Ads-b and sailplanes

On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 5:02:29 PM UTC-5, Mike Schumann wrote:

You are totally mistaken that everyone who installs ADS-B OUT needs to have a Mode C or Mode S transponder. For starters, gliders are totally exempt from both the ADS-B OUT and transponder mandates. That also applies to all other aircraft that either do not have electrical systems, or operate outside of the Mode C veil and below 10,000 ft.

Oh get real, Mike. The subset of aircraft that are exempt from the transponder mandate that will bother to put anykind of ADS-B is pretty small. At best, there will be a relatively cheap battery-powered system developed that will fill that niche (ultralights, powered chutes - and maybe some training gliders/towplanes. But for the rest of the aviation world, the need to fly above 10,000 and in Class C/B airspace means transponders. And if you don't need to fly there, they won't bother with any ADS-B - heck, many club gliders in the US don't even have radios!


With the cost of ADS-B OUT UAT transceivers dropping below $1,000 it is totally conceivable that a significant number of glider pilots will buy these systems and not invest an extra $2K in a transponder. Some pilots may elect to invest in portable UAT transceivers that they can share in a club environment.

You need more than just the transceivers - you need the control interface and the display system - AND an electrical system to power it. All that for less than $1000? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath!


This will not make the glider visible to today's airliner TCAS systems, but it will make the glider visible on ATC radar. Hopefully ATC will have the common sense to vector any traffic around you. In addition, the UAT transceiver equipped glider will clearly see the big iron traffic and be able to stay out of the way.

So, if my concern is about fast movers (out West, or near a Class B airport, I'm still better off with a Mode S transponder, and eventually add the ADS-B ES kit to get full ADS-B if I want the weather. And sure, if the magical cheap UAT device starts popping up in all the flying machines in my vicinity, then I would get one too. But until all this fantasy gear is reality, I'll continue to be protected by my PowerFLARM.

And again: Would you please spec out for me your idea of an actual UAT-based ADS-B system (hardware, software, cost) that one can buy TODAY and install in their glider, that provides at least as much situational awareness as the PowerFLARM has been providing me for the past 3 years? So far, all I see is talk - but nothing remotely useful coming out of your mouth. Step up, man!

Kirk
66

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 10:52:06 AM UTC-4, kirk.stant wrote:
On Monday, May 4, 2015 at 5:02:29 PM UTC-5, Mike Schumann wrote:

You are totally mistaken that everyone who installs ADS-B OUT needs to have a Mode C or Mode S transponder. For starters, gliders are totally exempt from both the ADS-B OUT and transponder mandates. That also applies to all other aircraft that either do not have electrical systems, or operate outside of the Mode C veil and below 10,000 ft.

Oh get real, Mike. The subset of aircraft that are exempt from the transponder mandate that will bother to put anykind of ADS-B is pretty small. At best, there will be a relatively cheap battery-powered system developed that will fill that niche (ultralights, powered chutes - and maybe some training gliders/towplanes. But for the rest of the aviation world, the need to fly above 10,000 and in Class C/B airspace means transponders. And if you don't need to fly there, they won't bother with any ADS-B - heck, many club gliders in the US don't even have radios!


With the cost of ADS-B OUT UAT transceivers dropping below $1,000 it is totally conceivable that a significant number of glider pilots will buy these systems and not invest an extra $2K in a transponder. Some pilots may elect to invest in portable UAT transceivers that they can share in a club environment.

You need more than just the transceivers - you need the control interface and the display system - AND an electrical system to power it. All that for less than $1000? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath!


This will not make the glider visible to today's airliner TCAS systems, but it will make the glider visible on ATC radar. Hopefully ATC will have the common sense to vector any traffic around you. In addition, the UAT transceiver equipped glider will clearly see the big iron traffic and be able to stay out of the way.

So, if my concern is about fast movers (out West, or near a Class B airport, I'm still better off with a Mode S transponder, and eventually add the ADS-B ES kit to get full ADS-B if I want the weather. And sure, if the magical cheap UAT device starts popping up in all the flying machines in my vicinity, then I would get one too. But until all this fantasy gear is reality, I'll continue to be protected by my PowerFLARM.

And again: Would you please spec out for me your idea of an actual UAT-based ADS-B system (hardware, software, cost) that one can buy TODAY and install in their glider, that provides at least as much situational awareness as the PowerFLARM has been providing me for the past 3 years? So far, all I see is talk - but nothing remotely useful coming out of your mouth. Step up, man!

Kirk
66

If you want a fully functional ADS-B IN / OUT system for under $1,000 you'll probably have to wait until this fall. These systems are going to use iPAD or iPHONE apps to provide the user interface. (I'm not counting the cost of iPhone / iPAD in the price of the system, as most people have these devices anyway).

At this price point, these devices are going to be very popular in the General Aviation community. It's perplexing to me why the PowerFLARM guys don't get with the program and come up with a dual frequency ADS-B receiver or support TIS-B and ADS-R so they can have a competitive product in this space.

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 10:19:59 PM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:

If you want a fully functional ADS-B IN / OUT system for under $1,000 you'll probably have to wait until this fall. These systems are going to use iPAD or iPHONE apps to provide the user interface. (I'm not counting the cost of iPhone / iPAD in the price of the system, as most people have these devices anyway).

