ADS-B equiped glider in USA Contests.

[Richard Pfiffner[_2_]]

What will the rules committee will have to say now that we can see ADS-B equiped gliders and their data on PowerFlarm at 20 to 30 NM.

Richard

[Darryl Ramm]

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 4:43:03 PM UTC-8, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
> What will the rules committee will have to say now that we can see ADS-B equiped gliders and their data on PowerFlarm at 20 to 30 NM.
>
> Richard

Or at 50 or more miles...

14 CFR 91.225 requires an aircraft with ADS-B Out installed to operate it at all times. So...

[[email protected]]

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 6:50:16 PM UTC-6, Darryl Ramm wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 4:43:03 PM UTC-8, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
> > What will the rules committee will have to say now that we can see ADS-B equiped gliders and their data on PowerFlarm at 20 to 30 NM.
> >
> > Richard
>
> Or at 50 or more miles...
>
> 14 CFR 91.225 requires an aircraft with ADS-B Out installed to operate it at all times. So...

And does that only apply to certified gliders...

The requirements of paragraph (b) of this section do not apply to any aircraft that was not originally certificated with an electrical system, or that has not subsequently been certified with such a system installed, including balloons and gliders.

[[email protected]]

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 5:43:03 PM UTC-7, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
> What will the rules committee will have to say now that we can see ADS-B equiped gliders and their data on PowerFlarm at 20 to 30 NM.
>
> Richard

The RC has been aware of the capabilities of ADS-B for as long as I can recall. If you go back and read some of the RC Meeting minutes over the past 5-6 years you will find regular discussion of ADS-B capabilities along with topics like Flarm and Flarm Stealth or Competition modes. The current posture of the RC is to be very cautious about restrictions on technology - this is particularly true about FAA mandated or regulated safety equipment.

Certainly there is lots of discussion across the global soaring community about how technology may be used tactically in competition at what that might mean for the fairness and enjoyment of glider racing. Speaking personally, I'd be very wary about attempting to restrict information available to pilots - particularly when that information overlaps with what might be relevant to safety of flight.

Lastly, I'd argue (my personal view, not a formal position of the RC), that the primary tactical usefulness of position, altitude or rate of climb information is over distance and time horizons that could be taken advantage of by a competitor. For the most part that is at distances of less than 10 miles, or around the limit of Flarm today. The existence of ADS-B, therefore, makes the idea of banning Flarm or mandating Stealth mode less likely, but in and of itself doesn't confer much in the way of new useful information.. Put another way, I probably don't care that much to know that you found a great thermal 30-50 miles from my position. It might make some marginal difference in knowing where the pack is going on a sketchy day, but I'm not sure I see that as a big deal or necessarily a bad thing if it reduces handouts. The bigger competitive issue globally is about mass gaggles and close-in leeching. That's only partially a technology problem. Start procedures and scoring formulae also figure prominently,

King Canute tried to order the tide not to rise. It didn't work out.

Andy Blackburn
9B
Chair, SSA Competition Rules Committee

(Opinions expressed here are my own)

[Darryl Ramm]

