Although not a requirement for the World Championships, it was a recommendation for all of the British Team pilots to fly in the competition with a FLARM (Flight Alarm) – a device that helps to identify other gliders in the vicinity that you are flying, alerting you to their presence and therefore hopefully avoiding the possibility of a collision. Steve and I had avoided purchasing a FLARM to date because we felt that a device that only warns of other gliders was rather selfish and we were waiting for a suitable device to come onto the market specifically for gliders (i.e. lightweight and able to run off a 12v battery) that would detect not only gliders, but also other general aviation aircraft. However, needs must, so we started looking at borrowing a FLARM. When it became apparent that it wasn’t going to be possible to just ‘borrow one’ for the competition as suggested, because it turned out we’d have to pay for it, we started looking at buying one ourselves. A FLARM alone costs in the region of £600 - £800, so not exactly cheap. After much reviewing of the technical specifications, we came to the conclusion that perhaps it would be better to update the variometer instrumentation in the cockpit to a more up to date version that also includes FLARM. The drawback of this is that it would be three times the cost of the FLARM alone. Never the less we went ahead. Steve spent a day stripping out the old instruments and re-wiring and fitting the new instrument, not a simple task.
Saturday 14 May dawned and looked as though it would be a reasonable soaring day. Steve and I rigged the Mosquito and I decided to fly a short 100km task in order to familiarise myself with the new instrument as well as make sure it was all working correctly. I flew around the task and was surprised at the various warnings that came up on the device; for example it was warning me about my own gliding club at Sandhill Farm, which is pretty useless. But it also warned me about various restricted zones which is good, so it was more of a question of setting the warnings up correctly. More disturbingly, I found that as I flew along that the GPS signal was being lost and ‘GPS Bad’ kept coming up on the device. I know the area in which I flew like the back of my hand, but this won’t help me in Sweden. On top of this, the FLARM did not appear to be working, now this may have been because there were no other gliders around, but as there were no indicator lights lit at all, I suspected something was wrong. So when I landed, I reported this to Steve and when he downloaded the trace, it was possible to see that the GPS signal was being lost several times a minute, which is completely hopeless. We checked the wiring loom and came to the conclusion that everything was fine and that it was a problem with the instrument itself. A phone call to the Distributor in the UK suggested too that it was the instrument at fault. We were left with no choice but to remove the instrument there and then and drive up to Oxfordshire in order to return the device.
It was Michael’s 18 Birthday so it was a perfect opportunity to go out to a pub and have a meal out. Whilst we were out, it was confirmed that the instrument itself was at fault. At least that confirmed that the wiring was correct and that Steve had installed the system correctly. The trouble now was that the time was fast running out before the Lasham Regionals and we needed another instrument urgently in the cockpit. We found ourselves a little bit over a barrel and decided to upgrade to the next instrument.…another £500 on top of what we had already paid and we would have to wait for it to be delivered to the Distributor during the following week. Hey ho…
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