If I'm flying a glider and I want to invest in avionics for anti-collision I wouldn't invest in anything that doesn't sent/receive Flarm protocol if I'm worried about gliders since the odds a glider is going to have anything other than Flarm is low. If I'm worried about fast jets I wouldn't invest in anything that doesn't light up both TCAS and SSR because they are faster it is much better for them to see me. That requires a transponder. Those considerations make anything UAT-only mostly useless as it depends on ADS-R to get even half of the job done. For GA I remain skeptical that UAT will outsell 1090ES, even in GA.

9B

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:32:11 AM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 at 10:19:59 PM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:

If you want a fully functional ADS-B IN / OUT system for under $1,000 you'll probably have to wait until this fall. These systems are going to use iPAD or iPHONE apps to provide the user interface. (I'm not counting the cost of iPhone / iPAD in the price of the system, as most people have these devices anyway).

If I'm flying a glider and I want to invest in avionics for anti-collision I wouldn't invest in anything that doesn't sent/receive Flarm protocol if I'm worried about gliders since the odds a glider is going to have anything other than Flarm is low. If I'm worried about fast jets I wouldn't invest in anything that doesn't light up both TCAS and SSR because they are faster it is much better for them to see me. That requires a transponder. Those considerations make anything UAT-only mostly useless as it depends on ADS-R to get even half of the job done. For GA I remain skeptical that UAT will outsell 1090ES, even in GA.

9B

The question is, do you want to end up with an avionics package that doesn't see UAT ADS-B OUT equipped traffic? It's hard to predict how much of the GA or UAV fleet will go down that road, but it could be a pretty significant percentage if there is a significant price difference between UAT and 1090ES ADS-B OUT solutions.

That's not to say that FLARM isn't a good solution for glider pilots that are flying in competitions. FLARM is specifically designed for collision avoidance for aircraft that are flying at close quarters. ADS-B is designed to give people a heads up so they can stay far away from any conflicting traffic before it becomes a threat. It's really unfortunate that the PowerFLARM folks only solved part of the problem rather than come up with a comprehensive solution that takes into account the UAT / 1090ES architecture of the US ADS-B system.

In Europe I don't think this is even a discussion. The risk to gliders is nearly all glider to glider. Some GA owners are installing PF also.

At 07:21 07 May 2015, waremark wrote:
In Europe I don't think this is even a discussion. The risk to gliders is
nearly all glider to glider. Some GA owners are installing PF also.

Not just GA! The Vulcan bomber is installing PF this spring and the RAF
BBMF
have installed it in all their aircraft.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 3:15:06 PM UTC-4, Benedict Smith wrote:
The Vulcan bomber is installing PF this spring and the RAF
BBMF
have installed it in all their aircraft.

Is this to avoid transponder-less gliders or are they installing PF to avoid collision with other bombers in close formation flying? I wonder what sorts of testing they did.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 1:08:27 AM UTC-5, Mike Schumann wrote:

The question is, do you want to end up with an avionics package that doesn't see UAT ADS-B OUT equipped traffic? It's hard to predict how much of the GA or UAV fleet will go down that road, but it could be a pretty significant percentage if there is a significant price difference between UAT and 1090ES ADS-B OUT solutions.

The problem is, in order to see ALL ADS-B traffic, you HAVE to have ADS-B out. So to get reliable info, you have to have, at a minimum, about $1500 for a Skyguard UAT transceiver and and $500 for an iFly display to show the data. Or an iPhone 6+, same price.

And how many gliders are going to do that? Most racers won't - they'll stick to PF for the collision warning advantage (and leeching benefits). Out west, they will most likely go with 1090ES out to trigger jet TCAS, and PF to see other gliders.

Just getting an ADS-B receiver is fine for weather and NOTAMS, but a really flawed solution for traffic - much worse than PF, for all the reasons that have been discussed ad nauseum in this thread.


That's not to say that FLARM isn't a good solution for glider pilots that are flying in competitions. FLARM is specifically designed for collision avoidance for aircraft that are flying at close quarters. ADS-B is designed to give people a heads up so they can stay far away from any conflicting traffic before it becomes a threat. It's really unfortunate that the PowerFLARM folks only solved part of the problem rather than come up with a comprehensive solution that takes into account the UAT / 1090ES architecture of the US ADS-B system.

Mike, has it occurred to you that since the US is the only country to use UAT, there isn't a big enough market for it at present? But in Europe, the PF makes total sense, since it will display ALL ADS-B (1090ES) traffic AND gliders?

Kirk
66

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 7:40:59 AM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:
The problem is, in order to see ALL ADS-B traffic, you HAVE to have ADS-B out. So to get reliable info, you have to have, at a minimum, about $1500 for a Skyguard UAT transceiver and and $500 for an iFly display to show the data. Or an iPhone 6+, same price.

Uh no, to see all ADS-B traffic you just need to have receivers for both UAT and 1090ES, both transmit continuously whether or not there is other ADS-B traffic in the area. It is ADS-R from ground stations that may not be transmitted if there are no detected ADS-B out targets in the area.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 12:20:41 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Uh no, to see all ADS-B traffic you just need to have receivers for both UAT and 1090ES, both transmit continuously whether or not there is other ADS-B traffic in the area. It is ADS-R from ground stations that may not be transmitted if there are no detected ADS-B out targets in the area.

Are you sure? As I understand it, unless you transmit ADS-B out, you will not get all the UAT ADS-B out traffic. You will only see them when a UAT ADS-B out is getting traffic info for all the traffic near him. And you have to be in range of a ground station.

Agree that with a 1090ES receiver (such as a PF), you will see all 1090ES traffic nearby - but not UAT-only ADS-B traffic.

Kirk
66