PowerFLARM leeching comments

I will be working on fast switching mode. Off when I'm behind and on when I am leading. My vote was for stealth mode for contests.

Non-stealth changes the game too much and too much time with pilots heads down looking at the displays.

I flew two nationals with it this year. It was useful for tactical information but will just lead to an arms race of upgrades in the future. The stealth mode provides plenty of safety without the additional data.

For fun flying I think it is great to keep track of the other pilots in your group.

TT

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 1:59:35 PM UTC-4, Mike the Strike wrote:
I sometimes wonder if the Rules Committee lives on a different planet from the rest of us!



There is no way in hell that any contest director in the USA would mandate the use of stealth mode on an anti-collision system if this reduces its usefulness even the teeniest bit. In the event of a collision, insurance companies looking to minimize their exposure through subrogation would hold the CD at least partially responsible for the accident - spreading the cost to his or the contest's insurer. This might not be an issue in the rest of the world, but is sure is here in the USA.


No sensible person would ever mandate stealth mode here!


Mike

Mike,

I dunno - I consider myself reasonably sensible. Despite that, I recently agreed to CD an SSA Regional contest; okay, so maybe I'm not that sensible :-)

I would certainly consider it... if it were shown to be properly implemented such that the conflict resolution advisories were in no way impacted. By comparison, we used to force people to dive at redline through a gate and encourage people to fly marginal final glides to a 50 foot gate. Yet, "sensible people" routinely did this.

Right now, it's all premature, as others have pointed out. Once the range and reception issues are ironed out and adoption becomes more-or-less universal, then I think there will be added incentive for display manufacturers to invest heavily in "leeching support". I'd be willing to be that one of the unintended consequences would be increased gaggling on weak blue days. But, we'll just have to see, won't we.

And no Dave, I don't believe that European experience tells us much...yet. When someone starts moving from dots and beeps to heat-maps of glider concentrations and otherwise presenting data into a format that's easily consumable by the pilots (not to mention FLARM-next-gen, with greater range and reliability, which someone will surely develop in the coming 10 years), then I think there will be some hard choices to be made.

And FWIW, I overheard one pilot at Region IV mention that he turned off his transponder just to avoid leaching. Now that's not what we want, is it? So, in a competitive environment, one can never predict exactly how people are going to behave... remember gliders loaded to way above max gross with water and lead bars taped to the spars?

P3

On 10/23/2012 10:59 AM, Mike the Strike wrote:
I sometimes wonder if the Rules Committee lives on a different planet
from the rest of us!

There is no way in hell that any contest director in the USA would
mandate the use of stealth mode on an anti-collision system if this
reduces its usefulness even the teeniest bit. In the event of a
collision, insurance companies looking to minimize their exposure
through subrogation would hold the CD at least partially responsible
for the accident - spreading the cost to his or the contest's
insurer. This might not be an issue in the rest of the world, but is
sure is here in the USA.

No sensible person would ever mandate stealth mode here!

I get really concerned when people raise legal issues that seem very
tenuous, because may instill a totally unnecessary fear. Are you a
personal liability lawyer, or otherwise experienced in the law of this
sort? If not, perhaps this is just wild guessing, and should be labeled
as such?

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

"This is going to be almost as fun as the great attitude indicator argument last winter!"

Haha!

On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:43:28 -0700, Ramy wrote:

This is an important point which should have been emphasized in the
manual, or I missed it. I bet not many are aware that the bearing to the
target is based on track not heading. The error is relatively small at
lower wind speed, but can be significant in strong cross wind especially
at slow flight.

Surely this is obvious.

As any fule kno[1] a GPS receiver can only know its track vector and
record its track: it doesn't matter whether you carry it forwards,
backwards or sideways, it still correctly records its track without
having the faintest idea of which way its being pointed relative to that
track.

The FLARM depends entirely on GPS for its knowledge of its current track
vector, so it follows that it too knows nothing about its orientation
relative to your gliders fuselage or what the glider's heading might be.


[1] nigel molesworth, the terror of st custards

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

On Oct 23, 5:05*pm, Tim Taylor wrote:
I will be working on fast switching mode.

No, you won't. Read the dataport spec.

T8.

On Oct 23, 1:59*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:
I sometimes wonder if the Rules Committee lives on a different planet from the rest of us!

There is no way in hell that any contest director in the USA would mandate the use of stealth mode on an anti-collision system if this reduces its usefulness even the teeniest bit. *In the event of a collision, insurance companies looking to minimize their exposure through subrogation would hold the CD at least partially responsible for the accident - spreading the cost to his or the contest's insurer. *This might not be an issue in the rest of the world, but is sure is here in the USA.

No sensible person would ever mandate stealth mode here!

Mike

Sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt based on... nothing at all. Read
the freaking manual, or in this case the dataport spec.

T8

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 4:23:20 PM UTC-7, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:43:28 -0700, Ramy wrote:



This is an important point which should have been emphasized in the

manual, or I missed it. I bet not many are aware that the bearing to the

target is based on track not heading. The error is relatively small at

lower wind speed, but can be significant in strong cross wind especially

at slow flight.



Surely this is obvious.



As any fule kno[1] a GPS receiver can only know its track vector and

record its track: it doesn't matter whether you carry it forwards,

backwards or sideways, it still correctly records its track without

having the faintest idea of which way its being pointed relative to that

track.



The FLARM depends entirely on GPS for its knowledge of its current track

vector, so it follows that it too knows nothing about its orientation

relative to your gliders fuselage or what the glider's heading might be.





[1] nigel molesworth, the terror of st custards



--

martin@ | Martin Gregorie

gregorie. | Essex, UK

org |

Sure it is obvious when you think about it, but it is not intuitively obvious. I'll admit it did not cross my mind until it was mentioned here, and I would bet that it did not cross most pilots mind. How many pilots you think will intuitively know to look for traffic downwind the first time they get a flarm collision alert when they fly in significant cross wind?

Ramy

Just in case this too is not obvious, bear in mind that if you are in high speed wave or ridge, and fly into wind slower than the wind speed, you will go backwards. So Flarm’s “12 o’clock” is behind you, in your visual 6 o’clock. Bearings/azimuth to other contacts will be related to that.

Chris N

On Wednesday, October 24, 2012 12:26:44 PM UTC+2, Chris Nicholas wrote:
Just in case this too is not obvious, bear in mind that if you are in high speed wave or ridge, and fly into wind slower than the wind speed, you will go backwards. So Flarm’s “12 o’clock” is behind you, in your visual 6 o’clock. Bearings/azimuth to other contacts will be related to that..

That is true. The effect is also an issue with crosswind. Flarm may show you a 10 o clock alert for an 11 o clock target.
- Folken