Flarm with Firmware 1.20 update

Sounds to me like Chicken Little (the sky is falling).

Do what you want, Sean. Install what you want. Petition the Competition
Committee to require FLARM. Why not invent an autopilot which can be
coupled to the FLARM, ADS-B, TCAS II, and every other device that your
obviously deep pockets can afford and program that autopilot to keep you
clear of other aircraft.

Why not just sit on the ground while your glider flies itself and cry about
us pig headed old guys who are too dumb to see it your way? Call me
unintelligent if you want. I'm not impressed.

Dan


"Sean Fidler" wrote in message
news:16307004.478.1327608828924.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yqa29...
Chris, well said. Everything is politics over here lately.

Otherwise...I rest my case.

This has nothing to do with government...IMO. It has to do with glider
pilots, high risk, safely and needless death that is assured of happening
without a broad effort by intelligent people. Stop hiding behind the word
mandate. It IS a free country so you make your own call and excuses (3
pages full...). The FAA takes way too long. More pilots will die in the US
before FLARM is widely enough adopted and has a chance to reach its full
safety potential.

Well, its back to playing darts with our fellow glider, power and airline
traffic for awhile. Enjoy!

Let me state here that I'm not anti-FLARM or anti-anything else except for
more regulations. My original objection was to the all too quick use of the
term "mandate".

Evan makes a compelling case (in my opinion) of why FLARM may not have the
urgent need that the Europeans seem to have, especially in the Southwest,
where I fly. There just aren't that many aircraft in our very large sky.

Opinions vary (obviously). In my case, I don't see the urgent need for the
type and location of my flying, not to mention my budget is stretched thin
and there's no place in my panel for another device.

So, for Sean who, I think, also flies a LAK-17a, how do you mount your
FLARM? Did you have to remove something else that you considered less
important?


"Evan Ludeman" wrote in message
...
On Jan 26, 3:13 pm, Sean Fidler wrote:
Chris, well said. Everything is politics over here lately.

Otherwise...I rest my case.

This has nothing to do with government...IMO. It has to do with glider
pilots, high risk, safely and needless death that is assured of happening
without a broad effort by intelligent people. Stop hiding behind the word
mandate. It IS a free country so you make your own call and excuses (3
pages full...). The FAA takes way too long. More pilots will die in the US
before FLARM is widely enough adopted and has a chance to reach its full
safety potential.

Well, its back to playing darts with our fellow glider, power and airline
traffic for awhile. Enjoy!

And the purpose of your rant is... what, exactly?

I cannot install in my panel what my dealer cannot ship. I've had a
Power Flarm on order since the middle of 2010 (I selected the brick
option when the choice was made available). A few hundred other would
be customers are in the same situation.

To Chris over in Europe... the US situation is rather different in
that a) the US is geographically huge and b) the US glider population
is very small. Glider clubs that launch eight gliders for a total of
perhaps 20 flights on a "busy" day account for a lot of US soaring.
There's no earthly reason to require or even strongly encourage Flarm
technology for such sparse traffic.

Based on casual conversation with numerous other pilots, likewise
waiting on delivery, I think we will find that Power Flarm gets well
adopted on the contest circuit and in the areas of the US that are
glider traffic dense. However, because the portable unit has only
just started shipping this Winter and the brick is still months off,
it will be 2013 before we have any sort of objective measure of how
well the device works and how many staunch anti-flarm pilots we have
to worry about in glider dense environments.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

Renny,

I'd really like to have a look at your installation and hear your
impressions. Is this in your Discus or your new baby??

Dan

"Renny" wrote in message
...
On Jan 26, 2:31 pm, Evan Ludeman wrote:
On Jan 26, 3:13 pm, Sean Fidler wrote:

Chris, well said. Everything is politics over here lately.

Otherwise...I rest my case.

This has nothing to do with government...IMO. It has to do with glider
pilots, high risk, safely and needless death that is assured of
happening without a broad effort by intelligent people. Stop hiding
behind the word mandate. It IS a free country so you make your own call
and excuses (3 pages full...). The FAA takes way too long. More pilots
will die in the US before FLARM is widely enough adopted and has a
chance to reach its full safety potential.

Well, its back to playing darts with our fellow glider, power and
airline traffic for awhile. Enjoy!

And the purpose of your rant is... what, exactly?

I cannot install in my panel what my dealer cannot ship. I've had a
Power Flarm on order since the middle of 2010 (I selected the brick
option when the choice was made available). A few hundred other would
be customers are in the same situation.

To Chris over in Europe... the US situation is rather different in
that a) the US is geographically huge and b) the US glider population
is very small. Glider clubs that launch eight gliders for a total of
perhaps 20 flights on a "busy" day account for a lot of US soaring.
There's no earthly reason to require or even strongly encourage Flarm
technology for such sparse traffic.

