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#41
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"Dave Martin" wrote in message ... So all we need is a simple instrument that meets the following criteria. 1. It will detect at least 40 gliders in close proximity. 2. Plus those within a 5 nautical mile range. 3. Work out their relative positions. 4. Assess the collision threat of each and every one. 5. Feed the information to the pilot of each glider in a readable format that can be assessed within the bat of an eyelid. 6. Develop the instrument with little financial assistance from within the movement. 7. Ensure every glider has the equipment fitted. 8. Ensure the equipment works with very little power consumption. 9. Ensure that the cost is no more that a launch fee. 10. Make fitting compulsary to ALL aircraft flying in uncontrolled airspace. The above vastly overstates the issue. It's yet one more "do nothing" argument. Make the problem seem too difficult and people will give up. Listing the nearby gliders is very easy. You don't need to list them by contest ID just the number within a reasonable distance. Those beyond 1 Km are of little interest. You aren't interested in the relative positions of all gliders, only those that represent a non-zero probably of a collision. At any instant, out of 40 gliders, only one or two might represent a real hazard. This is a very easy bit of computer programming. Devices that do almost exactly this are already available as consumer devices. (FRS walkie talkies with integral GPS ~ $150US) Only small improvements are needed for glider use. Making every glider carry one is not likely or necessary but it could become a requirement for contest flying. Clubs with a large fleet might decide to install them. Most gliders fly within a local area so local rules will work. This device need only work with gliders. The rest of the aircraft fleet will use transponders. For protection from these, you need a transponder too. Bill Daniels |
#42
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Argument number 3.While collision avoidance equipment is available and
expensive (not because of politics really but because of liability), it is not flawless. I have spent thousands of hours with TCAS and have seen numerous near mid-air reports filed. It is a vast improvement to nothing. It does not replace the mark I eyball, but augments it enhancing safety. Many pilots get balled up (preoccupied) looking for the reported TCAS traffic and fail to see the piper cub buzzing by till he passes 300 ft. over the cockpit. Good tool. Not fallible, distracting and expensive. I had one installed on a Gulfstream 1 for $35000.00 and the equipment requirement is the same for a C-172. An alternative, which is listed on Tim's W&W web site is a radio monitor that receives the IFF transponder (which the TCAS also is) and gives a range and relative altitude for the closest target. Not a bad tool for cruising solo but not useful in a thermal of more than two where of course (hmm...)you would know the proximity of that one other target. Multiple targets that are transponder equipped within the minimum range of .1mi (600 ft) displayed would not be displayed. Like I said a good tool for on the run, not in a thermal.Now to the meat of the matter. The most valuable lesson we can learn from the recent mid airs we have suffered is improved Communications. Virtually all gliders are radio equipped. In the pattern with very diverse aircraft types we avoid collisions not only with visual diligence, but mostly by communicating clearly where we are flying. If you are entering a thermal, announce to those in the vicinity of your intentions. I am not suggesting constant radio communications while thermalling, but if you are joining say so. If you tell your neighbors you intend to do something and you decide to do something else, say so.I am not suggesting that technology does not exist or can be developed to combat this, nor do I think we should sit on our laurels waiting for someone else to come up with some magic tool to do it for us. I think we should press on talking about possibilities and put our briains together to come up with that tool. Possibly those of the technology camp can start an LLC to mitigate the liability and develop a tool but I think we are obligated to improve the tools we already have to increase our situational awareness. That tool is the radio and the improvement we can make today is to practice good communications of our intentions.v/rjeff |
#43
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Jeff Dorwart wrote:
Let me mention an important factor here, the age of the pilot. I have constated on myself that as one ages, the field of vision becomes narrower, not to mention that attention is not of the same quality, reflexes become poor, etc. This could well be one of the most important factors at play here. Sooaring is much much bettre fitted to young people in excellent health and doing a lot of sports (i mean sports like squash) than to old people. -- Michel TALON |
#44
