Great request, and I've made similar here before. Mike please describe exactly what you are flying with and exactly what it does.

And include power consumption and space/volume required for all the boxes including PDA/tablet displays. And describe how the display output/traffic warning work..... to a PDA or tablet running what software? And if using the PDA/tablet for a traffic display where do you run your soaring software? A separate PDA? And what happens when you are in a thermal with one or more transponder equipped gliders? Do you ever thermal with other gliders? A recording of the screen of the PDA or tablet when thermalling with transponder equipped gliders would be very intersting.

Darryl

On Friday, November 11, 2016 at 12:47:07 PM UTC-8, kirk.stant wrote:
On Thursday, November 10, 2016 at 11:57:36 PM UTC-6, Mike Schumann wrote:

Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I have been a glider pilot for many years, flying out of a grass field within the MSP Mode C veil.

I don't fly in contests. For those pilots who do, FLARM may be a good option in those situations.

Where I fly, there are virtually no FLARM (or transponder) equipped gliders. However, 95% of the power aircraft are transponder equipped. With a proper ADS-B IN/OUT setup, the exact location and altitude all of these aircraft are visible.

And what are the gliders equipped with? What percentage have transponders, or even radios? If it's a typical club environment, few of the club ships will have radios, none will have transponders, and among the private ships, there will be more radios but probably few transponders. Exceptions apply; active XC clubs near class B airspace will probably have a few gliders better equipped - but even there, it will be radio + transponder + Pflarm.


For the last ten months, my primary aircraft is a Phoenix Motorglider. It has a full Dynon Skyview system, including 2020 compliant ADS-B IN and OUT, as well as a Mode S transponder. Just to give you some idea of how economical these types of systems are becoming, this system, which incorporates a full engine monitoring setup, radio, intercom, transponder, moving map display with synthetic vision, a two axis autopilot, and ADS-B IN & OUT, costs ~$12K.

Nice system - FOR AN AIRPLANE. Your notional glider setup simply does not exist in a practical, economical ("suitable for a club 1-26") format. Vaporware...


Obviously this kind of setup is inappropriate for a typical glider. However, a TRIG transponder coupled with an appropriate GPS source, a dual frequency Stratus ADS-B receiver, and an iPAD or iPhone running an application like Foreflight can provide an economical and very robust ADS-B collision avoidance solution at a reasonable cost and with a power and panel footprint that works in most conventional gliders.


OK, spec it out: what approved GPS, transponder, ADS-B in/out box, displays, software, power supply, connectors? How do you put that into a club K-21, or a private LS-8? What is the cost. Can it actually, legally, be done RIGHT NOW?

It's too bad that the PowerFlarm guys have their head in the sand and never bothered to implement TIS-B into their product. The reality is that this is a Eurocentric product with a primitive PCAS bolt on to make it marginally palatable for the US market. The fact that it has absolutely no provision for detecting UAT equipped aircraft makes this a dead end product in the US for anyone who wants to reliably see General Aviation or Drone traffic.

It's too bad the UAT ADS-B Kool-Aid drinkers have their heads where the sun doesn't shine and have come up with a totally flawed system. Want to see how to make ADS-B work for all? Take a look at Europe.

Kirk
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