RC madness

To reply directly, Eric, I have only flown in 3 contests and those were
in the 80s and 90s. I did not find the rules and regimentation to my
liking and so I stopped. I simply find it ludicrous that people
actually believe that knowing where the champ is, will give them some
advantage. Maybe it will, I'll bet it won't mean too much, and you
certainly won't overtake and pass him. My experience has been that you
can't often benefit much from a thermal that is "over there" as much as
you can with one "right here".

I will bow out now.

On 12/21/2015 11:28 AM, Papa3 wrote:
On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 11:41:33 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
snic, snic, snic I love good sarcasm.



Are race car drivers who draft the leader leeching? How about the
sailing captain who maneuvers into the "good air" of his opponent
essentially stalling his "engine"? Aren't they simply making use of
tactics available to them? Are the the above two examples against
the rules of their respective sports? Should they be? Do their
participants whine so much about it?

No. No. Yes. No. No. Some do.




Does knowing where the current soaring super star is and knowing his
height and rate of climb give you some advantage over him? If you
think that knowing his state vector will give you an advantage I've
got a bridge to sell you.
Dan, with all due respect, I note that you haven't shown up in a single SSA Sanctioned race (unless your profile on the SSA Website is wrong, in which case I'll apologize for the assumption). So, maybe you haven't had to make some of these decisions in a contest setting.

The short answer is: Flarm information matters. A lot. Not always in the way you are implying. As stated ad-nauseum, races are frequently won/lost at the start. Knowing where everyone is, how high, etc. gives a huge insight as to what is happening and what's about to happen as the gate opens. There are many days in East Coast contests where you can't see guys who are a couple of clouds away. In the start gate. Missing the "hot gaggle" can be the end of your day... before the task even starts.

More importantly, knowing which way the "good guys" are heading 6 miles ahead is hugely valuable. I'm coming to the end of this street. Is the gaggle jogging left to the "obvious" street (at least obvious to me) or is it going right? Stop viewing it as a thermal finder and start thinking of it as tactical situation indicator.

It's interesting though - I'm also seeing some level of divergence of opinion between East Coast and West Coast pilots. Maybe the on-course options out West are so "obvious" or defined (e.g. running the Whites or Sierras - nobody's gonna charge out into the Owens Valley) that Flarm info is less valuable. And obviously, with much higher closing speeds up at high altitude, one can see where any perceived degredation of warning time would raise eyebrows.

Again, to my knowledge, nobody is yet flying with a PowerFlarm setup with dedicated tactical information screens optimized for competition support. If they are, it would be very interesting to see the UI for those systems.

P3

--
Dan, 5J

What reports at PAGC? I never get these memos! Without disclosing facts to support these reports, they are just rumors. I think we all know all the PAGC pilots. Who was caught or seen with tin foil in their cockpit?

Sean

On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 5:31:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Another point is that the more flarm becomes a tactical device, the more people are tempted to use it sporadically, when it is in their advantage. There were certainly reports of pilots flying with small sheets of aluminium in Europe and the PAGC to "disappear" if they hit a thermal. This is certainly contrary to the safety objectives of the device...

Best Regards,
Daniel

On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 12:01:20 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 2:45:37 PM UTC-5, John Carlyle wrote:
SNIP
I think we need to discuss these proposed rules much, much more before they are presented to the SSA BoD!

Yeah, that's what we need. More discussion.

That said, I offer a few thoughts:

1. There can be no real dispute that open FLARM allows greater leeching.. Stop arguing about it. Others have reported on it in this forum and many of us can confirm it. The REAL question is whether this is antithetical to the objectives of U.S. competitive events. Elderly pilots such as myself who have to be helped into our gliders from our walkers and who couldn't conjure up a weather forecast on our flip phones if our Social Security checks depended on it agree it is. Technophiles who babble on about how unenlightened it is to oppose change--and who are unapologetic about the $4,000 they dropped on their 3D televisions last year when they slavishly embraced THAT stillborn change--give a cautious nod (barely) to soaring over fiddling with their Playstations/Xboxes but would like to see all "platforms" reflect their belief that whomever masters the latest technology should win. The rest are somewhere in the middle.

