Trig TT21 Transponder ... reports?

On Aug 19, 10:18*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Aug 19, 8:13*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:
[snip]





Every sport has leeching. *In Nascar you drive 2" off the leader's
bumper to reduce drag. *There's no problem as long it's a level playing
field and everyone has the same options.

We are NEVER going to get competitively priced equipment if everything
needs to be customized for the soaring community. *Anti-collision
hardware and software should be standardized for ALL aircraft. *Granted,
we have a unique style of flying that can cause excessive false alarms
in systems that aren't designed to recognize that.

That should be dealt with by working with the avionics industry to make
sure that everyone who is designing collision avoidance systems (from
TCAS II down to low end ADS-B enabled devices) understand the unique
characteristics of gliders and accommodate that in their algorithms.

Knowing the rate of climb or decent of aircraft that are in your
vicinity is very useful in evaluating whether or not they are a threat.
* As a pilot, I don't want to wait for an alarm just prior to an
imminent collision. *I want to see what is going on around me 1-2 miles
out, so I can avoid getting anywhere close to an uncomfortable
situation. *If I am entering a gaggle, I want to see what is happening
in 3D with the other gliders that are already there.

Artificially turning off this type of information is not going to go
over very well with the FAA, the NTSB, or the trial lawyers, the next
time there is a mid-air involving gliders in a contest with aircraft
equipped with this kind of equipment. *It's surprising that this
wouldn't be raising huge red flags with the FLARM guys given how
skittish they were about the US market due to the litigious nature of
our legal system.

--
Mike Schumann

Are you speaking for yourself alone or does this represent the option
of the SSA or other people within the SSA or Miter working on UAT
stuff? What is your involvement with the SSA on UAT technology?

All this contest oriented features that Flarm developed (largely as I
understand it at the request of (non-USA) contest pilots and I believe
the IGC) is meaningless in your world. How about letting the contest
pilots and their rules committees drive what they need and the
technology providers can work on meeting their needs not the other way
around. I can only guess what the USA rules committe wants in this
space, but I'd rather hear from them. But I gather you don't think
asking them what is worthwhile.

And a basic summary of you position on collision avoidance technology
is that -- we should not use stuff just because it works to solve a
particular problem (or some set of problems) because things that solve
particular problems that a small community of users have are bad
because they must be inherently expensive and to lower the cost
instead of minimizing the problem space you are trying to address with
a technology/product you maximuse the space, make the solution as
general as possible and the process as large and bureaucratic as
possible. You seem to believe this as a universal truth?

No consideration that probably one of the most effective, proven, bang
for the buck collision avoidance technologies in aviation is wait for
it... Flarm (and yes it cannot do everything, but duh that's a large
part of the reason it is so affordable and works so well for what it
is intended to do).

Getting things done is not about dogma of how things should be done,
the devil is in the details of trying to leverage standards and mass
market technology and working out how to affordable deliver a real
solution to real problems that real users have. That takes a team of
really bright people with a focus on solving real problems. If anybody
thinks they have a UAT based product that is going to compete in the
glider market they better actually better get out and solicit input
from target users on what they actually need and they ought to be
doing basic things like circulating trial balloon product specs to see
if they meet minimum market entry and competitive differentiation
requirements. But I gather there seems to be an opinion that this is
not needed. Is that just you or do other folks working on UATs in the
SSA believe this as well?

Darryl


I believe Mike has made the perfect argument for why the Soaring
community should standardize on PowerFlarm. His scale economies
argument fails as UAT transceivers are at least as expensive as
PowerFlarm for less functionality (the Mitre unit has no display, no
PCAS). The argument that trial lawyers would flock to sue contest
organizers if they required collision units to be turned off argues
strongly for PowerFlarm to be mandated since the lack of ADS-B
standards argues for a single standard. Plus imagine the field day the
lawyers would have if they knew that a soaring-specific technology was
available that solved for the highest probability threat and failed to
act on it - a clear case for negligence.

I have grown weary of the UAT spin - and to think that I used to be a
supporter.

9B