Feds Want to Equipe Gliders With Transponders and Radios

"Cats" wrote in message
...
On Apr 28, 7:44 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:
snip
The issue in equipping gliders with transponders, the way I see it, is
the high power consumption required by transponders. Here's a typical
glider transponder:http://www.airplanegear.com/becker.htm
It seems to draw 175W to 250W. That's not insignificant, and way more
than the comm radio consumes. Then there's the weight and antenna
that reduce performance, not to mention the cost of the equipment,
installation, and maintenance.

You need to find the overall consumption, not what is used when it is
squawking.

As to weight - since we frequently put water in gliders to improve
performance, I can't see a problem there, and the antenna will be
inside the glider so won't increase drag.

But you are right that buying and installing a transponder isn't a
cheap thing.

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I 'm confident that the installation is the biggest part of it--especially
when you include enough solar panels to power it all reliably.

Peter

"Peter Dohm" wrote

I 'm confident that the installation is the biggest part of it--especially
when you include enough solar panels to power it all reliably.

Why solar cells? A 7 amp hour lead acid gel cell can be had for about 20 bucks,
and would run a solid state transponder for a whole flight.
--
Jim in NC

You can't put the antenna on the inside of a carbon fiber fuselage, well,
you could, but it would not work.
Not all gliders have excess usable weight available to carry water.

BT
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You need to find the overall consumption, not what is used when it is
squawking.

As to weight - since we frequently put water in gliders to improve
performance, I can't see a problem there, and the antenna will be
inside the glider so won't increase drag.

But you are right that buying and installing a transponder isn't a
cheap thing.