FLARM in Stealth Mode at US 15M/Standard Nationals - Loved It!

On Friday, August 7, 2015 at 1:00:42 AM UTC-4, Richard wrote:
On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 8:08:08 AM UTC-6, Papa3 wrote:
The US 15M/Standard Class Nationals required FLARM to be in stealth mode for the duration of the contest. I have to say, I absolutely enjoyed the experience. FLARM became what it was always supposed to be - a collision avoidance tool - rather than a tactical leaching tool. I found that I would get alerts for gliders in the same thermal or approaching/exiting the thermal up to about 1 mile away, but no more. Not a single surprise conflict from a FLARM-equipped glider.

I wonder if others had the same positive experience. I would hope other contests would consider requiring Stealth Mode.


Erik Mann (P3)

The thing that amazes me most about the contest was that the organizers did not require PowerFlarm!! But if you had PowerFlarm it had to be in the stealth mode.

It appears they are much more concerned about leaching than the safety of the competitors.

Richard

you require powerflarm, then 3-4 of the people who participated safely would have had to sit out because they couldn't afford the damn thing. and that usually pertains to young competitors.

i'm not saying people are infallible to having a midair by simply keeping out a watchful eye, but the risk can certainly be effectively mitigated if everyone is looking vigilantly, and since we are all flying VFR, I don't care if you have flarm, or a transponder or god knows what, you've got to be looking. the organizers were not more concerned about leeching than safety. that's a silly presumption. the flarm in stealth mode still provides warning of impending collisions. it was an experiment, which XC talks about based on the experiences people had at PAGC.

This is how I see it.
People are talking about situational awareness, and being able to look at your flarm scope and see where other gliders are (without climb rates etc). Okay so, think about all the years that contests had a waiting list because they filled up, so there were a ton of gliders all flying in close proximity without flarm and they didn't have an overwhelming amount of mid-airs, pretty much because everyone was looking out the window. Now if every one has flarm with just gliders no climb rates, altitudes, or contest ids. Now people are going to be looking at their flarm scope for traffic and not looking out the window, where that guy who's flarm antenna got obstructed is, or that power traffic who doesn't use flarm is . . .

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 4:43:49 PM UTC-7, wrote:
This is how I see it.
People are talking about situational awareness, and being able to look at your flarm scope and see where other gliders are (without climb rates etc).. Okay so, think about all the years that contests had a waiting list because they filled up, so there were a ton of gliders all flying in close proximity without flarm and they didn't have an overwhelming amount of mid-airs, pretty much because everyone was looking out the window. Now if every one has flarm with just gliders no climb rates, altitudes, or contest ids. Now people are going to be looking at their flarm scope for traffic and not looking out the window, where that guy who's flarm antenna got obstructed is, or that power traffic who doesn't use flarm is . . .


That's been hypothesized a lot, but so far the statistics don't bear it out - nor does the science.

The problem is that the human central vision that has detail and allows you to pick out a target is only 2 degrees wide - that's about two thumb widths at arms length. Even if you are looking diligently, scientific studies by NASA, the USAF and the Australian Trasport Safety Bureau (these are just the ones I've read) indicate that your odds of picking up a target that's on a collision course are less than 50/50, possibly as low as 1 in 4, depending on the scenario.

It's easy to pick up targets that AREN'T going to hit you because your peripheral vision is quite broad and designed to pick up movement (collision threats don't move until the wingtips spread apart in your field of vision in the last 2-4 seconds). Because we see a lot of non-threat targets out there, we think that our scan is pretty good. It's not - at least on when it matters the most.

Ask Ramy Yanetz about his near miss over the Sierras. Both pilots had detected the other's Flarm target. Both knew where to look. Neither ever saw the other until they were already passing (angular movement). Only a radio call between a known set of contest IDs - "TG is turning right" - kept them apart. This fact, by the way, is a reason to mandate Flarm (even in Stealth) having contest ID's available rather than hiding them - a radio call "everybody turn right!" is not so useful in in response to an urgent head-to-head alarm at your altitude. Under stealth mode (at least at western TASs) you'll have about 10 seconds to figure out who should zig and who should zag - assuming the alarm happens at max stealth range, rather than because somebody you never saw coming made a turn in your direction.

So, despite the fact that most people are trained on the 1920s doctrine of see-and-avoid, and based on that assert that looking at your Flarm display puts you at greater risk, it is quite likely that in any scenario outside thermalling with other gliders, staring at your Flarm display may be the best thing you can do to avoid running into someone. With ASD-B equipage coming in 2020, it will likely also hold true for power traffic.

No - I am not advocating everyone put their head in the cockpit 100% of the time. A healthy scan certainly is always a good idea - and especially with targets in close. Plus hawks don't carry ADS-B - yet.

9B

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 8:31:38 PM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Under stealth mode (at least at western TASs) you'll have about 10 seconds to figure out who should zig and who should zag - assuming the alarm happens at max stealth range, rather than because somebody you never saw coming made a turn in your direction.