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I don't think that collisions between gliders is a
matter of pure eyesight, it is more situational awareness and expectation. There is also a school of thought that says that an experienced pilot uses his experience not to get into situations where quick reflexes are involved. I am not sure that flying is an area where reflex actions are necessarily a good thing. Young bull to old bull 'Lets run down the paddock and service some of those cows' Old bull to young bull, 'Lets walk down and service all of them' At 18:36 01 May 2004, Michel Talon wrote: Jeff Dorwart wrote: Let me mention an important factor here, the age of the pilot. I have constated on myself that as one ages, the field of vision becomes narrower, not to mention that attention is not of the same quality, reflexes become poor, etc. This could well be one of the most important factors at play here. Sooaring is much much bettre fitted to young people in excellent health and doing a lot of sports (i mean sports like squash) than to old people. -- Michel TALON |
#45
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I am not against a technology solution per se. What
I am against is looking for a solution which could take years to implement when a solution is needed tomorrow. It seems to me that several people think that the introduction of technology will be simple, it won't. The problem is extremely complex. Assuming that GPS is accurate enough, it isn't (especially in vertical positioning), and that it updates qickly enough, it doesn't, at least the ones we use at the moment don't, that still leaves the problem of keeping track of 40 gliders constantly changing direction realtime, can AWACS do that? Still leaves the problem of how you keep the pilot informed, display in the cockpit? I don't think so. Having sorted out all that, what does a pilot do in response to an urgent warning of collision, turn into another glider which was not logged as a threat until the sudden evasive turn was made. Technology might give the warning but it is the human that has to react. I personally don't think we have the technology or expertise to design such a system or indeed the expertise to put it in a small enough space to fit in a glider right now, and the cost could be more than the average glider is worth. I am not saying do nothing, what I am saying is do something realistic and achievable now. I have little doubt that what has been proposed will be with us in 10 years time but it is now that we have a problem. I stand by what I originally wrote, humans are the cause of accidents, humans can prevent accidents. Whether we have the will to do it is another matter entirely. If GPS was that accurate radar whould be obsolete and transponders museum items. At 06:18 01 May 2004, Eric Greenwell wrote: Don Johnstone wrote: The answer is, good lookout, good situational awareness and the ability to put safety first, press on itius second. This doesn't sound like an answer to me. I do all those things, yet I've still come close to collisions. 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. I don't expect the other guy to get out of my way, but I've still come close to collisions. These have generally been contest situations involving many gliders, but not always. An effective, but not perfect, way to avoid collsions is to always fly well away from other gliders. It's not a perfect way, because you can't stop other glider from seeing you and joining you. I'm surprised people are willing to claim a technological solution is unworkable without any demonstration of it's ability. How can you say 'The answer is, good lookout, good situational awareness and the ability to put safety first, press on itius second', when you have no data on the proposed solution? Wouldn't a better remark be 'Try it, and show us the results?' -- Change 'netto' to 'net' to email me directly Eric Greenwell Washington State USA |
#46
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The whole anti collision warning thing is way to dangerous. If you
could design and build such a device, how do you get that information to the pilot? At a club nearby there was a mid-air a few years ago. nobody was hurt, but every-one was shaken up. A short while later the club two seater was in circuit and called downwind with the wrong callsign. The club duty pilot on the ground saw the glider in circuit and heard the call. Noticing the difference he called the glider and warned him that another glider was in circuit. The pilot was so concerned with looking out for the 'other' glider that he neglected his circuit and landed short of the airfield damaging the glider. To busy looking for the 'other' glider to fly his own. Imagine flying in a busy part of the sky with all that information about the other five glider being thrust at you all the time. Distraction could cause more problems than the information fixes. But if collisions happen because situational awareness is inadequate, perhaps the first step is to enhance situational awareness. A device that could show the location of nearby gliders would be handy, but the simpler the better. A little information that can be absorbed in a glance and integrated into your normal scan would be useful with being such a distraction that it was dangerous. The MK1 eyeball may not be adequate by itself, but it is an essential tool that we need to keep using for outside scan, not peering at some instrument. This is especially true if there are other gliders close by. -- Philip Plane _____ | ---------------( )--------------- Glider pilots have no visible means of support |
