On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 1:32:09 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 1:19:41 PM UTC-8, jfitch wrote:


Now I will pre-empt the responses about head down time. I consider the Butterfly and other dedicated Flarm displays to be quite deficient for tactical, situational, and collision avoidance use. I don't have one. Flarm targets appear on the moving map tactical display at all times, and are emphasized on that display if the get close. A one second glance is more than enough to evaluate the whole fleet. The vario has voice warnings for collision threats of both gliders and GA aircraft. It does not add to heads down time.

What map display and vario are you using?

I am using an Air Avionics (Butterfly) vario which does very nice, clear voice warnings for Flarm (also gear, spoilers, and other warnings). I have used Winpilot and XCSoar (which also show targets) but for the last year or two I have been using iGlide. It shows Flarm targets with on-screen emphasis when they turn into warnings. It has some other nice features which will no doubt add to the paranoia: any target can be marked with a color, it retains that color throughout the flight whenever contacted. So my primary leach target can be red, secondary yellow, third blue, etc. Nearly zero head down time IDing them. One target can be set up so all of his/her data shows up in nav boxes (these are very easily navigated in iGlide) so constant large display of altitude, heading, climb rate, etc. Further, you can display the tracks of all Flarm targets, for example to match your thermalling circle with a leeching target.

Despite all that - at least here in the west - this will not allow you to stick to a better pilot. The climb rate reported for your target is wildly off. If you match his circle from below you will not be in the best lift. If you deviate more than a few hundred yards to a perceived better climb more likely than not you will not find it. It is just as Andy says. Don't know east coast flying so maybe it would work better there.

The main speed advantage I get from it is that you can see pilots pass you and get further and further ahead. This reminds me to push a little harder - but do my own thing.