You're not testing the right hypothesis. Leeching isn't a good way of beating the top guy for the day. Done by a good pilot, however, it CAN be a way to place very high overall in contests and occasionally to win one. Veteran pilots from the 70s and 80s are aware of one and possibly two cases where competent pilots leeched outrageously and managed to finish atop the leader board at national contests. No, I'm not going to name names.

But those are exceptions. More typically, winners don't leech. They often, however, fly in the company of others, leading out when it's their turn or when they think they have a better idea (hint: leeches NEVER lead out). P3 has it right: "Will it drastically alter outcomes at the top? Not likely. Will it further compress the middle? Probably."

In the old days (i.e., after several generations of composite gliders and the Soaring Symposia eliminated significant differences in aircraft performance and tactics), leeching diligently was like true love, demanding total devotion. That translated to following a top pilot...closely...with unerring focus...doing everything the leader did...making few if any other decisions. It's not easy, as one poster admitted here. Back then it required a lot of concentration and good stick-and-rudder and thermaling skills to stay close. The commitment to doing everything the leader did was so total before GPS that there were cases of leeches following top competitors off course, sometimes for many miles, before the leading pilot realized his/her navigation mistake and--minnow pack in tow--scrambled to recover.

So quit arguing about whether FLARM facilitates leeching (it does) or whether leeching offers an advantage. History has shown that leeching is a way for clever pilots who don't have the confidence of their own decisions to place higher than they otherwise might be able to. I agree that's a skill in itself but it's not one we want to measure, in my opinion.

Those of us who aren't privileged to fly in the pure, uncontaminated, apparently oxygen-deprived air of the Western deserts know that falling more a circle or two behind someone on a hazy summer day means you've lost your tow visually. So if leeching is your game, open FLARM is the answer to your anxious prayers.

And, yes, 9B has raised one point that no one has mentioned but has been on my mind; i.e., Stealth mode facilitates leeching, too. I agree most of the help you get from leeching is close range: i.e., within Stealth range. Yeah, we should be able to see that far but pilots don't always. That said, P3 makes an excellent point that there can be tactical advantages to knowing which way the gaggle went a few miles ahead of you. And as he says, the advantage may well be greater here in the East with lower height bands and often worse viz.

Is leeching a "huge" problem anymore? No, but probably only because we're not filling up 65-glider fields at national contests. If you didn't fly during those days, during the the "plague of leeches" in the '70s and 80s, you really can't speak to this.

As for FLARM's public position on Stealth, sadly can you honestly imagine ANYONE in the corporate world NOT putting out a CYA message like the one that's been trumpeted here several times? Especially if you're in Europe looking fearfully at America's penchant for encouraging the lawsuit lottery whenever anything goes wrong and no matter whose "fault" it is? Get real. I'm surprised that FLARM is even being marketed in the U.S. How long will it take after the first FLARM-to-FLARM collision for lawyers to persuade a shattered widow that her husband died because his FLARM was defective? And it won't matter whether Stealth was involved or not.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.