If You've Flown a FLARM Stealth Contest, Vote Here

Two points:

Elmira flying is very different than the flying in Utah, or in the west in general. Thus the results of Elmira are not valid universally applied.

Hasn't the ICG already concluded that the current stealth mode does not provide enough situational awareness, and is not acceptable for mandated use due to safety, coupled with the fact that the company that developed and makes Flarm recommends against the use of stealth? This is why the IGC is working with Flarm to develop a modified stealth mode that provides more situational awareness while removing tactical information?

Interesting question - Flarm is a single code base by a single developer. Glider displays are multiple code bases by multiple developers who don't all support the same contest rules, which vary by country and contest format. Also, position reporting technologies are available on multiple, non-glider platforms (including iOS and Android) made by companies that don't care about gliding at all, and the implementations of ADS-B vary by country (eg UAT and ADS-R providing TIS-B traffic - including transponders - as well as weather radar - a different but similar topic).

This yields two issues: 1) who is going to corral all the developers and make them comply? 2) how do we want to allocate the very limited programmer capacity for developing soaring computers and displays for the coming decades.

9B

I'm actually pleased this case that a pilot's answer to one question can be linked to his/her answers to other questions. We should note, however, that answers to the first two questions--which contain borderline personally identifiable information--could be used by the survey authors to narrow the identity of a respondent. While this is hardly worthy of Edward Snowden, it might encourage some of us to be more temperate in answering the last two "tell us what you really think" questions.

Alternatively, dispense with the promised anonymity entirely next year and collect enough data to know, for example, how many of those with strong opinions about ADS-B or transponders or the siting of national contests are flying a full-race Open Class supership vs. a 20+ year-old Standard or Club Class glider. Soaring pilots don't appear to be shy about expressing their opinions for the record.

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

Missing the issue, I think.

Vote here if you will refuse to go to contests that mandate stealth mode.

Vote here if you will not run a contest that mandates stealth mode -- either you think it's unwise, you think it adds to your legal liability, or you think it's a pointless PITA.

The RC used to be concerned above all about participation; attracting organizers (harder and harder) and pilots. If 11 pilots are annoyed that someone might be able to leech them from 4 miles away rather than have to stick on their tail to follow them around visually, and those pilots want some complex enforcement mechanism to stop it, well, tough. Just like the complaints we got over 0.001 handicap differences, 1 pound/sq ft wingloading differences, and so on.

Chip's phrasing of the question takes for granted that we have the same number of pilots and contests at which to play with the rules. An unwise assumption.

The sentiment out west where I am now is pretty clear: for many pilots, this could be the the final definitive excuse not to come to contests. OLC, "fun meets" and "fly ins" are taking over from sanctioned contests.

As I proselytize among the OLC, I hear "the tasks are too short, I don't like the tight gaggles, I don't want to take out my true-trak or satellite weather, I want to talk to my buddies on the radio" and so on. "I don't want to hobble my flarm" both for safety and fun (let's not forget the 40% who say it adds to their overall enjoyment, and the many respondents here who say they use flarm to keep track of buddies on XC flights) will add one more to the list, and hard to argue with.

As I talk to potential contest managers to drum up support for sanctioned regionals, I hear long complaints about the complexity of procedures. Dealing with the inevitable snafus of stealth mode enforcement? Not happening. This will be at best one more fictional rule with no enforcement (weights at regionals, disabling of AHRS, no cell phones or data in flight, no radio communication).

We need to get back to the principles of fun, participation, simplicity, safety. If some bozo thinks he's going to with the nationals by staring at his flarm radar and not looking out the window, good luck to him. If he gets 23d place rather than 35th, well, ok.

John Cochrane BB

Andy, how different is this from the definition of Standard Class? The FAI/IGC established it in the 1950s, the German glider manufacturers allegedly colluded in the 1960s to rewrite the rule about terminal velocity dive brakes, and each country's aero club can do whatever they want (as the U.S. did with flap timers around 1980 and again a few years ago to handicap older gliders).

Or "approved flight recorders", the definition of which varies widely from country to country.

Within the U.S., is it standards? Or enforcement?

I'll grant you a dispensation from the "don't post if you haven't flown" mandate to respond.

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

Hmm, does there seem to be a geographical divide of opinions?

What have the European countries decided on this matter?

It is clear where the actual designer and manufacture of the technology stands on the matter!

Isn't Stanford a top University, only hiring the smartest?

Didn't Chip actually coached another poster on RAS how to get a parachute older than the industry mandated 20 year life span repacked so it could continue being used?

Can't we all be friends?

At 17:57 05 December 2015, wrote:
Andy, how different is this from the definition of Standard Class? The
FAI/=
IGC established it in the 1950s, the German glider manufacturers
allegedly
=
colluded in the 1960s to rewrite the rule about terminal velocity dive
brak=
es, and each country's aero club can do whatever they want (as the U.S.
did=
with flap timers around 1980 and again a few years ago to handicap older
g=
liders).

