Powerflarm's unknown effect on the first contests in US

Darn! I meant to say ADS-B instead of TIS. And to be pedantic I should
note that at a minimum one also needs a Mode S transponder with 1090-
ES Out and In capability in order to see the benefits of ADS-B and TIS-
B display on Flarm (plus flying in the right area where coverage
exists). (Note TIS-B is future capability, and I'm not addressing
UAT.)

-John

On Jan 8, 12:33 pm, jcarlyle wrote:
Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

On Jan 8, 7:33*pm, jcarlyle wrote:
Good rant! Some good points in there, too. But I'm not sure that it's
proper to assume that glider pilots with a "new toy" are going to mean
more problems.

I put in a transponder and took a lot of heat for being interested in
"gadgets". That talk stopped abruptly, and the number of transponders
in my circle of glider pilots went up, the evening a friend and I
landed with a tale about a Lear Jet who turned to avoid the two of us
while we were thermalling. The next subject of conversation was how
many new transponder equipped glider pilots saw commuter flights
noticing them, as evidenced by their turning a bit to stay clear of
the glider.

Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

I agree there are considerations for contests. I personally don't
think they're really big, given the European experience, but maybe us
Yanks really are 10x more competitive and will milk any bit of data to
win. Even so, I don't think it's proper to assume all new Flarm owners
will fly automatically be flying heads down. After all, Flarm is sort
of like an audio vario - if it beeps, look at it quickly to see why,
then look out again. Even us old geezers should be able to handle
that...

-John

On Jan 8, 11:09 am, hretting wrote:



I for one fear a disaster in the making and feel Flarm should be
banned from contest to allow a period of familarization. It is my
belief that Pilots + New Toys X unreal expectations + *(venders x $$$)
divided by NPilots(pilots who are looking out the #!%#ing cockpit) =
****ty day at Black Rock (an old Spencer Tracy movie).
But hey, this is the opinion of a 33,000 ++ hour electrojet captain
who has seen more than his share of knuckhead pilots doing stupid
sh_t.
And now we have non-Flarmers being declared automatic leachers and
Charlie Spratt wanna-bees determining how he's going to run a
contest.
Careful.... Careful.....
Get a senior instructor (UH) who is not emotional (UH). Since this is
where we are heading, make him (UH) supreme guru who will create a
blending process to reduce the risk of Techno-Crashes. A phasing in
plan if you will. He's a sucker for extra large T-shirt with a glider
on it.
Flarm at the seniors..good god...might as well put a hood on everyone.
R

Yep, things started going downhill once they allowed those darned
varios to be used in contests. The only instrument decent pilots need
is a yaw string!

Mike

On Jan 8, 12:48*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:
On Jan 8, 7:33*pm, jcarlyle wrote:





Good rant! Some good points in there, too. But I'm not sure that it's
proper to assume that glider pilots with a "new toy" are going to mean
more problems.

I put in a transponder and took a lot of heat for being interested in
"gadgets". That talk stopped abruptly, and the number of transponders
in my circle of glider pilots went up, the evening a friend and I
landed with a tale about a Lear Jet who turned to avoid the two of us
while we were thermalling. The next subject of conversation was how
many new transponder equipped glider pilots saw commuter flights
noticing them, as evidenced by their turning a bit to stay clear of
the glider.

Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

I agree there are considerations for contests. I personally don't
think they're really big, given the European experience, but maybe us
Yanks really are 10x more competitive and will milk any bit of data to
win. Even so, I don't think it's proper to assume all new Flarm owners
will fly automatically be flying heads down. After all, Flarm is sort
of like an audio vario - if it beeps, look at it quickly to see why,
then look out again. Even us old geezers should be able to handle
that...

-John

On Jan 8, 11:09 am, hretting wrote:

I for one fear a disaster in the making and feel Flarm should be
banned from contest to allow a period of familarization. It is my
belief that Pilots + New Toys X unreal expectations + *(venders x $$$)
divided by NPilots(pilots who are looking out the #!%#ing cockpit) =
****ty day at Black Rock (an old Spencer Tracy movie).
But hey, this is the opinion of a 33,000 ++ hour electrojet captain
who has seen more than his share of knuckhead pilots doing stupid
sh_t.
And now we have non-Flarmers being declared automatic leachers and
Charlie Spratt wanna-bees determining how he's going to run a
contest.
Careful.... Careful.....
Get a senior instructor (UH) who is not emotional (UH). Since this is
where we are heading, make him (UH) supreme guru who will create a
blending process to reduce the risk of Techno-Crashes. A phasing in
plan if you will. He's a sucker for extra large T-shirt with a glider
on it.
Flarm at the seniors..good god...might as well put a hood on everyone..
R

Yep, things started going downhill once they allowed those darned
varios to be used in contests. *The only instrument decent pilots need
is a yaw string!