2. The other question is whether Stealth mode reduces safety. OK, it may, but the real question is by how much? My own opinion is that it's a very small amount but who really knows? More worrisome are recent comments that raise questions about whether some pilots are already relying too heavily on graphically displayed FLARM data to maintain situational awareness at the cost of looking out the window. Regardless, anyone who truly opposes mandatory Stealth for safety reasons should also be just as vocal in opposing ANY use of Stealth by ANY pilot. Additionally, they should be campaigning loudly for mandatory FLARM at all contests and perhaps even across the U.S. glider fleet at large, followed closely by mandatory ADS-B out. Not that open FLARM insures against midair collisions; I've read at least one reference on this forum that a midair involving FLARM-equipped aircraft has already occurred.

3. Lastly, those who are truly committed to staying at the leading edge of technology and maximizing safety no matter the cost should be lobbying vociferously for mandatory FES gliders, 1,500' AGL "hard decks", and a no-landout policy for all competitive events. After all, we have the technology to eliminate off-airport landings, still one of the greatest risks of cross-country soaring. Who cares what that would cost? Quit yammering about the liability associated with mandated Stealth and imagine how a jury would react to learning that contest organizers tasked an entire field of pilots of varying abilities with flying 300 miles over populated areas WITHOUT AN ENGINE!!!! Horrors! How irresponsible is that!!!

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

Strong arguement that more time is required to study this question...........

On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 11:37:32 AM UTC-5, Bob Whelan wrote:
Other significant info snipped...

We cannot uninvent FLARM, we are stuck with what it is. The only
logical move is to accept that it will provide information that it was
not intended to. If everyone has FLARM it is still a level playing field,
the only people who miss out are those who do not.

Recognizing that (arguably) *every* (not merely U.S./contest/etc.) glider
pilot is (potentially) affected by the appearance of (P-)FLARM on the stage
(e.g. by the presence of choice, peer pressure, contest rules,
potential/actual legal fallout, etc.), factual anality compels me to take
issue with the statement "...the only people who miss out are those who do not
[have FLARM]." Consider...

Let's say I choose to go the no-FLARM route. Where do I get my legally binding
affidavit protecting me from outside human pressure, said pressure
fundamentally based on the implied additional risk my choice "forces" on the
FLARM-carrying crowd.

I have little doubt that some lawyer, somewhere (probably in the U.S., sad to
non-cynically admit), will eventually - after some sort of crunch - argue in
court that some unfortunate glider pilot's failure to have/use a FLARM unit
constituted (willful negligence, assault, etc.). (I also hope this sort of
sweeping, overreaching rationale will quickly be swept into the dustbin of
legal trash reserved for "laughable nuisance suits," just in case anyone wonders.)

Human nature - boy it can be messy to have to deal with.

For the record, in my ideal world, use (or not) of FLARM would be simply
another life-risk-choice we get/have to make without the specter of
doomsayers/lawyers trying to ram it down our throats, just as (for one
example) motorcycle helmets. Life itself is a risk, and attempts to try and
force it to be otherwise are - at minimum - wishful thinking.

Bob W.

P.S. Merry Christmas (to all who choose to participate!)

Snips for clarity of musing to be posited below...

Not all processing of data yields useful information - and if it is bad
more often than it is good information you are better off ignoring it.

I honestly haven't had the time to dissect your
results at the level of granularity it would take to form a counter-model
I remember thinking that I disagreed with it on first-principles; i.e. the
way the model was set up using comparative climb rates in circling flight.
I tend to agree that thermals are "perishable" but knowing what others are
doing is valuable and may not actually result in a pilot doing the same
thing as the others. I'm not sure how you would use the statistics you
gathered to model some of those decisions...

Writing as someone without a dog in this (genuinely interesting) philosophical
contest, I'd guess from the exchange above that I'm not the only interested
side-liner to muse along the lines of, "Just because it (isn't/can't be)
easily measured doesn't mean it's not happening." That's not by way of
expressing an opinion on a preferred outcome, but by way of noting that "stuff
is happening" regardless of if or how easily it may - or may not - be measurable.