25 seconds. Stealth mode doesn't reduce the range at which the anti-collision alerts happen. What appears to be true is that you won't see the targets on tactical display until the warning happens.

Evan Ludeman / T8

Hmmm...

Not according to the Flarm Dataport Specification 7.03 released on July 30, 2015 that says no target data is put onto the serial port for targets above 2 km in distance. At 17,000' and 110 kts IAS for two head-to-head targets that's a hair over 10 seconds.

9B

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 10:41:24 PM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Hmmm...

Not according to the Flarm Dataport Specification 7.03 released on July 30, 2015 that says no target data is put onto the serial port for targets above 2 km in distance. At 17,000' and 110 kts IAS for two head-to-head targets that's a hair over 10 seconds.

9B

I don't have that document (is it on the web anywhere?), but it sounds like you are looking at the description of the $PFLAA sentence (traffic data).

-Evan

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 7:41:24 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Hmmm...

Not according to the Flarm Dataport Specification 7.03 released on July 30, 2015 that says no target data is put onto the serial port for targets above 2 km in distance. At 17,000' and 110 kts IAS for two head-to-head targets that's a hair over 10 seconds.

9B

Without the target data on the serial port, you will not get a voice enunciation of that target from your third party device.

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 7:43:49 PM UTC-4, wrote:
This is how I see it.
People are talking about situational awareness, and being able to look at your flarm scope and see where other gliders are (without climb rates etc).. Okay so, think about all the years that contests had a waiting list because they filled up, so there were a ton of gliders all flying in close proximity without flarm and they didn't have an overwhelming amount of mid-airs, pretty much because everyone was looking out the window. Now if every one has flarm with just gliders no climb rates, altitudes, or contest ids. Now people are going to be looking at their flarm scope for traffic and not looking out the window, where that guy who's flarm antenna got obstructed is, or that power traffic who doesn't use flarm is . . .

----

Hmmm. If one owns POWERFLARM and is moderately experienced at flying contests with it...one would know that a pilot very rarely looks at the FLARM display. When a pilot does get an unexpected warning the first thing you do is redo your visual scan. If that scan fails, you "might" quickly glance at the display in an effort to better ID the conflict location.

That said, glancing at the FLARM display is almost always unnecessary as FLARM also gives the pilot an audio call for the traffic immediately following the beep warning (Example: traffic, 3 O'Clock, Above). If you do decide to look at the display (once you have checked visually and heard the audio prompt) it only takes a small fraction of a second to glance down at the display and see where the traffic is (relative to your current position) and then get eyes back out again continue trying to find it.

All of this happens in a few seconds, max. The warning, the audio prompt, the scan which began immediately upon the initial beep, the glance, the continued scan, etc. Remember, without FLARM you would not know anything was wrong at all at this point.

A competent competition pilot is constantly scanning (visually, not Flarm). Flarm is your traffic co-pilot, helping you scan with audio cues primarily. When you do get a warning on the Flarm (perhaps the glider in a thermal ahead tightens up the turn) and you hear the initial conflict warning beeps, you almost always expect it and knew it was coming based on what you see visually. The timing of this FLARM warning is incredibly accurate and virtually instantaneous. You actually learn what maneuvers will set off a warning and what won't. As a courtesy to other pilots I try not to set the warning off for them if at all possible (it can be irritating).

Back on the other hand, if you get a FLARM warning that you are not expecting (you see no gliders nearby)...its quite startling (and also, unfortunately, just as accurate). You know there is a problem.

One of the most frightening warnings is when a glider that is following you pulls in close behind you on a pull up. You usually cannot see them and the FLARM audio might say...6 o'clock, below and the display shows a glider right on top of you. One just has to deal with those and have a bit of trust.

I must say that I feel the constant stream of statements about FLARM taking pilots eyes off their visual scan out the window is a VERY large misconception. It simply is not true. At least in my experience.

The audio beeps (and synthesized speech guidance) is 99% of what FLARM is to me. I listen to FLARM....and rarely need to look at anything inside the cockpit from a safety perspective. The main reason I have the FlarmView is to download flights more easily.

On Saturday, August 8, 2015 at 8:33:06 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
That said, glancing at the FLARM display is almost always unnecessary
as FLARM also gives the pilot an audio call for the traffic immediately
following the beep warning (Example: traffic, 3 O'Clock, Above).

Sorry, the audio output is provided by downstream display devices.
For example Triadis voice product for FLARM, LX9000, ClearNAV, IIRC Oudie, etc.
Voice (audio other than beeps) is not part of FLARM (PowerFLARM core or portable).

A good audio ennuciator is an extremely helpful addition to FLARM!

Hope that helps,
Best Regards, Dave

What equipment do you have? It sounds really good. (This is to the pilot who says he hardly looks at a display).

I have LX 9000 and Butterfly display. I get voice warnings when I don't need them (I think I get them up to 1000 foot vertical seperation, not interested over 500 feet) and often don't get them when a glider is too close. The Butterfly does not show ID's (I was unable to get it to accept the Flarm database).