Saturday practice at Hobbs NM

On 6/21/2011 7:15 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 6/21/2011 1:56 PM, Mike Schumann wrote:


The reality is that FLARM, ADS-B, or any other GPS based technology is
useless in collision avoidance at close quarters. At the very best, the
position accuracy is only 50 ft and is only updated once a second.
Flying at 50 knots, you are traveling ~70 ft / second, so a lot can
happen between updates.

These systems are great in warning you about aircraft in your area that
you might otherwise not be aware of, and to give you an overview of how
many aircraft are in a particular gaggle and their relative altitudes,
but you absolutely can't rely on them for collision avoidance in a
thermal.

Is this conclusion based, at least in part, on your personal use of
FLARM in several contests?


I have not flown with FLARM, nor do I fly in contests. I did not mean
to imply that FLARM is not helpful in alerting you to targets that you
might not have otherwise seen. My point is that you can not rely on
FLARM at close quarters in lieu of keeping a good lookout and making
sure that you always keep in visual contact with any other gliders that
are close to you.

--
Mike Schumann