Based on casual conversation with numerous other pilots, likewise
waiting on delivery, I think we will find that Power Flarm gets well
adopted on the contest circuit and in the areas of the US that are
glider traffic dense. However, because the portable unit has only
just started shipping this Winter and the brick is still months off,
it will be 2013 before we have any sort of objective measure of how
well the device works and how many staunch anti-flarm pilots we have
to worry about in glider dense environments.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

Evan,
We currently have 18 portable PowerFlarms that are in the possession
of pilots based at Moriarty. They have all received the recent
firmware and antenna upgrades. We have already seen some excellent
performance in the detection of transponder equipped aircraft, and
once the season gets going this spring, we should be able to provide
everyone some "real world" feedback on its Flarm to Flarm
performance...

Thx,
Renny

Dan, Dan Dan...

Intelligent pilots would WANT to (don't have too, or may not be able to afford...) be as safe as possible for their fellow pilots and themselves. Flarm is a no brainier. There is no question that they reduce risk significantly, and the more pilots that have them, the safer we all are.

You don't see it that way. Fine. But wow...

Old, pig headed and dumb? :-) No comment.

Sean

Very good post, Chris. Your mention of "Swiss FLARM" which you say is small
has me looking. From what I can see, it would require mounting on top of
the glare shield which is unacceptable to me. There's no room in my panel
for another instrument and there's no room behind the panel for a remote
device which could display on my Android.

I will continue doing research, but let me ask a couple of questions of the
board: Is there a FLARM unit which could be mounted, say, behind the seat
back bulkhead and provide alarms and display on my Android running XCSoar?
Would such a mount require penetrating my carbon fuselage for an external
antenna? Maybe an antenna (only) on top of the glare shield considering
vertical clearance with the canopy.

So far, what I've found on FLARM websites states that it provides warning of
other FLARM-equipped aircraft. I've not yet found where it provides warning
against all transponder-equipped aircraft. Could somebody please guide me
in the right direction?


"Chris Nicholas" wrote in message
...
In the UK, most glider collisions take place in or close to the
pattern/circuit at gliding sites. Most are with other gliders or tugs
from the same site. A few are with unrelated powered aircraft. (Little
sky, lot of bullets.)

Hardly any are while on cross country flights away from the home site.
(Big sky, few bullets.)

Before we had Flarm, we had 20 fatalities in 23 years, mostly of
glider pilots. We now have over 25 percent of UK glider with Flarm,
and most of those are in the quarter of the England (southern eastern
sector) where most gliding is done.

Is it a coincidence that fatal collisions have not featured as
prominently in the UK accident figures (none since 2009, and that was
a non-Flarm glider colliding with a non-Flarm powered aircraft – both
pilots in the latter were killed) since Flarm grew from a few to over
25 percent uptake? And the most recent (non-fatal) collision of which
I know, in 2011, had no Flarm help in avoiding it? I think it is too
soon for it to be statistically significant, but to me it looks
hopeful.

As for those who say another instrument in the cockpit is too much and
keeps your head down even more, sorry but that is rubbish. Virtually
everyone who flies with it has realized we were not looking out well
enough before, and the bleeps make you look harder. If it goes into
alarm mode – collision imminent if you don’t do something – you are
very glad indeed to have the warning. Been there, done it,

Ditto PCAS.

But, sadly, the unbelievers will remain unconvinced. Those of us old
enough to remember the car seat belt saga will recall those who
opposed them saying they would rather have the chance of being thrown
clear than be strapped in. (Ever hear of many people being so thrown
clear of an otherwise fatal car crash?)

As for those who have no room, yes that can happen. A pity. But the
small Swiss Flarm can go elsewhere in the cockpit than on the panel.

Transponders? For Minden etc., great. But transponders do not detect
each other. Two air cadet aircraft collided in the UK in 2009, killing
both instructors and both cadets - 4 dead. Both aircraft had
transponders. Unless you also have PCAS or better, or have radar
service, they are useless at glider/glider, glider/power, or even
power/power collision avoidance. (Very few UK gliders have
transponders, and most including mine are inhibited by regulations
requiring expensive and/or impractical official modifications and
certification issues, as well as cost etc.. I can’t have one in my
glider, and I had a hole in the instrument panel ready for it.)

My advice to people in thr UK is to get Flarm, and when you do so, get
as many of your buddies at the same gliding site to get them too. You
are all each other’s greatest collision risk, near your own base. In
the USA? Well, where have your glider/glider collisions mostly been?

Chris N.

On 1/28/2012 4:56 PM, Dan Marotta wrote:


So far, what I've found on FLARM websites states that it provides
warning of other FLARM-equipped aircraft. I've not yet found where it
provides warning against all transponder-equipped aircraft. Could
somebody please guide me in the right direction?

Stop looking at FLARM and look at PowerFLARM (which also does PCAS and
ADS-B), the device that is used in the USA. Go here for information on
it's capabilities:

http://www.gliderpilot.org/Flarm

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been looking for some reference.
I'll give your link a critical read and see if it's right for me.