I've worked in manufacturing engineering for more than one high-tech
design/manufacturing company in which managerial actions were mostly driven by
apparently unquestioning belief in the concept, "If it (can't be
measured/doesn't show on the books), it's not (real/happening/action-worthy)."
Two such employers subsequently declared bankruptcy. Prior, in both
environments, I'd ultimately concluded that trying to make a case that
"unmeasurable effects are in fact real" (and further arguing that, in the
companies' cases, would sooner or later have significantly deleterious
effects/detectable/measurable outcomes), was a waste of personal energy. (For
those wondering, following those conclusions, on the line-support front I
opted to do what I thought was right/necessary, while avoiding to every extent
possible becoming ensnared in "stupid managerially-driven cluster-f*@%ing
wastes of personal time/energy"...slept better, too.)

The engineer in me seriously wonders if "determining when leeching takes
place" falls into the unmeasurable category...whether the goal is to determine
the presence of "acceptable" leeching or the "unacceptable kind."

Bob - still sleeping well - W.

You're not testing the right hypothesis. Leeching isn't a good way of beating the top guy for the day. Done by a good pilot, however, it CAN be a way to place very high overall in contests and occasionally to win one. Veteran pilots from the 70s and 80s are aware of one and possibly two cases where competent pilots leeched outrageously and managed to finish atop the leader board at national contests. No, I'm not going to name names.

But those are exceptions. More typically, winners don't leech. They often, however, fly in the company of others, leading out when it's their turn or when they think they have a better idea (hint: leeches NEVER lead out). P3 has it right: "Will it drastically alter outcomes at the top? Not likely. Will it further compress the middle? Probably."

In the old days (i.e., after several generations of composite gliders and the Soaring Symposia eliminated significant differences in aircraft performance and tactics), leeching diligently was like true love, demanding total devotion. That translated to following a top pilot...closely...with unerring focus...doing everything the leader did...making few if any other decisions. It's not easy, as one poster admitted here. Back then it required a lot of concentration and good stick-and-rudder and thermaling skills to stay close. The commitment to doing everything the leader did was so total before GPS that there were cases of leeches following top competitors off course, sometimes for many miles, before the leading pilot realized his/her navigation mistake and--minnow pack in tow--scrambled to recover.

So quit arguing about whether FLARM facilitates leeching (it does) or whether leeching offers an advantage. History has shown that leeching is a way for clever pilots who don't have the confidence of their own decisions to place higher than they otherwise might be able to. I agree that's a skill in itself but it's not one we want to measure, in my opinion.

Those of us who aren't privileged to fly in the pure, uncontaminated, apparently oxygen-deprived air of the Western deserts know that falling more a circle or two behind someone on a hazy summer day means you've lost your tow visually. So if leeching is your game, open FLARM is the answer to your anxious prayers.

And, yes, 9B has raised one point that no one has mentioned but has been on my mind; i.e., Stealth mode facilitates leeching, too. I agree most of the help you get from leeching is close range: i.e., within Stealth range. Yeah, we should be able to see that far but pilots don't always. That said, P3 makes an excellent point that there can be tactical advantages to knowing which way the gaggle went a few miles ahead of you. And as he says, the advantage may well be greater here in the East with lower height bands and often worse viz.

Is leeching a "huge" problem anymore? No, but probably only because we're not filling up 65-glider fields at national contests. If you didn't fly during those days, during the the "plague of leeches" in the '70s and 80s, you really can't speak to this.

As for FLARM's public position on Stealth, sadly can you honestly imagine ANYONE in the corporate world NOT putting out a CYA message like the one that's been trumpeted here several times? Especially if you're in Europe looking fearfully at America's penchant for encouraging the lawsuit lottery whenever anything goes wrong and no matter whose "fault" it is? Get real. I'm surprised that FLARM is even being marketed in the U.S. How long will it take after the first FLARM-to-FLARM collision for lawyers to persuade a shattered widow that her husband died because his FLARM was defective? And it won't matter whether Stealth was involved or not.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 4:16:22 PM UTC-8, wrote:
You're not testing the right hypothesis. Leeching isn't a good way of beating the top guy for the day. Done by a good pilot, however, it CAN be a way to place very high overall in contests and occasionally to win one. Veteran pilots from the 70s and 80s are aware of one and possibly two cases where competent pilots leeched outrageously and managed to finish atop the leader board at national contests. No, I'm not going to name names.

It's generally the exception, not the rule - particularly these days when we never call ATs (chumming the water for Sean Fidler)


But those are exceptions. More typically, winners don't leech. They often, however, fly in the company of others, leading out when it's their turn or when they think they have a better idea (hint: leeches NEVER lead out). P3 has it right: "Will it drastically alter outcomes at the top? Not likely. Will it further compress the middle? Probably."

