PowerFlarm for Rent/Loan for Elmira, U.S.A.?

Thanks John.

I could possibly shoehorn the PF box below my seat as is the Trig and my
Streak might function as a display. There's no more room for wiring
from anywhere aft of the forward bulkhead to the panel and, believe me,
I've tried. For my gear and spoiler switches I had to rip out
upholstery, lay the wires in the glue and replace the upholstery. I
don't want to go through that again. A mouse with a small display might
work but, for now, the PCAS serves me well.

On 7/1/2015 9:12 AM, John Carlyle wrote:
Dan,

I agree that blocking your view is to be avoided. I also agree that if you fly in airline congested areas you must have a transponder, and if you fly in contests you need a PowerFlarm.

I have a LS-8, which has a cramped panel like your LAK-17. But I've managed to shoehorn in both a Mode S transponder and a PowerFlarm core, and the only thing that shows above the glare shield is the 1" tall 3/16" diameter top of the Flarm antenna. Average Flarm range is 7 km, with maximum distance out to 25 km, so I'm quite pleased.

It's true that figuring out where to put things isn't easy. It took several trials until I was able to figure out where to put the boxes for the Trig and the PowerFlarm core! Later, when I installed a Butterfly Vario, the inertial unit had to go under the seat.

-John, Q3


On Wednesday, July 1, 2015 at 10:12:12 AM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
Panel space is extremely limited in my LAK-17a and I feel that
sticking something on top is more of a risk due to blocked view
outside. Many folks disagree with me. I chose instead to install a
Mode S transponder under the cockpit floor(!) with the control head
in the panel and a Zaon MRX PCAS on top of the panel. It has a much
smaller frontal area than the PF units I've seen. I've looked at
the PF Mouse but, where I fly, being visible to airliners is more
important to me.

--
Dan Marotta

Dan, if I recall correct your Streak is running XCSoar. As such it can not be used as a flarm display. As much as I like XCSoar, it's flarm support is close to useless. I opened many enhancement requests in attempt to bring the flarm support to SeeYou level but they are not getting any attention. So you will need the small butterfly display which you should be able to find a place to put instead of your Zaon As I did. You'll also get a more reliable and accurate Mode C alerts than the Zaon provides. Sell your Zaon to cover some of your cost.

Ramy

Sounds like a possibility...

On 7/1/2015 10:54 PM, Ramy wrote:
Dan, if I recall correct your Streak is running XCSoar. As such it can not be used as a flarm display. As much as I like XCSoar, it's flarm support is close to useless. I opened many enhancement requests in attempt to bring the flarm support to SeeYou level but they are not getting any attention. So you will need the small butterfly display which you should be able to find a place to put instead of your Zaon As I did. You'll also get a more reliable and accurate Mode C alerts than the Zaon provides. Sell your Zaon to cover some of your cost.

Ramy

--
Dan Marotta

Dan, I've managed to cram in a useful PF setup in my LS6 (small panel), if that helps. I use the brick as my primary GPS and igc logger, driving my SN10 and Oudie2 - which both by the way have their own Flarm displays and warnings, so you could get away with the little LED flarm display. I also have a Zaon MRX and use it in our towplanes and club gliders, but the PF has the huge advantage of also showing ADS-B equipped aircraft, and they show up really well on the Oudie map (you get what you pay for ;^).

I think LK8000 shows flarm traffic? What about TopHat?

Anyway - I feel blind nowadays when I'm flying without good traffic detection - and nowadays there is really no good reason not to have it - and the combination of a Mode S xponder and a PF is about the best setup you can have (unless you can fit an APG-82 AESA radar in your glider...)

Kirk

On Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 5:54:10 AM UTC+1, Ramy wrote:
Dan, if I recall correct your Streak is running XCSoar. As such it can not be used as a flarm display. As much as I like XCSoar, it's flarm support is close to useless. I opened many enhancement requests in attempt to bring the flarm support to SeeYou level but they are not getting any attention. So you will need the small butterfly display which you should be able to find a place to put instead of your Zaon As I did. You'll also get a more reliable and accurate Mode C alerts than the Zaon provides. Sell your Zaon to cover some of your cost.

Ramy

It's definitely true that XCSoar is unsuitable for use as a primary FLARM display, but this is somewhat by design. XCSoar's 'FLARM radar' was intended to complement the 'LED clock' type original FLARM displays, and warnings are intentionally left to dedicated hardware.

Indeed the XCSoar flarm functionality is mostly for situational awareness but not for collision alert. As such can not be used instead of a primary display like butterfly. There is no reason it can not be enhanced though.

Ramy

On Saturday, 4 July 2015 16:28:30 UTC+2, Ramy wrote:
Indeed the XCSoar flarm functionality is mostly for situational awareness but not for collision alert. As such can not be used instead of a primary display like butterfly. There is no reason it can not be enhanced though.

Ramy

The only problem is that XCSoar runs on a wide range of hardware and operating systems so stability , reliability and performance cannot be ensured by the XCSoar developers.
Do you really want to trust your life with a system that may not work correctly in a critical situation?

I think the legal issues also dissuade the main developers from adding full support but there is nothing stopping someone else from adding the code themselves. Most of the code is already there.

Personally I prefer a dedicated FLARM display with a black background so that the FLARM traffic is clearly visible at all times with a tactical range selected. By adding FLARM traffic onto a moving map display you normally lose the high contrast because of the map background and the range/zoom may constantly be changing between cruise and thermal modes.