Contest Pilot Good?" In the meantime, I have to spend some more money because the limited range on my portable PowerFLARM with the standard stick antenna will put me at a disadvantage compared to a lot of pilots. It's safe enough, but I'm not seeing out as far as some. At a minimum I need new antenna(s). Or maybe leave the stick antenna on transmit to limit others' awareness of my position and add a dipole for receiving so I can see theirs. Yeah, another chapter in the technology wars.

Chip Bearden

This is a very sensible decision from the RC.

The issue is not closed, of course. Over the next season, we will have an interesting conversation over beer and SRA meetings. As I see it there are two issues:

1) If flarm can come up with a mode that addresses the obvious safety issues, including somewhat longer range for head-on collisions and awareness of nearby gliders you might veer into if you maneuver away from glider 1 -- should the RC quickly require that mode?

2) The underlying issue: Is flarm following* a terrible thing, lowering the quality of the sport, that must be stopped as soon as technically possible? Or is just a slight shift in rules of the game? Or, is the greater situational awareness given by flarm displays something of a benefit to the quality and enjoyment of the race? (My view) If so, whether flarm develops a different mode is irrelevant.

What we have seen is that the RC listens. There will surely be many discussions and poll questions in the fall.

While we're at it, the larger technical question looms.

Trackers: is it ok for tracking software to show where everyone is? Should RC impose a delay on any legally used tracking software? Should RC develop stronger bans on accessing such data in flight?

Electronics: Cockpit weather is getting cheaper and cheaper. Every cessna 150 has it now. Do we want to continue that ban?

Radio communication: It's working fine at regionals. Should we allow pilot to pilot communications at nationals?

Simplicity: Our equipment restrictions are more and more complex, and less and less enforced every year. (For fun, take a look at the rules regarding disabling of artificial horizon modules. That, to my knowledge, nobody has ever even tried to implement.)

The 2014 RC voted to throw all electronics bans out in a grand simplification. The momentum for that move seems to have been lost. But it's worth discussing just how many, how complex, and how enforced our electronics rules should be.

(*I use the word "following" rather than "leeching," because flarm following is the antithesis of leeching. Using flarm you can stay much further away from other gliders and still benefit tactically. "Leeching" describes the very close following necessitated by eyeball based tracking)

John Cochrane BB

On Thursday, January 21, 2016 at 7:18:08 AM UTC-7, John Cochrane wrote:
This is a very sensible decision from the RC.

The issue is not closed, of course. Over the next season, we will have an interesting conversation over beer and SRA meetings. As I see it there are two issues:

1) If flarm can come up with a mode that addresses the obvious safety issues, including somewhat longer range for head-on collisions and awareness of nearby gliders you might veer into if you maneuver away from glider 1 -- should the RC quickly require that mode?

2) The underlying issue: Is flarm following* a terrible thing, lowering the quality of the sport, that must be stopped as soon as technically possible? Or is just a slight shift in rules of the game? Or, is the greater situational awareness given by flarm displays something of a benefit to the quality and enjoyment of the race? (My view) If so, whether flarm develops a different mode is irrelevant.

What we have seen is that the RC listens. There will surely be many discussions and poll questions in the fall.

While we're at it, the larger technical question looms.

Trackers: is it ok for tracking software to show where everyone is? Should RC impose a delay on any legally used tracking software? Should RC develop stronger bans on accessing such data in flight?

Electronics: Cockpit weather is getting cheaper and cheaper. Every cessna 150 has it now. Do we want to continue that ban?

Radio communication: It's working fine at regionals. Should we allow pilot to pilot communications at nationals?

Simplicity: Our equipment restrictions are more and more complex, and less and less enforced every year. (For fun, take a look at the rules regarding disabling of artificial horizon modules. That, to my knowledge, nobody has ever even tried to implement.)

The 2014 RC voted to throw all electronics bans out in a grand simplification. The momentum for that move seems to have been lost. But it's worth discussing just how many, how complex, and how enforced our electronics rules should be.

(*I use the word "following" rather than "leeching," because flarm following is the antithesis of leeching. Using flarm you can stay much further away from other gliders and still benefit tactically. "Leeching" describes the very close following necessitated by eyeball based tracking)

John Cochrane BB

The recent JWGC2015 online tracker had a 15-minute delay.

Frank Whiteley

Yes. And apparently even so was being used for strategic effect. I gather team captain radioed pilots about where competing teams had turned in AAT circles, and what their start times had been. Even with 15 minute delay, very useful information. Just a fact, no editorial today.

John Cochrane BB

Simplicity: Our equipment restrictions are more and more complex, and less and less enforced every year. (For fun, take a look at the rules regarding disabling of artificial horizon modules. That, to my knowledge, nobody has ever even tried to implement.)


I agree with John. In addition, somewhere down the line the Rules Committee needs to modify rules to ease the burden on the CD and CM to run a contest (and bypass pilot input). We have a pletheora of rules that can be ignored by the pilot simply because the workload and complexity of running a contest can't be handled effectively by normal contest staffing. The SSA response to managment is to "toss another body in to cover that" is NOT acceptable.. We all know that trying to find volunteers to help run a contest is getting harder and harder. Several past CM's have told me they are very reluctant to ever work a contest again because of these issues.
We see daily on RAS pilots demanding rule changes that will improve their enjoyment at contests. Let's keep our eye on the ball here. No contest management and volunteers results in no contests. RC needs to clean up the current rules to make them reasonable and enforceable by a modest number of contest staff.
Craig