The essential point here is that regardless of larger tactical decisions, if you want to keep up with somebody you are best off following really, really close - the further back you are the more likely you are going to miss the bubble and get dropped. The other essential point is all the guys in the middle of the pack are the ones who oppose Flarm in large proportions - who are we to tell them their preferences are irrelevant? Why do they like unfiltered Flarm? Perhaps because they think they might over time learn something from seeing what other guys do - even if they do get dropped most of the time. I have asked a lot of pilots new to racing why they don't fly more (or any) contests and one of the more prominent answers is they can't see a path to getting even reasonably competitive. To them, stealth is the kids in the tree fort pulling up the rope ladder.


So quit arguing about whether FLARM facilitates leeching (it does) or whether leeching offers an advantage. History has shown that leeching is a way for clever pilots who don't have the confidence of their own decisions to place higher than they otherwise might be able to. I agree that's a skill in itself but it's not one we want to measure, in my opinion.

Not going to quit - sorry. I love you man, but I disagree and I'm the only one with facts instead of beliefs so you should quit (also, I have the flying spaghetti monster on my side).

Is leeching a "huge" problem anymore? No, but probably only because we're not filling up 65-glider fields at national contests. If you didn't fly during those days, during the the "plague of leeches" in the '70s and 80s, you really can't speak to this.

I did - I started in 1979 IIRC.


How long will it take after the first FLARM-to-FLARM collision for lawyers to persuade a shattered widow that her husband died because his FLARM was defective? And it won't matter whether Stealth was involved or not.


I'm not a lawyer but I suspect in torts there is a difference between not installing some expensive piece of equipment that could potentially help avoid collisions and deliberately deciding to disable part of its functionality. I think it could make a big difference in legal proceedings - particularly with a relatively weak rationale on the motive to do it. This certainly factored into my decision to vote agains this.

9B

" ...There can be no real dispute that open FLARM allows greater leeching. Stop arguing about it.... "

There have been many posters arguing the above in one form or another. While not intending to offend ANYONE, nor intending to quote any particular individual... the above type of argument is akin to a woman arguing that her intuition should be accepted as fact in an argument! )

It is just as possible to argue that leeching BVR is a losing proposition, stop arguing about it... Andy is a smart guy who has taken the time to actually look at traces and has the skills to do an analysis.

Wait, was this the analysis where you compared results across two contests in different years in completely different geographies with a commonality of about 15 percent in the participating pilot population and using the the highly nebulous "PRL to Performance Metric"? The one where you claimed it was "only 259 data points" (when one could as easily argue it was 2 data points; contest A and contest B). Where I think you used "Bayesian" in a sentence... a tactic I thought only an economist would resort to?? Yes - just poking fun at your expense.

But seriously, the statistics (lies, damned lies) you are citing strike me as only one aspect of the analysis. I think the other is either unmeasurable after-the-fact or would need a much more controlled environment to study conclusively. All I can tell you is what I've observed in ACTUAL contests using Flarm Stealth and not using Flarm Stealth and... more importantly.... what is very achievable in the realm of software development and user interface development in the near future.

I fundamentally believe this is more of a philosophical discussion than a technical one at this point. I'm afraid it may be hard to "win" this one on technical analysis alone.

Back to real work. Q1 revenue estimates are due, and unfortunately I don't have Flarm to use to leech off the other consulting firms.

P3

On Monday, December 21, 2015 at 6:27:51 PM UTC-8, Papa3 wrote:
But seriously, the statistics (lies, damned lies) you are citing strike me as only one aspect of the analysis. I think the other is either unmeasurable...

So if I read you "argument" correctly, your position is that "Statistic lie, but unmeasureables don't". I will be awaiting your book "I Feel Therefore it is True" followed closely by your second best seller in the Opra book club, "Why Intuition is Fact, No Need for Science". Should be best sellers among the scientific communities.

I have degrees in Microbiology, Chemical Engineering and Law. Statistics was the most useful and practical class I ever took at the University, save one, writing.

Thought the "RC madness" thread would have a link to a crazy Radio Controlled glider contest or DS video.
Jim