No FLARM log equals Unsafe Operation? (USA)

Pilots who have participated in a recent SSA Sanctioned contest are
being polled in an attempt to persuade the rules committee to adopt a
MIRA (Mandatory if Rentals Available) rule for 2011 SSA sanctioned
contests.

The proposed rule will require all contestants to submit, after each
contest flight, a FLARM log that shows the unit was operational and
calls for application of rule 12.2.5.1 if a log is not produced.

Rule 12.2.5.1 deals with unsafe operation and has a maximum penalty of
disqualification from the contest. It is my understanding that this
rule is intended to address unsafe actions by a pilot. Unless the
FLARM log is not available because the pilot deliberately chose not to
fly with an enabled FLARM, then linking this rule to FLARM is
inappropriate.

Any proposed rule that seeks to make use of FLARM mandatory must also
consider carefully what happens if a contestant's FLARM fails after
the contest has started.

What happens if a FLARM fails in flight and a complete post flight
FLARM log cannot be produced. Will the contestant's flight be invalid?

Will a person suffering a failure of an owned or rented FLARM be able
to continue participation in the contest after a FLARM failure?

Will there be spare FLARM units available at the contest site? If so
will this spares pool be available to owners with failed units or be
restricted to current renters.

In addition the following needs to be addressed:

What happens if the number of contest entrants exceeds the number of
available rental units? Perhaps 2 possible answers - 1. MIRA no longer
applies, or 2. Late rental applicants are denied contest entry.

Please note that I am not anti FLARM. I am also not against a
transition to mandatory use in SSA sanctioned contests. What I am
opposed to is rushing into implementing rules that have not been
subject to the normal rules making process.

Andy (GY)

On 10/10/2010 9:03 AM, Andy wrote:
Pilots who have participated in a recent SSA Sanctioned contest are
being polled in an attempt to persuade the rules committee to adopt a
MIRA (Mandatory if Rentals Available) rule for 2011 SSA sanctioned
contests.

The proposed rule will require all contestants to submit, after each
contest flight, a FLARM log that shows the unit was operational and
calls for application of rule 12.2.5.1 if a log is not produced.

Rule 12.2.5.1 deals with unsafe operation and has a maximum penalty of
disqualification from the contest. It is my understanding that this
rule is intended to address unsafe actions by a pilot. Unless the
FLARM log is not available because the pilot deliberately chose not to
fly with an enabled FLARM, then linking this rule to FLARM is
inappropriate.

Any proposed rule that seeks to make use of FLARM mandatory must also
consider carefully what happens if a contestant's FLARM fails after
the contest has started.

What happens if a FLARM fails in flight and a complete post flight
FLARM log cannot be produced. Will the contestant's flight be invalid?

Will a person suffering a failure of an owned or rented FLARM be able
to continue participation in the contest after a FLARM failure?

Will there be spare FLARM units available at the contest site? If so
will this spares pool be available to owners with failed units or be
restricted to current renters.

In addition the following needs to be addressed:

What happens if the number of contest entrants exceeds the number of
available rental units? Perhaps 2 possible answers - 1. MIRA no longer
applies, or 2. Late rental applicants are denied contest entry.

Please note that I am not anti FLARM. I am also not against a
transition to mandatory use in SSA sanctioned contests. What I am
opposed to is rushing into implementing rules that have not been
subject to the normal rules making process.

Andy (GY)
Isn't it putting the cart before the horse to mandate the use of
equipment that has not yet been FCC approved and which is not yet
commercially available?

--
Mike Schumann

On Oct 10, 8:51*am, Mike Schumann
wrote:

Isn't it putting the cart before the horse to mandate the use of
equipment that has not yet been FCC approved and which is not yet
commercially available?

The proposed rule has flaws but that is not one of them. How could
rentals be available if FLARM is not FCC approved and in production?

Andy

On Oct 11, 3:03*am, Andy wrote:
Pilots who have participated in a recent SSA Sanctioned contest are
being polled in an attempt to persuade the rules committee to adopt a
MIRA (Mandatory if Rentals Available) rule for 2011 SSA sanctioned
contests.

The proposed rule will require all contestants to submit, after each
contest flight, a FLARM log that shows the unit was operational and
calls for application of rule 12.2.5.1 if a log is not produced.

Rule 12.2.5.1 deals with unsafe operation and has a maximum penalty of
disqualification from the contest. *It is my understanding that this
rule is intended to address unsafe actions by a pilot. *Unless the
FLARM log is not available because the pilot deliberately chose not to
fly with an enabled FLARM, then linking this rule to FLARM is
inappropriate.

Any proposed rule that seeks to make use of FLARM mandatory must also
consider carefully what happens if a contestant's FLARM fails after
the contest has started.

What happens if a FLARM fails in flight and a complete post flight
FLARM log cannot be produced. Will the contestant's flight be invalid?

A FLARM is a radio and needs the aerial positioned in a good place to
work correctly. This is tricky in a carbon glider. The performance of
FLARM varies widely depending on the aerial. What level of performance
is going to be acceptable? How will it be tested? If the only test is
the nice radio range analysis on the FLARM website, how will a US
pilot find a gaggle of FLARM equiped gliders to fly with to generate a
suitable log before the contest? This is even harder for the renter.

Making FLARM mandatory will be a can of worms.

