On Sunday, December 15, 2013 5:44:21 PM UTC-8, 6X wrote:
First Post:



Does anyone have experience with using Stratus ADSB receiver combined with Foreflight for traffic / weather information as alternative to FLARM? http://www.foreflight.com/stratus


I haven't flown with it but I have looked into it a bit.

Since you can't legally equip a glider with ADS-B Out under the current regs, you can't ping for ADS-B traffic or ground station repeated TIS-B traffic. From the Stratus webpage: "Without this “out” equipment, however, pertinent traffic is rarely visible since ADS-B towers remain silent until contacted by an aircraft equipped with ADS-B “out” capability." From my PowerFlarm experience you will occasionally get position reports from large 1090-ES-equipped commercial airliners that are pinging each other. Note that adding ADS-B Out is likely to be far more expensive - assuming that the regs eventually allow it in gliders - partly because it requires and IFR-Certified GPS (not what gliders carry).

You will get zero Flarm traffic and zero collision advisories.

You will get basically no PCAS capability for transponder-equipped GA traffic, except possibly under some rare TIS-B scenarios where an airliner with ADS-B Out lights up a TIS-B ground repeater near you AND the GA traffic has a transponder that is being painted by ground radar that is integrated into the TIS-B data stream. (Darryl Ramm can recite chapter and verse of how these scenarios work).

It's ~2/3 the price of a Flarm (assuming you already have an iPad you want to use - otherwise its the same price) and will require you to carry and look at an iPad in addition to your primary Nav display (iPad is not great in direct sunlight and you can't integrate the data with any known glider flight instruments). With no collision advisory, in order to discern traffic you will have to stare at it to determine threats. Heads down is particularly a bad way to go when the heads down device is picking up almost none of the traffic you care about.

It is against the US contest rules to it carry in competition because of the in-cockpit weather capabilities. Flying a contest might be the time when you want collision-avoidance technology the most.

9B