Parowan midair?

On 6/22/2010 11:29 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 6/22/2010 8:17 AM, jb92563 wrote:
I would be most interested in what the other competitors thought of
the accident.

I'm sure the competitors are split down the middle just like on the
forum.

However, they will also be able to relate to 'pushing the limits' in
order to win.

Perhaps to us on the ground it seems irresponsible to continue on task
but isn't every glider
flight pushing some kind of personal comfort level or limit?

A top notch competitor would have a much higher limit than us mere
mortals, so flying
a potentially damaged glider on task, over uninhabited desert, wearing
a good parachute
and perhaps with a SPOT PLB attached does not seem like such a big
deal.

The only contentious issue would be thermalling with some others where
your damaged glider
could create a risk to the other competitors that they may not be
aware of and therefore can not
mitigate the risk.

In the end it is up to the pilot to make the call and if you decide
all systems are go based on the information at hand,
who has the right to argue with you?
I think the organizers, the SSA, and the other entrants have the right
to argue with you. You could potentially harm someone else (as you point
out), or require a rescue, causing a lot of problems and grief for
everyone, including generating bad publicity for the sport if you crash.
If a pilot wants to "make the call" as a free spirit, let him become a
free spirit first; i.e., remove himself from the contest.


The FAA might also weigh in.

--
Mike Schumann

I imagine to win the day he was finishing up at better than best L/D?
A competitor would finish up with speeds in the yellow arc.

I was a flight doc in the ANG once upon a time. My whole job was one
small part of safety. That pilot community would not tolerate lapses
in flying safety.

The acceptable loss rate was zero. The loss rate for much more
complicated and dangerous aircraft than we fly, has to be well below
ours in the soaring community.

Why do we, as a community, set our bar so low? Why do we soaring
pilots think this is acceptable?

MJ

Mark Jardini wrote:

Why do we, as a community, set our bar so low? Why do we soaring
pilots think this is acceptable?

MJ
%%%
Is there nobody available to spank offenders then?

Brian W

On Jun 23, 7:57*am, Mark Jardini wrote:

The acceptable loss rate was zero.

But what was the actual loss rate?

The loss rate for much more
complicated and dangerous aircraft than we fly, has to be well below
ours in the soaring community.

What data supports that conclusion?

Why do you associate complicated with dangerous? It may actually be
an inverse correlation given that much airframe and systems complexity
is driven by the need for redundancy.

Why do we, as a community, set our bar so low? Why do we soaring
pilots think this is acceptable?

You only know where you set your bar. You can raise or lower it as
you please but setting the bar at zero accidents does not assure a
result of zero accidents.

Do you know any sailplane racing pilot that has set the bar at say 4
accidents per season?

The only way to guarantee zero accidents in sailplane contests is to
eliminate sailplane contests.

What should be far more important than what 2 pilots did after this
accident is why did they have the accident in the first place.
Understanding that has the potential for an improvement in safety.
Legislating what to do after an accident has far less potential.

Andy

On 6/23/2010 4:10 PM, Andy wrote:
On Jun 23, 7:57 am, Mark wrote:

The acceptable loss rate was zero.

But what was the actual loss rate?

The loss rate for much more
complicated and dangerous aircraft than we fly, has to be well below
ours in the soaring community.

What data supports that conclusion?

Why do you associate complicated with dangerous? It may actually be
an inverse correlation given that much airframe and systems complexity
is driven by the need for redundancy.

Why do we, as a community, set our bar so low? Why do we soaring
pilots think this is acceptable?

You only know where you set your bar. You can raise or lower it as
you please but setting the bar at zero accidents does not assure a
result of zero accidents.

Do you know any sailplane racing pilot that has set the bar at say 4
accidents per season?

The only way to guarantee zero accidents in sailplane contests is to
eliminate sailplane contests.

What should be far more important than what 2 pilots did after this
accident is why did they have the accident in the first place.
Understanding that has the potential for an improvement in safety.
Legislating what to do after an accident has far less potential.

Andy

Is there a possibility that what they did after the accident reflects on
a mindset that might have been a contributing factor to the accident itself?

--
Mike Schumann

On Jun 23, 1:34*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:

Is there a possibility that what they did after the accident reflects on
a mindset that might have been a contributing factor to the accident itself?

Is there a possibility that that is other than a rhetorical
question?

On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:27:44 -0400, Mike Schumann
wrote:


FLARM is useless unless everyone is equipped.

I strongly believe this is faulty logic. Or a rhetoric statement.
In fact, Flarm is useful if the two gliders in collision course are
equipped.

The other gliders, no matter how many they are, have nothing to do
with the usefulness of Flarm. I have been flying with a Flarm unit
since 2004, and I feel it helped me increase, by a factor of 10, the
number of visual contacts I have made. Since this year, combined with
a "radar" display on the Ipaq, I have an extremely useful aid to my
"situational awareness".

Mitre is extremely interesting, but it's not here, now. Flarm is at a
cost similar to many other gliding gizmos and accessories, we like to
buy for our toy. The sooner you buy one, the longer you enjoy.

Aldo Cernezzi

On Jun 22, 6:42*am, Mike Schumann
wrote:

There is no inherent reason that ADS-B UAT transceivers using consumer
grade GPS and RF components can't be built for the same general price
point as FLARM units. The only difference in the hardware is frequency
and transmit power.

