PowerFlarm BRICK range issues - are we alone????

On Oct 3, 3:47*am, Robert Fidler wrote:
I am not buying the Flarm until all these issues are resolved. I refused shipment of my ordered unit because all of these issues are not resolved. I think if people refused to purchase the unit until these issues are resolved, the factory would have the issues resolved. All I hear is the factory saying yeah we have fixed the problems and the customers coming back and stating, no, all of the problems are not fixed. Rest my case.

Come on now, this is a ridiculous attitude to have. How do you go
through life? Do you refuse to buy a car model if *any* one ever sold
has broken down? Do you refuse to buy *any* computer or software, if
it has ever had a single bug? Do you refuse to go into *any*
restaurant that's ever had even one bad review or complaint online?

The PowerFLARM system isn't perfect, and I (like many) are still
waiting for the IGC logging capability and some of the other tweaks).
But the system works perfectly fine as it is right now! Here are some
things to keep in mind:

1) FLARM is based on two-way radio signals. So the range and
performance is strongly affected by both _your_ installation _and_
your buddies' installation. In this thread here, we've heard some
details about one person's installation, but we haven't gotten
complete details on the people he's been flying with. His
installation could be _great_ but if his buddies haven't done a good
job then they'll all have "poor" performance.

Making judgements about the PowerFLARM when you only know details of
one unit/installation is like complaining about someone driving past
you at double your speed, while failing to mention that you're driving
a 3-cylinder Yugo at 45mph on a 70mph freeway. You're making
judgements while leaving out key parts of the context of the
situation!

2) FLARM IS ***NOT*** A RADAR SYSTEM. IT IS AN __ANTI-COLLISION__
SYSTEM. Sorry for shouting, but I think people's expectations here
have gotten wayyyy out of whack. You need to remember that first and
foremost, the mission of a FLARM is to protect you against a midair.
If it is performing well-enough to prevent a midair, then it is doing
its job. Yes, I'll admit that its really cool when you _can_ see
every piece of traffic at 6-8nm and make tactical decisions or find
your friends from a long ways off. But that is *not* the device's
intended function - that is a "bonus".

Now, what is acceptable mid-air collision avoidance? Your opinion may
be different from mine, but let's run the numbers on the "bad" 1.5nm
range. Let's take a worst-case-scenario of two gliders approaching
each other head-on just under cloudbase (so its realllly hard to
visually spot the other glider, and closing speed is maximized).
Let's say they're bombing along under a cloudstreet at 100mph, so the
closing-speed is 200mph. 200mph is 1 mile every 18 seconds. So at
1.5nm range you have over 25 seconds to react to a threat. STOP
reading this right now, stare at a wall, and count out 25 seconds.
I'll wait. Wow, when you count it out that's a pretty good chunk of
time, isn't it? Even IF you spend the first 5-10 seconds looking
around for the oncoming glider before you make a decision to change
your course, you'd still have enough time to make that evasive
maneuver.

Since most people are seeing traffic at least twice that distance
(~3-4nm), I'd argue the system is working acceptably and DOING ITS
JOB.

If you visually pick up on a glider before the FLARM does,
congratulations on your visual scan! This does not mean the FLARM has
failed you. FLARM is there to protect you against the gliders you
*don't* see - not the ones you do. Accident records show us that
gliders come close to one another a lot, without either pilot seeing
the other aircraft. THAT is the fundamental safety issue that FLARM
addresses.

And lastly: Not to be critical of the original poster, but why do you
need FLARM to tell you where your buddies are? Can't you call them on
the radio and ask them to report their location & altitude? Glider
pilots have been doing that for decades! Again, I'm not trying to
give the original poster a hard time; but for those who see this as a
"failure" of the FLARM system, I want to point out the fallacy of that
line of thinking.

FLARM *can* do some pretty cool things. But don't judge the system by
its "bonus" capabilities, judge it by its core mission and whether it
is succeeding at that. And from everything I've seen (including the
Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is delivering
on the promise of collision detection and alerting.

--Noel

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 9:16:11 AM UTC-7, noel.wade wrote:
On Oct 3, 3:47*am, Robert Fidler wrote:



(clip of important stuff) . . . And from everything I've seen (including the

Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is delivering

on the promise of collision detection and alerting.



--Noel

That pretty much says it. Good post.

In deciding whether to buy a PF, I asked myself how much my butt is worth. (I tend to consistently place an exhorbitantly high value on my butt - - valuing it much more than others might.) I bought two PF's, glider and Husky.

bumper

I agree with Noel. FLARM is collision warning system, and there
is no alternative for it at the moment.

