RC madness

On Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 1:22:32 PM UTC-5, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
From Rules Committee:

"This is where we are as of today for 2016 FLARM-related rules that will be recommended to the SSA BOD (note that rules are proposed by the RC and approved by the SSA BOD - this year at the Greenville convention):

1. For National Contests:
* Organizers may request a waiver to require the use of FLARM, otherwise carrying a FLARM is at the pilots' option
* Regardless of whether a FLARM is mandatory or optional in a National Contest, if a FLARM is used it must be operated in Competition (i.e. the expected derivative of the current Stealth mode)"


I simply can not believe that RC would propose to use technology that does not exist. You have no clue what it takes to create and test software.

You guys would not survive in a corporate world a month.

Thank God, there is SSA BOD to stop this madness. It would have been a different story if the technology already existed and it was proven and field tested.

Have a Marry Christmas, Andrzej

Merry Christmas

It seems to me pretty ironic that it is the Europeans who are moaning about Flarm and supposed leeching. Yet Flarm is a European invention designed to help avoid midairs and Flarm warns (as has been re reported here) stealth mode seriously reduces the efficiency of Flarm for all other users. Note too that in Europe the gliding rules (IGC) positively encourage leeching, the gaggles there are monstrous. It is only with exceptional exceptions (that blog from the Brit winner of the recent world juniors eg) that deliberately flying anti-gaggle works. But also note from that blog just how much tactical support the pilots got from other team members, who sacrificed their own last day's flying for the team, and ground watchers and advisors -- and that messages had to be increasingly coded to stop others leeching off the advice.
PS: I flew with Flarm here at Moriarty and at Nephi and still am amazed at the input it gave me. It showed me where gliders were a hell of a way from where I could possibly see them by eyeball and in one instance near the start one glider that "just appeared out of nowhere" but in time for me to move course. If I was going to Nephi this year I would be lobbying all and every person with any influence that this was another case where the US should tell the Euros to go play with themselves and leave us the hell alone to do the sensible thing. So there. And yes I am a former Brit.


On Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 11:22:32 AM UTC-7, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
From Rules Committee:

"This is where we are as of today for 2016 FLARM-related rules that will be recommended to the SSA BOD (note that rules are proposed by the RC and approved by the SSA BOD - this year at the Greenville convention):

1. For National Contests:
* Organizers may request a waiver to require the use of FLARM, otherwise carrying a FLARM is at the pilots' option
* Regardless of whether a FLARM is mandatory or optional in a National Contest, if a FLARM is used it must be operated in Competition (i.e. the expected derivative of the current Stealth mode)"


I simply can not believe that RC would propose to use technology that does not exist. You have no clue what it takes to create and test software.

You guys would not survive in a corporate world a month.

Thank God, there is SSA BOD to stop this madness. It would have been a different story if the technology already existed and it was proven and field tested.

Have a Marry Christmas, Andrzej

On Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 10:22:32 AM UTC-8, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
From Rules Committee:

"This is where we are as of today for 2016 FLARM-related rules that will be recommended to the SSA BOD (note that rules are proposed by the RC and approved by the SSA BOD - this year at the Greenville convention):

1. For National Contests:
* Organizers may request a waiver to require the use of FLARM, otherwise carrying a FLARM is at the pilots' option
* Regardless of whether a FLARM is mandatory or optional in a National Contest, if a FLARM is used it must be operated in Competition (i.e. the expected derivative of the current Stealth mode)"


I simply can not believe that RC would propose to use technology that does not exist. You have no clue what it takes to create and test software.

You guys would not survive in a corporate world a month.

Thank God, there is SSA BOD to stop this madness. It would have been a different story if the technology already existed and it was proven and field tested.

Have a Marry Christmas, Andrzej

Oh it's going to get interesting if the FAA mandates TABS devices for gliders (which means those equipped with TABS will be transmitting 1090ES Out position data). Even if the airspace involved in the contest may not require TABS carriage (we'll see what happens above 10,000') I'd expect "if installed must use" regulations similar to transponder regulations today. And PowerFLARM will be able to see them at further distances than just FLARM signals. So does PowerFLARM get modified to degrade inbound ADS-B signals? Require removal of the PowerFLARM ADS-B receiver antenna? Gliders inspected for hidden antennas? Going to strip search glider pilots for a USB stick size 1090ES receiver? Who wants to assume the liability risk there with a collision with a non-glider?

I suspect the cat is out the bag and shoving it back in is not so easy.

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.

On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 4:16:22 PM UTC-8, wrote:
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.

It's generally the exception, not the rule - particularly these days when we never call ATs (chumming the water for Sean Fidler)


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."

The essential point here is that regardless of larger tactical decisions, if you want to keep up with somebody you are best off following really, really close - the further back you are the more likely you are going to miss the bubble and get dropped. The other essential point is all the guys in the middle of the pack are the ones who oppose Flarm in large proportions - who are we to tell them their preferences are irrelevant? Why do they like unfiltered Flarm? Perhaps because they think they might over time learn something from seeing what other guys do - even if they do get dropped most of the time. I have asked a lot of pilots new to racing why they don't fly more (or any) contests and one of the more prominent answers is they can't see a path to getting even reasonably competitive. To them, stealth is the kids in the tree fort pulling up the rope ladder.


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.

Not going to quit - sorry. I love you man, but I disagree and I'm the only one with facts instead of beliefs so you should quit (also, I have the flying spaghetti monster on my side).

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.

I did - I started in 1979 IIRC.


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.


I'm not a lawyer but I suspect in torts there is a difference between not installing some expensive piece of equipment that could potentially help avoid collisions and deliberately deciding to disable part of its functionality. I think it could make a big difference in legal proceedings - particularly with a relatively weak rationale on the motive to do it. This certainly factored into my decision to vote agains this.

9B

Thought the "RC madness" thread would have a link to a crazy Radio Controlled glider contest or DS video.
Jim

At 04:47 22 December 2015, JS wrote:
Thought the "RC madness" thread would have a link to a crazy Radio
Controlled glider contest or DS video.
Jim


Me too, seeing that the FAA has just mandated that RC Soaring Pilots must
now register themselves and their sailplanes in a national database.

At 04:47 22 December 2015, JS wrote:
Thought the "RC madness" thread would have a link to a crazy Radio
Controlled glider contest or DS video.
Jim


Me too, seeing that the FAA has just mandated that RC Soaring Pilots must
now register themselves and their sailplanes in a national database.

On Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 2:15:06 AM UTC-5, Mike C wrote:
At 04:47 22 December 2015, JS wrote:
Thought the "RC madness" thread would have a link to a crazy Radio
Controlled glider contest or DS video.
Jim


Me too, seeing that the FAA has just mandated that RC Soaring Pilots must
now register themselves and their sailplanes in a national database.

Are you sure this is not limited to drones?
Model airplanes have been flown under an operating agreement between the FAA and AMA for decades.
Models flown under those guidelines have license numbers on them now.
Can you guide to where you got this info?
Thx
UH

On Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 12:17:14 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 2:15:06 AM UTC-5, Mike C wrote:
At 04:47 22 December 2015, JS wrote:
Thought the "RC madness" thread would have a link to a crazy Radio
Controlled glider contest or DS video.
Jim


Me too, seeing that the FAA has just mandated that RC Soaring Pilots must
now register themselves and their sailplanes in a national database.

Are you sure this is not limited to drones?
Model airplanes have been flown under an operating agreement between the FAA and AMA for decades.
Models flown under those guidelines have license numbers on them now.
Can you guide to where you got this info?
Thx
UH

effective yesterday - https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/