Adelaide Soaring Club has equipped all club gliders with Flarm, and many of
the private gliders are also equipped, with growing interest from the
others. It clearly points out all of the gliders that you have already seen,
but also alerts you to focus a little more to see the gliders that you had
previously missed. A great support/aid to a good lookout.
The international Gliding Commission is likely to approve the use of
non-approved recorders (which will probably include Flarm) for badge flights
up to and including Gold C. This will take place next March with
implementation in October 2007. If the non approved device does not have
height recording then you would need to carry a barograph also.
Terry
David Lawley writes:
"once you have 2 gliders with FLARM"
Agreed Scott, however here in SA there are very few FLARMS I know of (in
fact none: Waikerie, AUGC and Balaklava do not have them, not sure about
others) and WGC has not decided to buy any as yet.
Not much point in being the only glider in the state to have one eh? Hence
my statement!
I guess it varies from state to state, so what applies here may not be the
case elsewhere, something I should perhaps have mentioned.
There may be a point that most gliders have them, they then will become very
useful
If FLARM were to have an IGC approved logger it would really make it very
worthwhile to buy though-is this possible?
To avoid any confusion I do think FLARM is a great idea, and would like to
see all gliders have them, however until they do it will be the glider
without one that will get you if you don't continue to keep a good lookout!
Regards
Dave L
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scott
Penrose
Sent: Wednesday, 8 November 2006 1:35 PM
To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] GPS units - opinions please...
Some excellent advice here David, except:
On 08/11/2006, at 13:11, David Lawley wrote:
A flarm alone will blow your budget, without PDA etc, and is next
to useless
for collision avoidance unless ALL other gliders have one. They are
easily
fitted with Velcro to the top of instrument panels if a temporary
setup in a
club ship is required (Plenty of this happened at the Gawler Nats last
year), needing only a 12 volt supply to function.
Just statistically, once you have 2 gliders with FLARM, every extra
one reduces collision risk.
It is quite incorrect to say that all gliders need one to be useful.
I flew this weekend in Raywood with 20 to 30 gliders. I have no idea
how many had FLARM, I would guess less than 10 - and it was very
successful at picking up and warning of gliders approaching that also
had a FLARM - even in that very limited sense, with less than a 1/3
coverage I was getting useful and extra protection that enhanced my
lookout - and not inconsiderably.
Beyond just the statistics, and the extreme view that it would be
useless unless ALL were fitted is the fact that all aircraft will
never be fitted with the same system (well not never, but not in the
next 10, probably 20 years) - e.g. Light aircraft, ultralights,
balloons - so even if all gliders were fitted (and bring them on -
they are an excellent addition) - you still must have lookout, and it
will not be total protection, just bonus extra.
Gliding Club of Victoria has now joined the ranks of other clubs to
fit out the entire fleet - including tugs.
Scott
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