On Wednesday, January 30, 2019 at 1:05:48 PM UTC-8, wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 5:43:03 PM UTC-7, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
> > What will the rules committee will have to say now that we can see ADS-B equiped gliders and their data on PowerFlarm at 20 to 30 NM.
> >
> > Richard
>
> The RC has been aware of the capabilities of ADS-B for as long as I can recall. If you go back and read some of the RC Meeting minutes over the past 5-6 years you will find regular discussion of ADS-B capabilities along with topics like Flarm and Flarm Stealth or Competition modes. The current posture of the RC is to be very cautious about restrictions on technology - this is particularly true about FAA mandated or regulated safety equipment.
>
> Certainly there is lots of discussion across the global soaring community about how technology may be used tactically in competition at what that might mean for the fairness and enjoyment of glider racing. Speaking personally, I'd be very wary about attempting to restrict information available to pilots - particularly when that information overlaps with what might be relevant to safety of flight.
>
> Lastly, I'd argue (my personal view, not a formal position of the RC), that the primary tactical usefulness of position, altitude or rate of climb information is over distance and time horizons that could be taken advantage of by a competitor. For the most part that is at distances of less than 10 miles, or around the limit of Flarm today. The existence of ADS-B, therefore, makes the idea of banning Flarm or mandating Stealth mode less likely, but in and of itself doesn't confer much in the way of new useful information. Put another way, I probably don't care that much to know that you found a great thermal 30-50 miles from my position. It might make some marginal difference in knowing where the pack is going on a sketchy day, but I'm not sure I see that as a big deal or necessarily a bad thing if it reduces handouts. The bigger competitive issue globally is about mass gaggles and close-in leeching. That's only partially a technology problem. Start procedures and scoring formulae also figure prominently,
>
> King Canute tried to order the tide not to rise. It didn't work out.
>
> Andy Blackburn
> 9B
> Chair, SSA Competition Rules Committee
>
> (Opinions expressed here are my own)

Nice answer Andy.

Amusingly I did hear second-hand reports that seeing an ADS-B Out equipped glider at great distance via PowerFLARM 1090ES-in was annoying some pilots in contest situations. I have no clue why, maybe it was their display showing targets at the edge of the display and the range was unclear or was it frustration that the other aircraft was so far ahead, or just climbing better?

But hey if having ADS-B Out annoys other contest pilots it may be a great competition ploy :-) Folks with Trig transponder today that "annoying gizmo" only costs you a few hundred dollars (but please, if you do this, for overall safety do a TABS or 2020 Compliant install, not any old NMEA GPS driving the Trig transponder).

[Ramy[_2_]]

The reality is that the increasing number of ADSB aircrafts nowadays will literally clutter your screen and audio alerts if you don’t reduce the range to something like 5 miles and 1000 feet altitude range so you only get alerts from aircrafts in the vicinity. At least when flying near the Bay Area I found I have to limit the ADSB range, so no much of improved range over flarm.

Ramy

[Dan Marotta]

What Ramy says.Â* I've got the alert ranges turned down on my Flarm. Why
bother with distant traffic?Â* I haven't done that on my iPad yet in the
C-180 and the screen gets really cluttered around airports.

I have to take care of that...

On 2/2/2019 6:46 PM, Ramy wrote:
> The reality is that the increasing number of ADSB aircrafts nowadays will literally clutter your screen and audio alerts if you don’t reduce the range to something like 5 miles and 1000 feet altitude range so you only get alerts from aircrafts in the vicinity. At least when flying near the Bay Area I found I have to limit the ADSB range, so no much of improved range over flarm.
>
> Ramy

--
Dan, 5J

[[email protected]]

On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 7:46:19 PM UTC-6, Ramy wrote:
> The reality is that the increasing number of ADSB aircrafts nowadays will literally clutter your screen and audio alerts if you don’t reduce the range to something like 5 miles and 1000 feet altitude range so you only get alerts from aircrafts in the vicinity. At least when flying near the Bay Area I found I have to limit the ADSB range, so no much of improved range over flarm.
>
> Ramy

A related question: When towing behind Keith E.'s 182 at Parowan my PFLarm sounded a new and totally annoying alarm. It turned out to be the ADS-B out signal from that towplane. While I could silence the alarm by pushing the appropriate button, it came back after a minute or so. How are we going to deal with that when in a busy thermal with 10 other ADS-B out transmitting gliders?
Herb

[son_of_flubber]

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 11:06:22 AM UTC-5, wrote:
>...When towing behind Keith E.'s 182 at Parowan my PFLarm sounded a new and totally annoying alarm. It turned out to be the ADS-B out signal from that towplane. While I could silence the alarm by pushing the appropriate button, it came back after a minute or so. How are we going to deal with that when in a busy thermal with 10 other ADS-B out transmitting gliders?

