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