"Do It Yourself" airborne proximity warning device

On Tuesday, December 10, 2013 1:41:26 PM UTC-8, Sarah wrote:
Well, define "accurate", and "could put in a glider".



I've never seen one, but the rather boxy Zaon "XRX" was supposed to give azimuth information. I believe it was crude ( quadrant or octant ), and I have no information about how well it worked other than reviews. I have a Zaon "MRX", which is a small altitude-only reporting receiver, and find it useful. Too bad Zaon closed operations recently.



Review: http://www.flyingmag.com/avionics-ge...oidance-system


And there was only one serious trial of an Zaon XRX in a glider that I am aware of and it did not do well and was removed. The upper and lower phased array antennas that TCAS II uses to get it their rough quadrant direction information is well beyond what is in a XRX type system or what you could/would want to install in a glider at all. TCAS III was supposed to provide accurate threat direction information for airliners etc., the complexity of doing that was one reason TCAS III was an abject failure and TCAS II stayed on being used.

Investing money/effort in positional transponder type systems seems a wasted effort given that FLARM exists and is already widely installed in glider fleets in many regions and that over time ADS-B will provide high resolution position report of lots of Airline, Fast jet, Military and GA traffic (eventually on-par with transponder carriage, possibly as early as a few years after 2020). But yes, even then we'll have issues with ADS-B including the dual-link silliness in the USA, problems equipping for ADS-B data-out carriage, etc.