#47
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At 14:18 01 May 2004, Bill Daniels wrote:
'Dave Martin' wrote in message ... So all we need is a simple instrument that meets the following criteria. 1. It will detect at least 40 gliders in close proximity. 2. Plus those within a 5 nautical mile range. 3. Work out their relative positions. 4. Assess the collision threat of each and every one. 5. Feed the information to the pilot of each glider in a readable format that can be assessed within the bat of an eyelid. 6. Develop the instrument with little financial assistance from within the movement. 7. Ensure every glider has the equipment fitted. 8. Ensure the equipment works with very little power consumption. 9. Ensure that the cost is no more that a launch fee. 10. Make fitting compulsary to ALL aircraft flying in uncontrolled airspace. The above vastly overstates the issue. It's yet one more 'do nothing' argument. Make the problem seem too difficult and people will give up. Listing the nearby gliders is very easy. You don't need to list them by contest ID just the number within a reasonable distance. Those beyond 1 Km are of little interest. You aren't interested in the relative positions of all gliders, only those that represent a non-zero probably of a collision. At any instant, out of 40 gliders, only one or two might represent a real hazard. This is a very easy bit of computer programming. Devices that do almost exactly this are already available as consumer devices. (FRS walkie talkies with integral GPS ~ $150US) Only small improvements are needed for glider use. Making every glider carry one is not likely or necessary but it could become a requirement for contest flying. Clubs with a large fleet might decide to install them. Most gliders fly within a local area so local rules will work. This device need only work with gliders. The rest of the aircraft fleet will use transponders. For protection from these, you need a transponder too. Bill Daniels Bill You are clearly a pilot in the US, with vast open skies in which to fly. Here in the UK our skies are crowded, we are being squeezed by commercial ventures who need more and more airspace Frequently contests fly over and around other gliding sites, pilots on cross countries select other gliding as turn points. Local soaring is some areas can take in can take in 10 or more other sites, plus powered strips. You say in addition to the anticollision device we should also have a transponder and in the UK few glider pilots have radio licences so they can use the ttansponder (although this is changing). At present we do not have the power to drive them. At a meeting of with airtraffic controlers they were alarmed at the thought of 40 gliders all flying in a contest fitted with transponders, they thought it would screw up A their computers and B their controllers trying to make sense of 40 gliders in a thermal. You say my argument vastly overstates the issue, I think it is very much understated for UK flying. These are real issues when flying cross country in a crowded little island. I would welcome and applaud someone who can solve the problem but in the short term let us be realistic. Unless everyone carries the equipment it is about as much good as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. It may tell you were some gliders are but not every one, therein lies the danger. Enough said, Dave |
#48
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Don Johnstone wrote:
I am not against a technology solution per se. What I am against is looking for a solution which could take years to implement when a solution is needed tomorrow. I'm listening for that solution, but so far all I hear is more of what we are already doing: better training and pilots that don't make mistakes. Propose something (I don't have any good ideas). It seems to me that several people think that the introduction of technology will be simple, it won't. The problem is extremely complex. Ony if you think the problem is 40 gliders instead of 3 or 4, which is all that was involved in the recent collisions. Assuming that GPS is accurate enough, it isn't (especially in vertical positioning), When I overlay the GPS altitude traces from the last flight with my two GPS recorders, I see the greatest deviations (one trace compared to the other) are less than +/- 50 feet. This is less than the wingspan of my glider! Most of the time it is less than +/- 15 feet. I think this is good enough for gliders. and that it updates qickly