At 17:13 30 October 2012, folken wrote:
On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 5:00:04 PM UTC+1, Don Johnstone wrote:

I do not disagree with you, FLARM does help, with the emphasis on help,
it

does not replace or indeed lessen the necessity for a good lookout. My

argument was contering the statement that, "The difference between
midairs

and all other cause of accidents is that it is the only type which you
can

do almost nothing to prevent it, except using flarm." which I think you

will agree is a load of total ********. FLARM can assit the aware
pilot,
it

is NOT the answer to preventing mid air collisions.

Statically it is. Midairs, once the number 1 accident cause, are now
almost
nonexistent in Switzerland, since the introduction of Flarm.

You can also assume that no pilot wants a midair collision and maintains
good look out. But there are limitations to the human senses, as stated
by
Gerhard.

We have to stop threating the glider pilot as a luminous all seeing
perfect
elite being. (paron the pun.) We make mistakes. Hundreds each flight. In
fact its a human quality to err.

Yes it helps, it does not provide the answer as the statement to which I
objected intimated it might. The only solution is better lookout and
bettter situational awareness however THAT can be achieved, not replacing
them with technology.

In answer to the assertion that mid-air collisions in Switzerland have been
eradicated, mid air collisions are very very rare and relying on statistics
with such a small sample is futile. As I recall the only mid air I can
recall in Switzerland over recent year was between two FLARM equipped
gliders, go figure.

Here is where technology helps. It maintains its constant SA and fills in
our human attention gaps.

- Folken