On Aug 16, 7:35*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:
On 8/16/2010 7:47 PM, Andy wrote:



On Aug 16, 5:14 pm, Mike
wrote:
* all you get is a warning that
someone is near you at your altitude. *You get altitude and distance,
but not a clue of which direction they are coming from.

Having flown with the ZAON MRX for 2 seasons I find that alerting to
be useful. *Certainly much more useful than "absolutely nothing to
protect us ".

As mentioned previously PowerFLRAM has the opportunity to be a big
improvement over the MRX if they include target specific alert
suppression. (let me mute the gliders I am thermalling with and still
be alerted to the B737 or King Air that is about to mow us all down)

Andy

Does anyone have any detailed technical data on how PowerFLARM is able
to distinguish a Mode C transponder equipped glider from a Mode C
transponder equipped powered aircraft?

It cannot. You should know that Mode C includes no identification
about aircraft type or other information. But that is not what Andy
was saying.

Andy was pointing out PowerFARM has detection type suppression (e.g.
suppress PCAS and just tell me about Flarm threats.) Contest pilots
will absolutely need this in large gaggles if a reasonable number of
those gliders have transponders (esp. Mode C).

ATC radar can track an individual Mode C transponder equipped aircraft,
because it can not only see the range and altitude of the aircraft's
location, but also the bearing. *

The PowerFLARM unit can not track the
transponder bearing, so some healthy skepticism is in order on the claim
that they can intelligently suppress glider induced false alarms while
not inadvertently also suppressing some real collision threats.

Again that was not what Andy was claiming.

But issues with transponders in gaggles really has little to do with
tracking direction, there is no directional PCAS (i.e. Zaon XRX) or
TCAD or TCAS system that has a hope in hell of working in a really
crowded gaggle type environment. Especially not one with a good
fraction of those gliders having Mode C transponders. That is what
Flarm is for.

Please no hate mail from PCAS users, I have a Zaon MRX and love it as
well, but things will hit the wall in crowded environments.

The PowerFLARM PCAS capability as a very nice adjunct to it's Flarm-
Flarm capability, handy out on course against transponder equipped
gliders and against GA traffic etc.

--
Mike Schumann

Yes we know.

Sigh.

Darryl