On Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at 10:11:04 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 8:47:16 PM UTC-4, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 7:26:19 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 12:45:36 PM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:
On Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 9:25:46 AM UTC-5, wrote:
I would choose ADSB over PowerFlarm now, for a glider and a towplane.

Yeah, right, I'm not holding my breath for all those club gliders to get ADS-B out! PF is the way to go for gliders; of course ideally, tow planes should have both.

Kirk

Kirk, with respect, are you holding your breath for all those club gliders to get Flarm? ADSB is CLEARLY the 'way to go' for best traffic awareness in the USA.

I totally agree. FLARM may be OK for contests, but for those of us who soar recreationally, GA and airliners are just as big a threat as other gliders.

I was talking to uAvionix at Oshkosh last week, and they have the perfect solution for us: SkyEcho2 (https://uavionix.com/products/skyecho/). It is 1090ES ADS-B OUT and dual band ADS-B IN and supports FLARM. Cost is ~$500. The only problem is that it is not FCC or FAA approved in the US. We need to get the SSA and AOPA on the bandwagon to get this approved.

Interesting. What do you mean by "supports FLARM"?

But I would argue with your statement that "GA and airliners are just as big a threat as other gliders". That depends where you are flying. In our area (Northern New England, USA) there is some GA traffic (which are visible and audible on PowerFLARM if they have ADS-B), but I think other gliders are the bigger threat since we concentrate near cloudbase in certain small areas such as over the high ridges and under cloud streets.

It is a shame that the ADS-B system is so byzantine, power-hungry and expensive. Theoretically, if it was ubiquitous in gliders, we could have displays that use algorithms similar to FLARM to avoid alerts about your towplane or gaggle-mates. Instead some of us install PowerFLARM, which does warn us about powered traffic that transmits ADS-B, but does not make us visible to them.

The problem with PowerFLARM today is that it does not reliably show you all GA traffic. It does NOT support TIS-B or UAT, so you will not see ADS-B equipped aircraft that use UAT for ADS-B OUT. This is going to be a VERY significant proportion of the GA fleet, given uAvionix's low cost and easy to install SkyBeacon and TailBeacon products.

Unless you have flown in an ADS-B IN and OUT equipped aircraft, you really have no idea of how much traffic is out there, even in remote areas. If you look at where gliders are based in the US, I suspect the majority are in relatively close proximity to major metropolitan areas where GA and airliner threats are significant. Even if you are flying in Janesville, WI (90 miles from ORD), you have jets on approach to O'Hara flying thru your airspace at 7,000 ft.