Flying a regionals competition last week in the UK, with my regular Flarm in open mode, even with my bat eyes I spotted gaggles or single thermalling gliders before Flarm told me about them. The best help I had was one day when I had a friend with eagle eyes in the back seat. And yet I believe that I was visible to ground tracking stations most of the time.

The main lesson that I draw from this discussion is that we Europeans should be upgrading to Powerflarm!

But from a flight safety POV I am quite happy not to be told about traffic beyond 2 km or 300 m from my position; that is the way it is for me at the moment anyway and seems appropriate for a competition.

However I don't like the idea of relative altitude being displayed with noise even if another glider is quite close. I want to be able to visually locate a closer glider as quickly as possible.