Phil Plane

Not quite sure where this thread is leading, a Flarm unit can give a flight
log valid for competitions, badges or world records, if the logging
function fails then the flight does not count. As far as I am aware it
does not record any alerts or data received from other gliders, in the UK
a flarm should be set to "stealth" mode and not get other data in
competitions.
In my own experience Flarm is useful for general cross country flying and
will pick up many gliders that you have not seen wether they are a threat
or not. As for competitions, if you are in a gaggle with 20 others you
are going to get so many returns and full alerts that it can be a real
distraction and any avoiding reaction could put you in conflict with
others. A well tuned MK1 eyeball is probably more useful in a gaggle, but
flarm is very good at picking up gliders coming toward you at speed, you
will get 2 or 3 km warning maybe 20 seconds.
Verdict, a useful bit of kit but in close company with several others
your eyes and instinctive reactions are going to be much better






At 14:03 10 October 2010, Andy wrote:
Pilots who have participated in a recent SSA Sanctioned contest are
being polled in an attempt to persuade the rules committee to adopt a
MIRA (Mandatory if Rentals Available) rule for 2011 SSA sanctioned
contests.

The proposed rule will require all contestants to submit, after each
contest flight, a FLARM log that shows the unit was operational and
calls for application of rule 12.2.5.1 if a log is not produced.

Rule 12.2.5.1 deals with unsafe operation and has a maximum penalty of
disqualification from the contest. It is my understanding that this
rule is intended to address unsafe actions by a pilot. Unless the
FLARM log is not available because the pilot deliberately chose not to
fly with an enabled FLARM, then linking this rule to FLARM is
inappropriate.

Any proposed rule that seeks to make use of FLARM mandatory must also
consider carefully what happens if a contestant's FLARM fails after
the contest has started.

What happens if a FLARM fails in flight and a complete post flight
FLARM log cannot be produced. Will the contestant's flight be invalid?

Will a person suffering a failure of an owned or rented FLARM be able
to continue participation in the contest after a FLARM failure?

Will there be spare FLARM units available at the contest site? If so
will this spares pool be available to owners with failed units or be
restricted to current renters.

In addition the following needs to be addressed:

What happens if the number of contest entrants exceeds the number of
available rental units? Perhaps 2 possible answers - 1. MIRA no longer
applies, or 2. Late rental applicants are denied contest entry.

Please note that I am not anti FLARM. I am also not against a
transition to mandatory use in SSA sanctioned contests. What I am
opposed to is rushing into implementing rules that have not been
subject to the normal rules making process.

Andy (GY)

I agree that making rules in the US is premature for PowerFlarm. The
box isn't even available yet and it is possible there may still be
some techincal or production issues that need to be resolved.

I would be for some voluntary trials at contests. I agree discussion
of the issues future rules may need to address are good. But 2011 is
to early to even consider a rule requiring something that isn't yet
available and is untested in the field.

Yes I understand it is used in Europe with great success and I hope
the US version is as successful, but until we have units in the field
and in use we won't know for sure.

Brian

On Oct 10, 2:22*pm, David Smith wrote:

if the logging function fails then the flight does not count.

That should only be true if FLARM was the only recorder. The proposed
rule appears to require a complete FLARM log as proof that the FLARM
was operational for the entire flight duration. The fact that
another logger independently validated the contest flight is not
sufficient.

Andy

Phil wrote: "A FLARM is a radio and needs the aerial positioned in a
good place to work correctly. This is tricky in a carbon glider. The
performance of FLARM varies widely depending on the
aerial. . . ." [snip]

For the benefit of those who may not know, a Flarm unit uses two
aerials. One is a GPS receiving aerial. If this is positioned so that
it receives GPS signals, the Flarm will record GPS positions and
produce a log, AIUI. This will be regardless of whether the other
aerial is present, and/or operative. The Flarm GPS aerial may,
however, need careful positioning to avoid interference with other GPS
units. The one that came with my (basic Swiss Flarm) unit is on a long
lead, and I was able to position it on the head rest, immediately
under the canopy where it gets good view of the sky. There is no
problem with this location in my carbon fibre (Lak 17A) glider.

The other aerial is for Flarm to Flarm communication. It is attached
to the top of my Flarm unit, though I believe a remote aerial and fly
lead is available if required. This is the one that seems more of a
problem in a carbon fibre glider, because if positioned on top of the
instrument panel as mine is, it can fail to pick up signals from
gliders below, and I suspect it has limited range of gliders on the
same level in some directions where they are partly masked by the
fuselage. This, however, should have no effect whatsoever on the GPS
logging capability.

Hope this helps to inform those discussing the issues on this thread.

Chris N

On Oct 10, 2:40*pm, Andy wrote:
On Oct 10, 2:22*pm, David Smith wrote:

if the logging function fails then the flight does not count.

That should only be true if FLARM was the only recorder. *The proposed
rule appears to require a complete FLARM log as proof that the FLARM
was operational for the entire flight duration. * The fact that
another logger independently validated the contest flight is not
sufficient.

Andy

Andy,

The rule as discussed is to address proof of the mode the unit was
operating in during the flight. It must be in Competition mode so as
to not provide an unfair advantage to the pilot.

John Good made a presentation at the New Castle regionals (US reg 4 S)
that was quite comprehensive. I hope that he can make the entire
pitch public so everybody will understand the capabilities of the
Powerflarm.

On Oct 10, 4:39*pm, Paul Cordell wrote:

The rule as discussed is to address proof of the mode the unit was
operating in during the flight. *It must be in Competition mode so as
to not provide an unfair advantage to the pilot.

Yes Paul that's clear. What is not clear is the consequence of not
being able to prove that FLARM was operating during the flight.

Do you believe that a competitor should be disqualified from a contest
because his FLARM failed to produce a log?

Do you believe that a contestant should be disqualified from a contest
because his FLARM failed?

No other US contest rule so harshly penalizes a contestant for an
event outside his control.

Andy