I would like to see some installations.


"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
...
On 1/26/2012 8:37 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
Maybe I'll change my opinion when there's something that doesn't depend
on equipment not likely to ever appear in the vast majority of other
aircraft, ADS-B, perhaps. When the airlines and general aviation crowd
install FLARM, come talk to me about it.

Possibly there is some communication issue he the US pilots are
actually talking about PowerFLARM, not the original FLARM. PowerFLARM also
has PCAS capability to detect transponder equipped aircraft, and ADS-B
capability to detect aircraft so equipped. It's all in one box, with the
data merged onto one screen.

If you haven't already read this article, now would be good time:

http://www.gliderpilot.org/Flarm

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email
me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

From the website Eric posted: "If you add a Mode S transponder with 1090-ES
(also called ADS-B-Out) to a PowerFLARM, for example the Trig TT21, you can
have a complete ADS-B in your cockpit now; and a collision avoidance system
specifically suited to the very particular situations unique to gliders such
as thermalling, gaggles, contests, etc."

NOW, you've got my attention! Still, I have to see if it can be installed
in a way I can live with. BTW, I have a Trig TT22 installed.


"Dan Marotta" wrote in message
...
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been looking for some
reference. I'll give your link a critical read and see if it's right for
me.

I would like to see some installations.


"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
...
On 1/26/2012 8:37 AM, Dan Marotta wrote:
Maybe I'll change my opinion when there's something that doesn't depend
on equipment not likely to ever appear in the vast majority of other
aircraft, ADS-B, perhaps. When the airlines and general aviation crowd
install FLARM, come talk to me about it.

Possibly there is some communication issue he the US pilots are
actually talking about PowerFLARM, not the original FLARM. PowerFLARM
also has PCAS capability to detect transponder equipped aircraft, and
ADS-B capability to detect aircraft so equipped. It's all in one box,
with the data merged onto one screen.

If you haven't already read this article, now would be good time:

http://www.gliderpilot.org/Flarm

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email
me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm
http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

On Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:56:36 -0700, Dan Marotta wrote:

I will continue doing research, but let me ask a couple of questions of
the board: Is there a FLARM unit which could be mounted, say, behind
the seat back bulkhead and provide alarms and display on my Android
running XCSoar? Would such a mount require penetrating my carbon
fuselage for an external antenna? Maybe an antenna (only) on top of the
glare shield considering vertical clearance with the canopy.

This may not help Dan or other folks who need PCAS-like abilities. As
Eric says, that needs PowerFLARM. However, the LX Red Box may be worth
considering if you have limited panel space and/or can't fit things that
stick out over the edges of the panel.

The Red Box electronics are in a small metal box measuring 50x27x97mm
(2"x1"x4") which weighs 150g and draws 60 mA at 12v. Antennae, display
etc. are all separate so the box can be placed anywhere convenient.

In addition the Red Box needs a display and two antennae, a GPS 'puck'
and a transceiver antenna. You have a choice for the latter: either a
160mm (6.5") dipole or an 80mm (3.5") rod on an 80mm diam ground plane.

The standard display is a 25x50x4.5mm (1"x2"x3/16") surface-mount unit
with an RJ45 socket in its back surface. You can also connect the Red Box
to a PNA running XCSoar or LK8000 if you can't squeeze that small display
onto your panel but already carry a PNA.

You can optionally add an SD card reader, which I'd recommend for two
reasons:
(1) I find it the easy way to update the FLARM firmware because it avoids
having to connect the FLARM to a PC.
(2) FLARM downloads logs to it, which can be uploaded to the FLARM
website to check your antenna placement.

The SD card and IGC logger are separate options: you can do the antenna
checks without needing the IGC logger option which is merely a firmware
upgrade and can be added later if you need it.

I have a Red Box installed in my Libelle with the dipole antenna, and as
many will know, the Libelle panel isn't the biggest one around and does
not allow anything to overhang its edges. Pictures of the front and rear
of my panel are he
http://www.gregorie.org/gliding/libelle/FLARM_panel.jpg
http://www.gregorie.org/gliding/libe...RM_install.jpg

The FLARM display is the small rectangle between the radio and the ASI.
You can just see the SD card reader to the right of the FLARM display,
half-hidden behind the PNA.

A description of how I made the dipole mount and the reasons behind its
design are he
http://www.gregorie.org/gliding/libe...ole_mount.html

I hope this is useful to other people with limited panel space.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Thanks Martin, but Red Box is not available in USA; it
does not meet FCC requirements and cannot be sold here.

For USA we have PowerFLARM. Currently PowerFLARM portable
is shipping, with the blind-mounting unit (analog to Red Box)
Real Soon Now (Urs will give a timeline update at the
SSA convention next week). PowerFLARM incorporates transponder
detection (Mode C, Mode S, ADS-B in).

Thanks for the comments,
Best Regards, Dave

PS details he
http://www.gliderpilot.org/FLARM