Or "approved flight recorders", the definition of which varies widely
from
=
country to country.

???
An Approved Flight Recorder is one currently on the list maintained by IGC
(GFAC). If it's not on the list, it is not an "Approved Flight Recorder".
The specification of an Approved Flight Recorder is published by IGC.
Endof.

Did you mean "Position Recorders"?

Hmm, anyone noticed a clear geographical divide in opinions?

What have the European countries decided on this issue?

It is clear what the designer and manufacturer of this technology recommends regarding stealth mode.

On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 1:48:42 PM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Hmm, anyone noticed a clear geographical divide in opinions?

What have the European countries decided on this issue?

It is clear what the designer and manufacturer of this technology recommends regarding stealth mode.

The US Rules Committee is participating with the BGA, IGC and FLARM to consider changes to Stealth mode to address concerns related to providing robust collision avoidance without turning FLARM data into a tactical tool. While the final result is whatever FLARM decides, we are awaiting the changes and will evaluate their suitability in US contests when the information is available.

Yes, there is an E/W split on FLARM issues. Western high altitude, high speed flight can be quite different from the East.

John Godfrey (QT)
RC Chair

On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 7:39:29 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:

To use another analogy because some think I am being a luddite. When we went from maps and cameras to GPS it was like writers moving from pen and paper or a typewriter to a word processor or a computer. It made writing, or in our case navigating, easier and faster. Unlimited use of FLARM in contests often amounts to plagiarism or stealing some else's work. The idea that everyone doing it will lead to some bright new future for our sport is wrong minded in my opinion. Use of unlimited FLARM displays in contests will lead to reduced brilliance.

_______________________

Luddite is an overly dramatic term - but I do think you are revising history a bit. I recall serious and impassioned debates over the years on lots of technology topics. I recently spoke to one of the former members of the RC who voted against allowing GPS. His reasons were about changing the spirit of glider racing.

I got lost every single day one particularly hazy Regionals at Cordele. Not just a little lost - a LOT lost. I got so lost one day at the Standard Class Nationals at Hutchinson that I had to land in a plowed field (every small town in Kansas looks the same from the air unless they label their rooftops - which only some do). Navigation by dead reckoning is definitely a skill and managing final glides without a computer to do all the math for you was part of how races were won and lost back in the 70s and 80s. There was a time when having a calculator in a high school math test was considered cheating. Same argument for gliding - 'stupid' people who couldn't work a wiz wheel would achieve scores they didn't deserve and contest results would be invalid.

We got over it.

I truly don't see material differences in the principles involved here and I see the magnitude of the changes in racing from Flarm or weather radar or even a God-map of every track on course as less transformative to the sport than, say, being able to mark a thermal I climbed in, head out in to the blue to make some needed miles or a turnpoint, and come back to it for a saving climb (though not always - and rarely as good the climb as when I left). Speed to fly variometers make much more difference in scores than tracking a pilot 3 miles ahead of you - who you would otherwise track at 1.5 miles ahead of you (with a much better result if actual data from races is a guide). Materials technologies have transformed glider performance enabling thinner, lighter, ultra laminar flow airfoils that allow for cruise climbing, leaving thermalling skills - and older generations of gliders - effectively in the dustbin competitively.

We ought to come to a collective view on what is the most perfect and pure technology level for the sport, that of 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 or 2015? Our views of these things evolve over time - perhaps it is generational or perhaps we all get comfortable with technological progress. As a person who needs to think up rules and procedures to restrict, inspect, detect, report, enforce and penalize when we want to hold back the tide of technological progress I can tell you that this is one of the more challenging and onerous ones for organizers because it will all work on the one thing no one is going to get pilots to give up - the $50-500 phone they already carry in their pocket. The pace of technological change from the Internet of Things, Cloud and Mobile is only accelerating, so fasten your safety belts.

Even for pilots who flew the 2015 Nationals the view on what to do for Nationals was statistically evenly split between stealth mandatory and not mandatory by rule. Nationals pilots voted slightly against mandating stealth by rule for Regionals. For everyone else expressing an opinion it was more than 2:1 against - and we didn't even poll all the OLC guys we'd like to attract to racing, but you probably know already what they think. However, rule-making is not purely democratic, and it shouldn't be the case that we simply take votes and write rules to enforce the popular views of the moment. We elect people to the RC to take a deeper and longer view of things and help keep the sport thoughtfully ahead of the evolutions and trends that impact it - and hopefully make it more accessible, enjoyable and fair in the process. What pilots want and think is an input - but only an approximate guide.

As for me, I prefer more contest participation over more contest technology inspection. Putting up technological barriers is mostly a wasteful and ultimately fruitless exercise - and I believe fruitless in this case will get here faster than most people think - perhaps as fast as 2016 or 2017.

9B

(Sorry Chip I didn't fly Harris Hill - but I plan to fly Nephi if that helps)