Harry Todd was at a industry meeting recently representing one of the airlines he is with (this time LAME/commuter hat) and the topic of FLARM came up and was mention with the use of FLARM, that gliding has the jump on GA and commuters on short range collision avoidance . He is worth a talk and I know he recently got one for his LS4 and he has never used one. He is worth a talk............Ian M ----- Original Message ----- From: Anne Elliott To: 'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.' Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:00 PM Subject: [Aus-soaring] From Harry Medlicott
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
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
PO Box 189
Narromine NSW 2821
tel: 02 6889 1229
mobile: 0438062652/0417062652
Add me to your address book... Want a signature like this?
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