GliderLink - New team soaring app for airborne location sharing

The basic misunderstanding of the differences between FLARM (and PF) and ADS-B among so many pilots is a bit scary.

FLARM is designed to prevent collisions between equipped gliders. It is optimized for short range warnings - any longer range "situational awareness" is just a side benefit. PF adds ADS-B (Mode S only, unfortunately) and Mode C/S "PCAS" warnings; again more as a side benefit (albeit a real nice one - along with the GPS and logger functions). But it is still primarily an ANTI-COLLISION tool between cooperative PF-equipped aircraft.

ADS-B is primarily an ATC tool to manage air traffic, replacing (actually, suppementing) the existing ground radar based system (SSR). While it has "situational awareness" benefits if ADS-B IN is used, that is NOT the same as ANTI-COLLISION. If you do not appreciate the subtle difference, please spend some time getting to understand the underlying technologies.

Remember, the ADS-B mandate is only for ADS-B OUT. There is no regulatory requirement for ADS-B IN, which would be required if a self contained anti-collision feature was intended. Which is why we ended up with the absurd situation of an ADS-B IN receiver not always seeing all ADS-B OUT traffic (UAT) if not paired up with an ADS-B out system.

Ideally, we would have both in gliders; Mode S ADS-B in/out to let others know we are around and get the bennies (traffic awareness, WX, etc) and FLARM to take care of the specific glider to glider collision threat.

Hopefully, TABS will evolve into something affordable and small enough for adoption by the majority of gliders that do not have transponders installed (or even electrical systems! Murica!) but as is so often stated, we are such a small market ...

Kirk