Dermot McD

The above sentence could just as easily state: "Had each aircraft been fitted with FLARM, and a suitable cockpit display, the occupants would have received a better quality of surveillance information than received by the controller." I'm not saying ADS-B is useless (thought it is unless almost everyone has it), I am just say for the benefit of those who do not use it, that FLARM is actually a better system and it's a shame that this was not adopted. This is from the FLARM website: "FLARM works by calculating and broadcasting its own future flight path to nearby aircraft. At the same time, it receives the future flight path from surrounding aircraft. An intelligent motion prediction algorithm calculates a collision risk for each aircraft based on an integrated risk model. When a collision is imminent, the pilots are alerted with the relative position of the intruder, enabling them to avoid a collision" Isn't this a VHS and whatever that other technology was. VHS was inferior in almost every way but it triumphed (aided by the porn industry.) Have you flown with FLARM? Almost all gliders are required to have a functional FLARM while unless the rules have changed, GA aircraft are not and last time I looked had an installation rate of about 5% which makes it worthless in most situations because it obviously works only if both aircraft have it. And regarding radio, I fly power and gliders, both VH registered but being an amateur flyer, I try to use correct radio communications with communication being the important part. My radio comments were about poor practice by many VH registered power pilots, perhaps hoping that RA pilots were better. I have no problem at all with commenting that many, if not most VH pilots regularly omit or garble their location since most if not all my RPT friends say the same thing. D

Yes, but the collision warning is done by you, slowly if you are tired and so far as I remember, with no audio or visible warning. FLARM does all the calculations internally, very quickly and with multiple threats with obvious spoken audio, beeps and visible flashes without you really needing to have your eyes in the cockpit. This is what makes it useful when gliding. Even when 'cruising' between thermals, a glider may make large deviations to avoid sink or look for the next lift source. This isn't something that you get much in powered aviation. FLARM copes with this well. Perhaps latency is the wrong word. On a recent trip flying in central QLD, the position of another aircraft was jumping all over the place on Ozrunways and sometimes appeared twice. This was probably due to the competing signals from ADS-B and OzRunways using the phone system. The point remains though that while things like the SE2 are useful and probably as good as you'll get for GA use, they're not half as useful as FLARM as a collision avoidance system. Since FLARM can record a flight track, the data can and has been used to assess mid-airs and crashes which is really what this thread is about. I'm actually not a huge FLARM fan or things like the SE2. They're OK tools but I find it baffling that regulators cannot get themselves together and include the superior functionalities of FLARM with ADS-B etc in one reasonably priced device.

I've got both ADS-B (SE2) and FLARM installed. FLARM is far more useful. As Plantain says, FLARM is an anti collision system with in-built functions to calculate the possibility of a collision. The basic display with tri-colour LEDS shows only direction and whether the contact aircraft is above, below or at your level. In comparison, something like the SkyEcho only shows you roughly where the other aircraft was within a 5 minute window. Given the right glide computer, FLARM will voice announce a collision warning giving the pilot the bearing (as in 9 o'clock) the relative altitude and distance, flash the computer display orange and display the aircraft on screen. It's well above the ADS-B in almost all regards. FLARM has an installed database of over 15,000 users including rescue aircraft and the Battle of Britain flight aircraft. While it is not perfect, it is ideal where a number of aircraft are flying in close proximity like the Alps, where it was developed. So what's surprising in many ways is why we adopted ADS-B instead of FLARM. I'm not so sure about RA pilots, but I know for sure that almost no glider pilot is as bad at radio calls as most GA pilots. Most radio calls from GA pilots will tell you their life story in terms of tracking, intentions, altitude etc. while clipping or garbling the most important words at the start - location - and omitting them altogether at the close of transmission. That said, at the London Gliding Club, an Australian instructor was having a flight with a local instructor and asked whether he should make a radio call. The instructor replied that would be pointless since there were about 150 aircraft in the region and making a radio call would distract their attention from a proper lookout and make things more dangerous than less so. During a competition, it's common to have three or more gliders doing straight in landings in very close proximity at about the same time - that is with some lateral separation but little lateral separation - think Oshkosh x 4 on a narrower strip. A short radio call to say if they're landing short, long, left or right is about all that's said. So radio is an aid to situational awareness but only that. Finally, most gliders are white because most are made from a low-temperature epoxy which will soften around 55-60º. Modern ones are PU painted but older ones use gelcoat. With a modern glider costing north of $400,000, people don't usually leave them outdoors if they can help it!