Anti Collision Warning

Mike,

The FLARM concept has been painfully obvious, from a technology point
of view, since the introduction of low-cost GPS. In fact, it could
even have been partially implemented with LORAN, but those receivers
were expensive and were never widely deployed.

Unfortunately, FLARM-type collision avoidance is only going to work if
it's deployed to virtually all aircraft, which would require the
authorities to insist on it. This won't happen: ADS-B is the chosen
approach.

It seems to me that TIS-B is most likely what will first begin to
provide us with the functionality we need - and actually get deployed.
TIS-B (Traffic Information Service - Broadcast) is a portion of
ADS-B, essentially a broadcast of the radar returns seen by ATC. At
the moment it has limited coverage in the US but you can receive it -
however you need to spend about $15,000 on avionics including a Mode S
transponder plus a display unit designed for bigger panels than we
have. Still, no doubt it will soon occur to some entrepreneur that a
TIS-B receiver without all the Mode S baggage, designed for display on
a PDA might well find a market (lots of Cezzna drivers think $15k is a
lot of money too).

In article ,
Mike,

The FLARM concept has been painfully obvious, from a technology point
of view, since the introduction of low-cost GPS. In fact, it could
even have been partially implemented with LORAN, but those receivers
were expensive and were never widely deployed.

Unfortunately, FLARM-type collision avoidance is only going to work if
it's deployed to virtually all aircraft, which would require the
authorities to insist on it. This won't happen: ADS-B is the chosen
approach.

Sort of important to this approach is "is it worth it?" and
"does the solution cause more death than the problem?"

Kind of like parachutes. If the added weight increases the
marginal stall speed to the point it causes .001% more
fatal accidents, but only saves .0092% more pilots
in breakups, then it was a bad idea. Of course it's
extremely unlikely anyone can prove the extra 15 pounds was
the cause of fatality, right?

How many added fatalities will there be because the pilot
is distracted by the bleepy noise, even though the aircraft
would have missed by six inches if neither pilot was aware?
How many will die because of the distraction itself?

This is just too hard to calculate. Huge numbers (hours
of flight)multiplied by tiny estimated numbers (risk of midair)
makes for a tough comparison. Now instead of risk
use cost in $$$$s to implement, and the true cost vs. benefit is
very difficult to estimate correctly...

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Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA