Harry is in Nrm at the moment. Whilst he is able to receive emails he is not able to send. He has asked me to send the following message:
Hi All,. I have not been particularly interested in the online debate about the merits or otherwise of Flarms. What has prompted this reply was yet another extremely close near miss at Narromine a couple of days ago in which a pilot on early final was suddenly confronted by a glider crossing his path and an accident was only avoided by him taking instant and violent avoiding action. It would be easy to say they should have seen each other, but how regularly do you scan to the side when on final? Also two tugs came within a metre or two of hitting each other just prior to the NSW State comps and again evasive action was used. A second near miss involving tugs happened more recently. Statistically, if you have near misses then sooner or later a mid air with the strong possibility of a tragedy is inevitable Please consider:- There are now over 5,000 Flarms installed in European gliders, including those flying over flatlands. Many clubs have made them mandatory. Surely about as great a vote of confidence as one could wish for. No matter how good your lookout, no more than half of the airspace surrounding a glider can be seen. A threat can come from any direction. Flarm continuously scans the 360 deg. of airspace around you for several kilometres, and above and below you. Provided ALL gliders and tugs are fitted with Flarms, this must be an added safety factor Australia's best pilots have told me that their lookout virtually becomes non existent under certain circumstances, particularly when trying to centre or work hard lift or very low. Pilots who have used Flarms regularly say they do not become complacent about look out, on the contrary they say it sometimes gives them a wakeup call to smarten up their lookout. It is a physical impossibility to continue a regular, continuous scan on a long flight and even if you did the major threat is usually in front of you and looking away from your direction of travel while conducting a scan, carefully searching the surrounding airspace as suggested by various authorities, means you are not looking where you are going for quite a while. The "radar" display which shows your glider in the center and the exact position and relative altitude of nearby gliders is a considerable enhancement. Nigel Andrews is developing a comparatively low cost Flarm add on to fit a 57mm hole or sit on top of the panel which as well as giving basic navigational information, displays the "radar" screen whenever a flarm equipped aircraft comes into range. I find it a great improvement on the standard flarm display. It is very useful knowing the distance separating you from another glider, also their precise track in relation to your glider. How can anyone argue against having this knowledge, which requires all nearby aircraft to be fitted with the equipment? When S type transponders become widespread in Australia, Nigel has plans for an add on receiver which will pick up S type transmissions and show the position of equipped aircraft on the Flarm display. My own accident as well as others I have studied, shows that Flarm would have almost certainly saved accidents. In my case, the data logger traces show I was being followed by another glider a few hundred meters behind, slightly to my left and a little higher. No scan before a turn could have seen him. Would I have started a thermalling turn to the left if Flarm had alerted me to the other gliders presence? Never! Shortly before the collision I saw the other glider on my extreme right in what appeared to be a collision course, so my lookout wasn't all that bad , but I could not avoid him and the other glider hit my wing from behind.The other pilots statement said he did not see me until the instant of the accident. He also said he had been looking at another glider ahead and above. Very common for a pilot to be studying the situation ahead, perhaps other gliders or deciding on the most favourable clouds. We all do it. I am not trying to be critical of the other pilot. Without doubt both Flarms would have given continuous position advice additionally to sounding alarms before the point of contact and almost certainly prevented the accident which nearly cost my life and a new glider uninsured except for 3rd party insurance. I wasn't worried about the money but put a substantially higher value on my life and that of others who Flarm might have saved or will save in the future. We all know Flarm has its limitations. Gliders thermalling together in close proximity can make unexpected changes of direction which would make an accident certain but this is not the scenario of many accidents. The sooner all gliders and tugs have flarms fitted,the safer we will all be, Harry Medlicott Keith Dixon & Anne Elliott HYPERLINK "mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"[EMAIL PROTECTED] PO Box 189 Narromine NSW 2821 tel: HYPERLINK "http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?src=jj_signature&To=02+6889+1229&Email=a [EMAIL PROTECTED]" \n02 6889 1229 mobile: HYPERLINK "http://www.plaxo.com/click_to_call?src=jj_signature&To=0438062652%2F0417062 652&[EMAIL PROTECTED]" \n0438062652/0417062652 HYPERLINK "https://www.plaxo.com/add_me?u=60129625549&v0=160562&k0=590759589"; \nAdd me to your address book... HYPERLINK "http://www.plaxo.com/signature"; \nWant a signature like this? -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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