Post-briefing 17 Aug, and FLARM performance

There has been a lot of interest in FLARM generally, and PowerFLARM in particular.  The ranges that the team are getting, in some cases with very new installations, varies.  Dave is getting 10 miles/16 km with his new antenna and PowerFLARM Brick.  The data feeds into the LX9000, which is useful.

Nick is getting about 7 miles/11 km with his Brick.  Tactical data is on the rectangular FLARM display, and can be displayed on XC Soar, however, you have to go to specific FLARM pages to do this, and you lose some situational awareness as a result; so, he stays on the moving map mode.  He says that better integration of FLARM into XC Soar navigation displays would be a good thing, and expects that in time, it will happen.  One competitor's EuroFLARM is consistently setting off warnings when it shouldn't, probably a settings problem with that person, and this is a bit irritating.

Jerzy had integration problems with the EuroFLARM and his Clearnav; as a result, he's running it stand-alone.  The range he gets - "Enough".

All agree that the contest is much safer with FLARM, and that tactical data - others altitude and climb rate, contest numbers - is useful, particularly on blue days.

 We haven't had much General Aviation traffic, and we're some distance from San Antonio (90 min drive), so airliners do not present the same threat as at SOSA or Gatineau, since the airport is closed from 1130-1530 daily for the launch and pre-start.

Lastly, when qualified as IGC loggers, a lot of extra GPS pucks and wiring of back-up loggers can go away, and this will be great.  What with all the various gizmos, and small panels, less clutter will be a plus.

Dusty.  That's the word for the grid.  The ropes - 97 of them - are laid out on the left side of the grid. As covers come off, one of the wonderful recovery crew (wearing bright orange T-shirts; I see today they have bright green - "The Lime Crew" - play on line crew) comes by and places the end of the rope by the glider.  About 10 mins later, you launch.  Here's a pic of the amount of dust blowing between the time it was placed, and the time the wing dolly comes off, with 2 gliders ahead of you:

 Yup.  A "dust shadow" when you move the rope.  Vis was zero/zero when I tried to drive back down the line after Jerzy's launch... had to stop for a few minutes.  I pity the folks at the back of the grid. 18m is at the front tomorrow, so a little longer task, I expect. We're gridded 13/14.  ST, with 15m, further back.

Tasks and weather.

If the day is slow to develop, a "B" task, which will be a variant of these, except a bit shorter, will be called on the grid.

Outlook for tomorrow - a trough going through Texas, with a 40% chance of rain - which they need.  So, today is more critical than other days, since it may be the final flying day.  It looks, according to Metman Dan, like a typical Uvalde day, which we haven't seen yet...