enough, it doesn't, at least the ones we use at the moment don't, How much more often than once a second is required? That is 25 points per circle, which seems like plenty to me. Our speeds and accelerations are low, so I think an even slower rate would be adequate for thermalling and beating back and forth on a ridge. that still leaves the problem of keeping track of 40 gliders constantly changing direction realtime, can AWACS do that? Have you ever flown in a thermal with even 10 gliders? I have many times. I can not keep track of even 10 gliders, but I can still thermal safely when there are that many and more. We are not flying around at random, but circling in an orderly fashion. Only the nearby gliders are a threat that must be monitored. In any case, a system that deals with only a few gliders will cover most of the situations. Still leaves the problem of how you keep the pilot informed, display in the cockpit? I don't think so. Having sorted out all that, what does a pilot do in response to an urgent warning of collision, turn into another glider which was not logged as a threat until the sudden evasive turn was made. Technology might give the warning but it is the human that has to react. These are not new questions, so you can be assured that people contemplating these systems are considering them. Systems do not spring fully featured and perfect from the mind of an engineer, but proceed through stages of development and testing. Exactly what problems and benefits will appear during this process can't be predicted very well. I personally don't think we have the technology or expertise to design such a system or indeed the expertise to put it in a small enough space to fit in a glider right now, and the cost could be more than the average glider is worth. I am not saying do nothing, what I am saying is do something realistic and achievable now. I have little doubt that what has been proposed will be with us in 10 years time but it is now that we have a problem. I stand by what I originally wrote, humans are the cause of accidents, humans can prevent accidents. Whether we have the will to do it is another matter entirely. What must we do? Propose something - we're listening. If GPS was that accurate radar whould be obsolete GPS _IS_ far more accurate than radar! But the system that uses it is being deployed very slowly. and transponders museum items. Some of us already believe that! But I still installed one, because that is the current system best suited to keep me and airliners separated (it can also help keep smaller airplanes and even skydivers away from me). -- Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly Eric Greenwell Washington State USA |
#49
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"Dave Martin" wrote in message ... At 14:18 01 May 2004, Bill Daniels wrote: 'Dave Martin' wrote in message ... So all we need is a simple instrument that meets the following criteria. 1. It will detect at least 40 gliders in close proximity. 2. Plus those within a 5 nautical mile range. 3. Work out their relative positions. 4. Assess the collision threat of each and every one. 5. Feed the information to the pilot of each glider in a readable format that can be assessed within the bat of an eyelid. 6. Develop the instrument with little financial assistance from within the movement. 7. Ensure every glider has the equipment fitted. 8. Ensure the equipment works with very little power consumption. 9. Ensure that the cost is no more that a launch fee. 10. Make fitting compulsary to ALL aircraft flying in uncontrolled airspace. The above vastly overstates the issue. It's yet one more 'do nothing' argument. Make the problem seem too difficult and people will give up. Listing the nearby gliders is very easy. You don't need to list them by contest ID just the number within a reasonable distance. Those beyond 1 Km are of little interest. You aren't interested in the relative positions of all gliders, only those that represent a non-zero probably of a collision. At any instant, out of 40 gliders, only one or two might represent a real hazard. This is a very easy bit of computer programming. Devices that do almost exactly this are already available as consumer devices. (FRS walkie talkies with integral GPS ~ $150US) Only small improvements are needed for glider use. Making every glider carry one is not likely or necessary but it could become a requirement for contest flying. Clubs with a large fleet might decide to install them. Most gliders fly within a local area so local rules will work. This device need only work with gliders. The rest of the aircraft fleet will use transponders. For protection from these, you need a transponder too. Bill Daniels Bill You are clearly a pilot in the US, with vast open skies in which to fly. Here in the UK our skies are crowded, we are being squeezed by commercial ventures who need more and more airspace Frequently contests fly over and around other gliding sites, pilots on cross countries select other gliding as turn points. Local soaring is some areas can