Doesn't Powerflarm filter out the spurious ADS-B proximity warnings when BOTH aircraft have Powerflarm (and 1+ aircraft have ADS-B-out)?

[JS[_5_]]

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 8:41:53 AM UTC-8, son_of_flubber wrote:
> On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 11:06:22 AM UTC-5, wrote:
> >...When towing behind Keith E.'s 182 at Parowan my PFLarm sounded a new and totally annoying alarm. It turned out to be the ADS-B out signal from that towplane. While I could silence the alarm by pushing the appropriate button, it came back after a minute or so. How are we going to deal with that when in a busy thermal with 10 other ADS-B out transmitting gliders?
>
> Doesn't Powerflarm filter out the spurious ADS-B proximity warnings when BOTH aircraft have Powerflarm (and 1+ aircraft have ADS-B-out)?

Yes, that would require PowerFLARM in the tow plane. ADS-B alone is quite noisy.
Jim

[Darryl Ramm]

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 10:22:17 AM UTC-8, JS wrote:
> On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 8:41:53 AM UTC-8, son_of_flubber wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 11:06:22 AM UTC-5, wrote:
> > >...When towing behind Keith E.'s 182 at Parowan my PFLarm sounded a new and totally annoying alarm. It turned out to be the ADS-B out signal from that towplane. While I could silence the alarm by pushing the appropriate button, it came back after a minute or so. How are we going to deal with that when in a busy thermal with 10 other ADS-B out transmitting gliders?
> >
> > Doesn't Powerflarm filter out the spurious ADS-B proximity warnings when BOTH aircraft have Powerflarm (and 1+ aircraft have ADS-B-out)?
>
> Yes, that would require PowerFLARM in the tow plane. ADS-B alone is quite noisy.
> Jim

Exactly. And been mentioned on r.a.s. in the past. PowerFLARM Out in the towplane if properly set up tells the other PowerFLARM units in the glider that the target is a towplane (no easy way to tell that over ADS-B), and a PowerFLARM equipped glider will deduplicate the target and use FLARM communicated data that provides better target flight path data. Not an issue for normal ADS-B GA traffic but other gliders and towplanes who will be flying close to PowerFLARM equipped gliders..... the implicit expectation is they have PowerFLARM Out.... which we don't seem to be actually installing in towplanes much in the USA. Folks putting ADS-B Out in a towplane for 2020 compliance reasons should be aware of this and thinking about adding PowerFLARM if they are towing lots of PowerFLARM equipped gliders.

[Ramy[_2_]]

I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.

Ramy

[Mike Schumann[_2_]]

On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 12:26:53 AM UTC-5, Ramy wrote:
> I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.
>
> Ramy

Are you asking them to silence all ADS-B alarms for 10 minutes, or just the N number of the tow plane? Silencing all alarms is a VERY bad idea, as there could be other GA aircraft in the area that could be a threat to the tow. A classic example is the midair over Boulder a number of years ago where a Cirrus hit a glider and/or aircraft during a tow.

[Ramy[_2_]]

Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.

Ramy

[JS[_5_]]

On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 7:18:57 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
> Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm.. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.
>
> Ramy

Ten minutes is a pretty good start! I'd prefer "permanently disable".
Towplane or other glider ADS-B (without PowerFLARM) audible alarms seem to me like the many hotel fire alarms that have gone off at 2am.
Jim

[Dan Marotta]

Can't you just turn down the volume during the tow?Â* You shouldn't be
looking inside too much at that time, anyway.

On 2/4/2019 9:43 PM, JS wrote:
> On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 7:18:57 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
>> Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.
>>
>> Ramy
> Ten minutes is a pretty good start! I'd prefer "permanently disable".
> Towplane or other glider ADS-B (without PowerFLARM) audible alarms seem to me like the many hotel fire alarms that have gone off at 2am.
> Jim

--
Dan, 5J

[John Seaborn (A8)]

Ramy, Thank you for this description. The ADS-B alarm is annoying on tow. My understanding is the warning is a result of an output from PowerFlarm to a display like LXNAV FlarmView or similar. Its the display that is doing audio annoyance. On FlarmView there is a 3 minute silence with a button push but I find when the alarm is sounding and the tug is identified as the target, I stop looking at the alarm as a real threat. The ten minute collision mute would be an improvement. Good idea to bring this up with the display manufacturers.


