On Wednesday, May 29, 2013 12:09:09 PM UTC-4, Richard wrote:
On Wednesday, May 29, 2013 4:11:35 AM UTC-7, Evan Ludeman wrote: On Wednesday, May 29, 2013 5:53:34 AM UTC-4, wrote: Steve, The holy grail of glider technology is the ability to read the strength of thermals at a distance. So far, accomplishing that has evaded all those who have tried. PowerFlarm offers the best hope for doing just that on a limited scale when there are other gliders in a cooperating network. If you want to view that as a leeching tool, so be it. Glider racing is inherently a cooperating process. This holy grail has been working for decades already: Look out and see how fast the others climb. If they're up faster than yourself, join them. Works for me (well, on a moderate scale proportional to my training level). Having my eyes inside the cockpit and trying to match little dots with associated numbers on a display with gliders out there does not help particularly. Neither does it improve safety. WRT Stealth mode: I reiterate, we do *not* recommend it. Neither does it make you intrackable. What it does: It removes some information: Ground speed, track and in particular, vertical speed. It also 'obfuscates' altitude by adding some random numbers. Best --Gerhard (FLARM dev mgr) Thanks for clearing this up Gerhard. I was under the impression that the position reporting (or lack of) was a bit more symmetric in stealth mode.... and I would strongly encourage you to make it so. It may seem silly in Europe, but US racing puts a premium on independent action. (Speaking to Steve' point) The day that Pez D. Spencer can plot thermal strength and location via flarm data at 6 miles or more is not one I personally look forward to. That's no more "holy grail" to competition soaring than "Guitar Hero" is to performance music. The hope here is that "lone wolf" US competitors will see enough value in stealth mode used *voluntarily* that we won't see either a drop in racing participation or a push for mandatory stealth mode. Best, Evan Ludeman / T8 I would have to say that some racing pilot feel as Evan does but not all nor do I believe a majority. So: I have said this before put it on the pilot opinion poll as see what shakes out. Richard.

The RC took to position of strongly encouraging the voluntary implementation of Flarm in the contest community. The sporting considerations like those mentioned in this thread were well known and anticipated. It was agreed that at some point after Flarm is well accepted, that these issues could, and would be raised. Part of the logic in this was that real world experience is a much better guide to decision making than speculation.
It is technically possible and practical, occording to Flarm representatives, to create a version that removes the avilablity of much tactical information,such as climb rates, and the ability to export such information to external devices, while preserving the anti collision aspects. It is also possible to do so such that this can be locked in for the period of a contest such that no monitoring other than a one time check would be required. This was described during our exchages as "US Stealth".
There will need to be a considerable amount of discussion on this and very well written, balanced poll questions for the RC to determine the path forward for US competition.
UH - Former RC member and Chair