At 15:21 26 October 2010, John Smith wrote:
Mark Dickson wrote:
When in a large gaggle Flarm is next to useless,
more of a distraction;
that's why it has a 5 minute mute function. In the
big gaggle ignore
Flarm and keep your eyes scanning outside.

Let me guess: You haven't ever flown with FLARM
yet, have you?


I fly with Flarm (admittedly just one competition so
far, quite a bit of general cross-country) and find in
large gaggles I'm too busy looking at the other
gliders to notice it. If you get a ping you've hopefully
already noted the hazard and have started to react to
it. I don't use mute, I just mentally tune it out. It
certainly doesn't contribute much to situational
awareness in that situation.

It's only really useful in my experience for warning
you about the glider you haven't seen, probably
because you don't expect him to be there. For
instance, you're on cross-country on your own, miles
from any gliding site and someone else turns up in
your thermal. Unlike in a competition, this could be
from any direction. Or (this has happened to me),
you're on final glide near cloud base to an airfield to
the south, and someone else is on a final glide to a
different airfield to the north, both following the same
energy line. Another one is in wave, working close to
the leading edge of the cloud.

You can tell people who haven't flown with Flarm-
they're the ones who don't think they need it.