Mike- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

What's your longest flight without a vario? Mine was about 150 Mi.
UH - resident Luddite

On Jan 8, 12:33*pm, jcarlyle wrote:
Good rant! Some good points in there, too. But I'm not sure that it's
proper to assume that glider pilots with a "new toy" are going to mean
more problems.

I put in a transponder and took a lot of heat for being interested in
"gadgets". That talk stopped abruptly, and the number of transponders
in my circle of glider pilots went up, the evening a friend and I
landed with a tale about a Lear Jet who turned to avoid the two of us
while we were thermalling. The next subject of conversation was how
many new transponder equipped glider pilots saw commuter flights
noticing them, as evidenced by their turning a bit to stay clear of
the glider.

Flarm has a similar big role to play, in my opinion. Not only will it
let us gliders avoid one another, with its TIS (and soon to come TIS-
B) capability it will help us avoid the age old "doctor in the
Bonanza" who's staring at his panel.

I agree there are considerations for contests. I personally don't
think they're really big, given the European experience, but maybe us
Yanks really are 10x more competitive and will milk any bit of data to
win. Even so, I don't think it's proper to assume all new Flarm owners
will fly automatically be flying heads down. After all, Flarm is sort
of like an audio vario - if it beeps, look at it quickly to see why,
then look out again. Even us old geezers should be able to handle
that...

-John

On Jan 8, 11:09 am, hretting wrote:



Yes it would great if everyone had your experience and smarts with
implementing a , what, transponder?, are you kidding. You're comparing
a Flarm with a transponder. And of course you have TCAS in your glider
too! We're talking contest here, not a local jaunt around the area
that encounters a jet, which happens during all your flights, right?
And Mike, I never wrote that Flarm was a bad idea. Go back and read my
thread again. Brillant come back.
We're talking another distraction to the average racer that without
some planning and forethought, could lead to a chain of events not
desired.
The competition committee did good I believe in slowing things (Flarm)
down.
By the way, I have a transponder in my glider too.
R

Am 08.01.2011 15:28, wrote:
PowerFlarm will be more capable than Flarm units in use in
Europe.

Do you have any details about the additional capabilities?

--
Peter Scholz
ASW24 JE

On Jan 8, 9:09*am, hretting wrote:
I for one fear a disaster in the making and feel Flarm should be
banned from contest to allow a period of familarization. It is my
belief that Pilots + New Toys X unreal expectations + *(venders x $$$)
divided by NPilots(pilots who are looking out the #!%#ing cockpit) =
****ty day at Black Rock (an old Spencer Tracy movie).
But hey, this is the opinion of a 33,000 ++ hour electrojet captain
who has seen more than his share of knuckhead pilots doing stupid
sh_t.
And now we have non-Flarmers being declared automatic leachers and
Charlie Spratt wanna-bees determining how he's going to run a
contest.
Careful.... Careful.....
Get a senior instructor (UH) who is not emotional (UH). Since this is
where we are heading, make him (UH) supreme guru who will create a
blending process to reduce the risk of Techno-Crashes. A phasing in
plan if you will. He's a sucker for extra large T-shirt with a glider
on it.
Flarm at the seniors..good god...might as well put a hood on everyone.
R

Wow, who ****ed in your wheaties this morning?

How you can state that Flarm should be banned from contests, after a
season where it would have probably prevented two mid-airs and saved
one life?

Where do you get that "Flarmers" will be able to leach better than non-
flarmers. Really? Kindly explain how that will work. I've never seen
that fear raised in any discussion of Flarm.

The whole leaching question is a tempest in a teapot. If it bothers
you, turn on Stealth mode and you can't be leached (but will still get
collision warning).

So if I understand your position, it's fine for the knuckleheads in
their electrojet to not have to look out the window and be warned of
an impending midair by their TCAS (I see you have a xponder in your
glider) but not OK for glider pilots to have a similar safety net -
despite having to fly in a much more collision-prone environment!

And the Seniors is EXACTLY where Flarm should be MANDATORY. Think
about it, and what age does to vision, flexibility, reaction time,
etc.

Sounds like you need to get that senior instructor and have the whole
concept to Flarm and active collision avoidance explained to you!

