Adding a FLARM

I posted this on a different site, but I thought I would share this story.

I recently purchased a FLARM from Cumulus Soaring, Inc. Since the airspace we share is full of heavy metal (airliners) in addition to gliders, I felt that this would be an invaluable instrument to have on board.

 

Just days before receiving it, I did a fly-over of our home. Louise ran out of the house to take a photo of me passing over, but the glider she saw was not me!. It was a Duo Discus (upper right corner and I'm in the lower left corner), and thou she did take the photo, being under a dark cloud, I did not see them until after they past.

 

 

As soon as the FLARM arrived, I was out to the airport to install it in the glider. I purchase the FLARM Core brick. It is a tight fit on the tray. What is even tighter, is the antenna installation. 

Since the Libelle does not have a combing, I had to mount the GPS antenna in the nose, top-side up, and the FLARM A and ADS-B antennas were mounted on opposite sides of the nose bulkhead. It now requires small hands to button up the tray!









For the display, I bought the LX Nav  FLARMview. It is bright and easy to read in flight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Tuesday was the first time I flew with the FLARM, and as soon as I released from tow, it went off. It was alerting me of a target using a transponder.

 

The object was above me and closing. As I was circling in the thermal, scanned the sky around me to see what I was closing in on. When I was just less than three hundred feet from it, I banked out from the thermal in a direction away from the target. A soon as I made the turn I noticed it was the club Grob above me at my six-o-clock high position. I didn’t know if they could see me, since I was at their 12 –o-clock low position.

 

During the rest of the flight, I was warned a few times of a approaching target,, and sure enough, it was the Grob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a good first test flight with the FLARM. I certainly see a value in this instrument and those who fly with a minimum, a working transponder.

Thank you Paul and Renny for your help with this purchase. Money well spent!