When you connect FLARM with a PNA or smartphone running a
nice tactical flight computer, you can get a lot features utilizing
FLARM traffic information. What I like a lot is a possibility to
name other FLARM users. You know, some people, uh, need
mode airspace between him and me than some others ;^)
Our European FLARM systems only have one FLARM antenna.
You have two, another for additional FLARM receiver. That can
improve collision avoidance significantly, when two gliders are
flying near each others, and fuselage blocks the radio signal.

I am sure, that FLARM engineers are working full time improving
this product. This product is result of their vision, innovations
and guts to start a new business. I think what they have done is
respectable.

Before the FLARM range analysis works for you, it is difficult to
judge the real performance. One possibility might be, that you
use XCSoar and log the incoming NMEA stream from FLARM. You
can then simulate your flight to see what happened. You can
also filter the FLARM traffic signals from this text file, and see
what have been the distances when traffic has been detected.



FLARM *can* do some pretty cool things. But don't judge the
system by
its "bonus" capabilities, judge it by its core mission and
whether it
is succeeding at that. And from everything I've seen (including
the
Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is
delivering
on the promise of collision detection and alerting.

--Noel

On Oct 3, 11:45*am, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
I agree with Noel. FLARM is collision warning system, and there
is no alternative for it at the moment.

When you connect FLARM with a PNA or smartphone running a
nice tactical flight computer, you can get a lot features utilizing
FLARM traffic information. What I like a lot is a possibility to
name other FLARM users. You know, some people, uh, need
mode airspace between him and me than some others ;^)
Our European FLARM systems only have one FLARM antenna.
You have two, another for additional FLARM receiver. That can
improve collision avoidance significantly, when two gliders are
flying near each others, and fuselage blocks the radio signal.

I am sure, that FLARM engineers are working full time improving
this product. This product is result of their vision, innovations
and guts to start a new business. I think what they have done is
respectable.

Before the FLARM range analysis works for you, it is difficult to
judge the real performance. One possibility might be, that you
use XCSoar and log the incoming NMEA stream from FLARM. You
can then simulate your flight to see what happened. You can
also filter the FLARM traffic signals from this text file, and see
what have been the distances when traffic has been detected.









FLARM *can* do some pretty cool things. *But don't judge the
system by
its "bonus" capabilities, judge it by its core mission and
whether it
is succeeding at that. *And from everything I've seen (including
the
Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is
delivering
on the promise of collision detection and alerting.

--Noel

A few weeks ago my buddy and I planned on doing some PF-TO-PF in
flight testing. He has the brick with the butterfly display and I the
stand-alone unit. Well, the soaring was not to be, after he towed to a
nearby ridge I had him locked on my PNA running LK8000 and watched his
progress as he struggled in weak lift almost 8 miles away while I
waited on the ground. I thought that was pretty cool, it also was an
interesting heads up on the conditions he was working, as we could
track his progress via PF and corroborate it using our radios.

Brad

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 5:07:10 PM UTC-4, Brad wrote:
On Oct 3, 11:45*am, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:

I agree with Noel. FLARM is collision warning system, and there

is no alternative for it at the moment.



When you connect FLARM with a PNA or smartphone running a

nice tactical flight computer, you can get a lot features utilizing

FLARM traffic information. What I like a lot is a possibility to

name other FLARM users. You know, some people, uh, need

mode airspace between him and me than some others ;^)

Our European FLARM systems only have one FLARM antenna.

You have two, another for additional FLARM receiver. That can

improve collision avoidance significantly, when two gliders are

flying near each others, and fuselage blocks the radio signal.



I am sure, that FLARM engineers are working full time improving

this product. This product is result of their vision, innovations

and guts to start a new business. I think what they have done is

respectable.



Before the FLARM range analysis works for you, it is difficult to

judge the real performance. One possibility might be, that you

use XCSoar and log the incoming NMEA stream from FLARM. You

can then simulate your flight to see what happened. You can

also filter the FLARM traffic signals from this text file, and see

what have been the distances when traffic has been detected.



















FLARM *can* do some pretty cool things. *But don't judge the

system by

its "bonus" capabilities, judge it by its core mission and

whether it

is succeeding at that. *And from everything I've seen (including

the

Standard Class Nationals that I flew in this year), it is

delivering

on the promise of collision detection and alerting.