Kirk
66

First, my apologies for not spelling " leech" correctly and passing it
on to you. Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.
My stand is that while you believe the two midairs would have been
prevented by FLARM....I believe that the rapid insertion of Flarm into
the contest regime will create a risk greater than the one we are
trying to reduce.
I believe to reduce that specific risk, we allow for the "Novelty"
period followed by the "Functional check-out" period before we include
it into the contest regime.
Flarm will change the "paranoia" level of the group. Not right
away.....but slowly. This is the dynamics that we must guard.
First the dip, then the spike, then the balance.

You're right about the knuckleheads not looking out.....
But I do.
R

On Jan 8, 7:03*pm, hretting wrote:
First, my apologies for not spelling " leech" correctly and passing it
on to you. Leeching was brought up by an earlier thread and I
responded to it.
My stand is that while you believe the two midairs would have been
prevented by FLARM....I believe that the rapid insertion of Flarm into
the contest regime will create a risk greater than the one we are
trying to reduce.
I believe to reduce that specific risk, we allow for the "Novelty"
period followed by the "Functional check-out" period before we include
it into the contest regime.
Flarm will change the "paranoia" level of the group. Not right
away.....but slowly. This is the dynamics that we must guard.
First the dip, then the spike, then the balance.

You're right about the knuckleheads not looking out.....
But I do.
R

Thats fine, but I have to disagree. FLARM is not a complex system,
and if you have advanced to the point that you can race a glider while
watching your PDA, glide computer, etc., adding FLARM to the mix is
not going to be a big change.

In fact, it's a lot less of a distractor than the current fad of huge
color moving map displays in racing cockpits. Yeah, I need a Clearnav/
Ultimate so I don't get lost. Just like the guy in the Cirrus (the
one with 4 seats, a motor and a parachute, not the nice glider) with
his Garmin 1000 needs it on a CAVU day in Arizona, where you can see
every mountain in the state at the same time. Look out the window?
That's so 20th Century!

If nothing else, just mute it and don't look at it, that way at least
others will know you are there. Kinda like a transponder/TCAS setup.
I've got some nice black duct tape you can use to cover the display if
it distracts you...

Anyway, the experience in the rest of the world with FLARM seems
pretty positive. That's good enough for me.

Check 6, and Cheers!

Kirk
66

On Jan 8, 7:17*pm, "kirk.stant" wrote:
Where do you get that "Flarmers" will be able to leach better than non-
flarmers. Really? Kindly explain how that will work. I've never seen
that fear raised in any discussion of Flarm.

The whole leaching question is a tempest in a teapot. *If it bothers
you, turn on Stealth mode and you can't be leached (but will still get
collision warning).
Kirk
66

Kirk,
My understanding is that if stealth mode is off then a pilot can see
the climb rate of other flarm equipped gliders in the area: One way
to do it is using Winpilot - see this from the winpilot site:
"FLARM Support: Added the ability to track several other gliders in
the vicinity that also carry FLARM on board. WinPilot can now show
visually the position of the other gliders, their bearing, and also
indicate weather or not they are climbing, and if so, what their
current climb rate is."
see the graphic on the main page.
http://www.winpilot.com/images4/News2.gif

seeyou mobile does the same as do other systems:
http://gliderpilot.org/files/FlarmFl...le%20Flarm.jpg


So is it a fair competition if in early 2011 part of the fleet is
allowed to share remote thermal sensing data?
Like shooting fish in a barrel, not a contest. To me it appears that
we are allowing team flying - with good displays and coordination 2 or
more pilots could team fly a whole contest season and never have to
talk on the radio. So maybe I turn my stealth mode on to prevent
others from getting my data but that won't stop other pilots from team
flying via flarm.

I do not understand why we would introduce it "unrestricted" for
2011. I realize we/Rules Committee do[es] not have familiarity with
the system, but other countries do, can we learn from them rather than
risk as much chaos? Andy posted the UK 2010 flarm rules earlier in
this discussion, to me it makes sense for us to start off with the
stealth mode required too, that gets the anti-collision function and
reduces the data sharing issues. This is my request to the Rules
Committee.


To Henry's point i do think there is some risk, especially early on of
pilots focusing on their "show me where to find lift radar screen"
that they don't look out the window for the non flarm guys as much.
Ironically could be more dangerous. omg I am agreeing with Henry
on something? ;-)

Chris

On Jan 8, 8:16*am, Tom wrote:
The implied requirement of having FLARM may cause a number of pilots
(especially senior pilots) to stop flying contests because they only
plan to actively fly in competitions for a few more years.
They have to decide if spending the money for a FLARM device at this
late stage of their flying career is really worth it.

Also is a barrier to entry for new pilots considering flying their
first contest.

Maybe insurance rates will fall?
Chris