On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 8:18:57 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
> Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm.. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.
>
> Ramy

[Ramy[_2_]]

Dan, lowering the volume is an option but increase the chance you will forget to turn the volume back up. Also not all powerflarm displays have simple volume knob, some requires to go to the menu to reduce the volume.

Ramy

[Dan Marotta]

Well, I guess it's a problem that I'm not very familiar with, then. I've
get maybe two or three audio warnings per year and am always surprised
and gratified to hear them.Â* I suppose that's the difference between
flying around Moriarty and Reno.

I hope you find a solution that works for you.

On 2/5/2019 11:58 PM, Ramy wrote:
> Dan, lowering the volume is an option but increase the chance you will forget to turn the volume back up. Also not all powerflarm displays have simple volume knob, some requires to go to the menu to reduce the volume.
>
> Ramy

--
Dan, 5J

[[email protected]]

On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 5:43:03 PM UTC-7, Richard Pfiffner wrote:
> What will the rules committee will have to say now that we can see ADS-B equiped gliders and their data on PowerFlarm at 20 to 30 NM.
>
> Richard

The LX90xx manual describes the FLARM 'Dismiss Time' software button as programmable from 0 to 120 seconds. I'm not sure where this is programmed, but the default appears to be 1 minute. It would be nice if LX could add a 10 min Dismiss Time button; one that you could deselect would be a bonus.

Charlie

[[email protected]]

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 10:26:53 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
> I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.
>
> Ramy

The Flarm Support team is working on the problem of tow plane ADS-B continuous collision alarms while on tow. I have tested some provided Flarm beta level code late last year with good results and plan on testing further with warmer weather. Goal is to address ADS-B alarms on tow without requiring the tow plane to install a Flarm unit. Below is a comment from Flarm Tech Support (they are well aware of this problem in the US) on how alarm suppression may work.

"For now it uses a mix of parameters similar to the tow detection for FLARM.. At the moment, all ADSB targets treated as potential towing airplanes. We might have a way to improve it by using only ADSB signal with an aircraft category set to "light". However this would mean more configuration needed and we're not sure how this is handled in the US at the moment, hence the need for some real live testing. "

I have found the Flarm Support team to be extremely helpful and responsive. Hopefully we will have a solution soon.

Gary Campbell (GC)

[Dan Marotta]

Why does "in the US" matter?Â* Is this an issue only with the US version
of Flarm?Â* I'm pretty sure ADS-B is the same world wide.

On 2/11/2019 4:33 PM, wrote:
> On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 10:26:53 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
>> I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.
>>
>> Ramy
> The Flarm Support team is working on the problem of tow plane ADS-B continuous collision alarms while on tow. I have tested some provided Flarm beta level code late last year with good results and plan on testing further with warmer weather. Goal is to address ADS-B alarms on tow without requiring the tow plane to install a Flarm unit. Below is a comment from Flarm Tech Support (they are well aware of this problem in the US) on how alarm suppression may work.
>
> "For now it uses a mix of parameters similar to the tow detection for FLARM. At the moment, all ADSB targets treated as potential towing airplanes. We might have a way to improve it by using only ADSB signal with an aircraft category set to "light". However this would mean more configuration needed and we're not sure how this is handled in the US at the moment, hence the need for some real live testing."
>
> I have found the Flarm Support team to be extremely helpful and responsive. Hopefully we will have a solution soon.
>
> Gary Campbell (GC)

--
Dan, 5J

[Darryl Ramm]

Because in the USA we have 1. ADS-B Out adoption requirements that affect some towplanes and 2. Have a low-level of adoption of FLARM out in towplanes. Kind of the reverse of Europe.