--Noel



A few weeks ago my buddy and I planned on doing some PF-TO-PF in

flight testing. He has the brick with the butterfly display and I the

stand-alone unit. Well, the soaring was not to be, after he towed to a

nearby ridge I had him locked on my PNA running LK8000 and watched his

progress as he struggled in weak lift almost 8 miles away while I

waited on the ground. I thought that was pretty cool, it also was an

interesting heads up on the conditions he was working, as we could

track his progress via PF and corroborate it using our radios.



Brad

Like Bumper, I also place an extraordinarily high value on my personal rear-end. I have had a PF portable and now have a brick, and have lived through the entire 'range issue' from the start. Even *with* the range issue, I estimate that PF has "saved" my ornery hide at least a half-dozen times so far, where "saved" means that it alerted me to an undetected imminent collision threat. The last time was two weeks ago at New Castle where I was approaching a gaggle, and concentrating on the gliders in the gaggle. Unbeknownst to me, another glider was approaching almost head-on at the same altitude. PF (with a Butterfly rectangular display) did its thing and allowed me to take evasive action (the other glider never saw me, or at least never took evasive action).

Bottom line: PF *works*! It isn't perfect, and will require improvements/refinements in due time, but it is certainly a heck of a lot better than what we had (nothing) in the past. Chris O'Callahan would almost certainly be alive today if we had gotten FLARM to the U.S. a year sooner.

For my money, FLARM should be required equipment for all nationals in 2013, and for all SSA sanctioned contests from 2014 on. Normally new rules/requirements are tried out at regionals before being adopted for nationals, but I think this is a case where it should go the other way. Attending a nationals usually denotes a higher level of commitment, and theoretically at least, more willingness to fork out he dough required to get there (not to mention the fact that nationals-level pilots have probably already had their fair share of close calls and don't want to put up with pilots who don't think their butts are worth $1,500).

TA

Brad,

Any chance you could post some details on your friend's installation. If we assume that the brick itself has identical performance (I'm not sure this assumption is correct at this point) then I'd be curious to know what type of glider and how the antennas are arranged. The other 1/2 of the equation is that perhaps the transmit from the brick reaches out to 8 miles and there is something on the brick reception that's an issue....

Thanks,

Mark

"Do you refuse to buy a car model if *any* one ever sold
has broken down? Do you refuse to buy *any* computer or software, if
it has ever had a single bug?"

No, but I wouldn't buy a Windows OS until it hit at least SP1 nor would I buy a Lotus whose model name was accompanied by the designator "S1"!

By the way, if anyone's willing to take $1500 from me and, in return, have a proper, legal installation of a PF Brick performed on my ship, I would take them up on the offer in an instant. $1500 would be a hell of a bargain.

On Oct 3, 4:59*pm, wrote:
Brad,

Any chance you could post some details on your friend's installation. *If we assume that the brick itself has identical performance (I'm not sure this assumption is correct at this point) then I'd be curious to know what type of glider and how the antennas are arranged. *The other 1/2 of the equation is that perhaps the transmit from the brick reaches out to 8 miles and there is something on the brick reception that's an issue....

Thanks,

Mark

Mark,

My friend flies an LS-8. I'm not sure where his antennas are, I will
ask him and post. There were a lot of wires and tubes used to make
this installation. It looks really good and he is happy with it. The
Butterfly added a bunch more work due to the ISU and required tubing
but the display is very nice.

Brad

On Oct 3, 9:16*am, "noel.wade" wrote:
*Let's take a worst-case-scenario of two gliders approaching
each other head-on just under cloudbase (so its realllly hard to
visually spot the other glider, and closing speed is maximized).
Let's say they're bombing along under a cloudstreet at 100mph, so the
closing-speed is 200mph. *200mph is 1 mile every 18 seconds. *So at
1.5nm range you have over 25 seconds to react to a threat. *STOP
reading this right now, stare at a wall, and count out 25 seconds.
I'll wait. Wow, when you count it out that's a pretty good chunk of
time, isn't it? *Even IF you spend the first 5-10 seconds looking
around for the oncoming glider before you make a decision to change
your course, you'd still have enough time to make that evasive
maneuver.

That's nothing like a worse case scenario.

Try using 120kts (knots not mph) and TAS (TAS not IAS) and do the
calculation for 17,000ft.

GY

On Oct 3, 4:55*pm, wrote:

PF (with a Butterfly rectangular display) did its thing and allowed
me to take evasive action (the other glider never saw me, or at least
never took evasive action).

How do explain that scenario? If you received a flarm warning for the
other glider then he must have been flarm equipped. Are you
suggesting that his system didn't show you as a threat, or perhaps
that he chose to ignore the threat?

GY