The FLARM RF transceiver costs about $5 in parts. The ADS-B UAT
transceiver is how much ???
Most glider pilots are in complete denial about the commercial
realities of the gliding business:
Selling and supporting an *empty* box, with no production costs, to
glider pilots could not be done below USD 600 per unit.
It is not pretty, but that's the reality if your business intends to
still be around in a few years, while supporting and innovating for
the customers...

The MITRE unit
transmits "unknown" for integrity, as that information is not available
from a consumer grade GPS chipset.

The 'consumer grade' GPS chipset in FLARM provides all the information
you ever need:
DOP, accuracy estimates, pseudorange errors, satellite health and
whatever comes in through WAAS / EGNOS...
Some of that information is also transmitted in the FLARM signal and
used for alarm evaluation.
Just because a device is FAA certified does not mean it is better, it
just means it is outdated ;-)

Another note: *FLARM and ADS-B units are not a cure alls for collision
avoidance in competition flying. *The accuracy of the GPS fixes and the
update rates (even for units meeting the FAA's latest approved specs)
are not high enough to provide collision warnings for gliders that are
sharing a thermal in a gagle. *

The update rate and relative (!) precision of the GPS used in FLARM is
by far sufficient to do collision avoidance in glider competitions.
Other factors are more limiting.
However, if you stick various FAA approved GPS's into gliders your
relative position and velocity information will not be nearly as
good...

My dear US friends; we do agree that 'classic' FLARM is not the best
solution for the US. This is why we never launched it there.
Stay tuned for PowerFLARM; it will deliver all you need, soon.
www.powerflarm.com

Urs - FLARM

On 6/29/2010 2:17 AM, ursus wrote:
On Jun 22, 6:42 am, Mike
wrote:

There is no inherent reason that ADS-B UAT transceivers using consumer
grade GPS and RF components can't be built for the same general price
point as FLARM units. The only difference in the hardware is frequency
and transmit power.

The FLARM RF transceiver costs about $5 in parts. The ADS-B UAT
transceiver is how much ???
Most glider pilots are in complete denial about the commercial
realities of the gliding business:
Selling and supporting an *empty* box, with no production costs, to
glider pilots could not be done below USD 600 per unit.
It is not pretty, but that's the reality if your business intends to
still be around in a few years, while supporting and innovating for
the customers...

The MITRE unit
transmits "unknown" for integrity, as that information is not available
from a consumer grade GPS chipset.

The 'consumer grade' GPS chipset in FLARM provides all the information
you ever need:
DOP, accuracy estimates, pseudorange errors, satellite health and
whatever comes in through WAAS / EGNOS...
Some of that information is also transmitted in the FLARM signal and
used for alarm evaluation.
Just because a device is FAA certified does not mean it is better, it
just means it is outdated ;-)

Another note: FLARM and ADS-B units are not a cure alls for collision
avoidance in competition flying. The accuracy of the GPS fixes and the
update rates (even for units meeting the FAA's latest approved specs)
are not high enough to provide collision warnings for gliders that are
sharing a thermal in a gagle.

The update rate and relative (!) precision of the GPS used in FLARM is
by far sufficient to do collision avoidance in glider competitions.
Other factors are more limiting.
However, if you stick various FAA approved GPS's into gliders your
relative position and velocity information will not be nearly as
good...

My dear US friends; we do agree that 'classic' FLARM is not the best
solution for the US. This is why we never launched it there.
Stay tuned for PowerFLARM; it will deliver all you need, soon.
www.powerflarm.com

Urs - FLARM


You are obviously much more knowledgeable about FLARM and the associated
engineering than most of us. Please educate us on how much the price of
a FLARM unit would increase if it were re-engineered to meet the ADS-B
standards, assuming that the FAA would permit the utilization of
consumer grade components, eliminate the need for antenna diversity, and
reduce the transmit power levels somewhat to reflect the lower closing
rates of GA aircraft.

The other key consideration is that such a unit would not just be of
interest to the soaring community, but would also be sold into the VFR
GA market, dramatically increasing the potential sales volumes compared
to FLARM in Europe.


--
Mike Schumann

On 6/28/2010 7:01 PM, cernauta wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:27:44 -0400, Mike Schumann
wrote:


FLARM is useless unless everyone is equipped.

I strongly believe this is faulty logic. Or a rhetoric statement.
In fact, Flarm is useful if the two gliders in collision course are
equipped.

The other gliders, no matter how many they are, have nothing to do
with the usefulness of Flarm. I have been flying with a Flarm unit
since 2004, and I feel it helped me increase, by a factor of 10, the
number of visual contacts I have made. Since this year, combined with
a "radar" display on the Ipaq, I have an extremely useful aid to my
"situational awareness".

Mitre is extremely interesting, but it's not here, now. Flarm is at a
cost similar to many other gliding gizmos and accessories, we like to
buy for our toy. The sooner you buy one, the longer you enjoy.

Aldo Cernezzi

You are obviously flying in Europe or somewhere where FLARM adoption
rates are high.

In the US, there are no FLARM units. It's a chicken and egg situation.
The 1st person to install a FLARM unit would see no benefit. As more
people deploy these units, then the benefit would increase.

In the US, for most glider pilots, the major threat to collisions is not
other gliders, but other general aviation powered aircraft. What is the
realistic chance of getting these pilots to buy / install FLARM? ZERO!

The advantage that ADS-B UAT has in the US, is that a pilot who installs
this equipment will immediately see all other Mode C/S transponder
equipped aircraft if he is flying in the vicinity of an ADS-B ground
station. Since 80% of the US GA fleet is currently transponder
equipped, this is a huge incentive to get pilots to deploy this
technology, if it was cheap enough.

--
Mike Schumann