take in can take in 10 or more other sites, plus powered strips. You say in addition to the anticollision device we should also have a transponder and in the UK few glider pilots have radio licences so they can use the ttansponder (although this is changing). At present we do not have the power to drive them. At a meeting of with airtraffic controlers they were alarmed at the thought of 40 gliders all flying in a contest fitted with transponders, they thought it would screw up A their computers and B their controllers trying to make sense of 40 gliders in a thermal. You say my argument vastly overstates the issue, I think it is very much understated for UK flying. These are real issues when flying cross country in a crowded little island. I would welcome and applaud someone who can solve the problem but in the short term let us be realistic. Unless everyone carries the equipment it is about as much good as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. It may tell you were some gliders are but not every one, therein lies the danger. Enough said, Dave Yes I do fly in the vast empty skies of the western USA, thank goodness. However, I'm also a pilot who has survived a mid-air with another glider while flying in those "empty" skies. Try to picture this. The little device goes "Beep" and when you look at it, the 20mm 2-digit LED display says "06" meaning 6 gliders are within one kilometer. My reaction is to look outside like crazy until I can see all six. It beeps again and displays 07 meaning that another glider has joined the gaggle. I look even harder. This uses the "Mark 1 eyeball" to it's maximum. Extremely accurate GPS data has nothing to do with this. If the error is that the 7th glider is really 1.005 Km away instead of 1.000 why would I care? If a glider joins the gaggle without this device there is a very good chance I will see him while looking for the others even though the device does not detect him. It is not necessary to compute the trajectories of all gliders in the gaggle to determine those with a collision probability. Those 500 feet above and below present no danger whatsoever. Now picture an advanced version. The device still displays "07" but it now sounds "deedle, deedle, deedle" and an LED at 8 O'clock illuminates meaning that there is a non-zero probability collision threat at that relative bearing. The "Mark 1 eyeballs" leap into action and I look over my left shoulder to see that the other glider will pass clear. Is this a "false alarm"? Not really. I really wanted to see him if he was that close. I appreciated the "heads up". The device need only compute probabilities for those targets near and closing while near the same altitude. Perhaps the problem is calling this an "Anti-Collision Device" when it is really a situational awareness aid. As for battery life, perhaps you noticed the news that a fully IFR equipped Kestral 17 flown by Gordon Boettger flew 1562 Kilometers in 11:15 from Minden, Nevada, USA to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Most of the flight was in wave above 20,000 feet. Gordon's Kestral was transponder equipped as well as carrying a lot of other electronics to operate legally in positive control airspace. Battery capacity didn't seem to be a problem. The device I'm talking about would weigh less than 200 gms and run on four AA batteries for 50+ hours. The amount of time spent looking at it will be fractions of a second and then only when critical information is displayed. Bill Daniels |
#50
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In article ,
Mike, The FLARM concept has been painfully obvious, from a technology point of view, since the introduction of low-cost GPS. In fact, it could even have been partially implemented with LORAN, but those receivers were expensive and were never widely deployed. Unfortunately, FLARM-type collision avoidance is only going to work if it's deployed to virtually all aircraft, which would require the authorities to insist on it. This won't happen: ADS-B is the chosen approach. Sort of important to this approach is "is it worth it?" and "does the solution cause more death than the problem?" Kind of like parachutes. If the added weight increases the marginal stall speed to the point it causes .001% more fatal accidents, but only saves .0092% more pilots in breakups, then it was a bad idea. Of course it's extremely unlikely anyone can prove the extra 15 pounds was the cause of fatality, right? How many added fatalities will there be because the pilot is distracted by the bleepy noise, even though the aircraft would have missed by six inches if neither pilot was aware? How many will die because of the distraction itself? This is just too hard to calculate. Huge numbers (hours of flight)multiplied by tiny estimated numbers (risk of midair) makes for a tough comparison. Now instead of risk use cost in $$$$s to implement, and the true cost vs. benefit is very difficult to estimate correctly... -- ------------+ Mark Boyd Avenal, California, USA |
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