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Old October 12th 18, 12:25 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Darryl Ramm
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Default ADSB panel display

Grrr GDL-90 not GLD-90. Autocorrect seems to be dyslexic.

On Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 2:47:12 PM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 2:30:05 AM UTC-7, Alastair Lyas wrote:
Might be worth waiting for products combining both ADSB and
Flarm?


The uAvionix SkyEcho 2 is innovative in ways, but to me it has lots of limitations and is just not that interesting for the USA glider market at least, which is why I've not mentioned it before on r.a.s. But here goes...

I always expect there is interesting stuff coming, but folks do need to be a little careful what they might decide to wait for. Well over a decade ago some folks in the Minden area were waiting for mythical UAT devices that never happened, lots of handwaving not grounded in reality, and in some cases owners unfortunately were putting off transponder adoption because of that. Let's not repeat anything like that again. And for the SkyEcho 2 we don't need to wait to actually look at what this device does or does not do since documentation has been available for a while. And much of my comments below come from just reading that documentation... but OK, with a pretty good understanding of the underlying technology.

The SkyEcho 2 does not include a FLARM transceiver, so in the USA today you would be adding a PowerFLARM to it via the FLARMBridge option to get FLARM capability. That immediately makes it uninteresting to lots of glider owners. According to the documentation the combined devices do *not* take ADS-B traffic and output that on a FLARM serial protocol link so the usual traffic displays used in a glider can see them... it seems to only works the other way and takes FLARM traffic and adds it to what is being sent over GLD-90 protocol to GA EFBs etc. The reverse of what most glider pilots want in a cockpit (and what PowerFLARM does today for 1090ES Direct traffic). And I'll bet it converts PowerFLARMs more useful traffic warnings say when thermalling with other gliders into ADS-B warnings going off all the time nonsense. And given how the FLARM ICD (serial protocol) and GLD-90 works I doubt there is any sane way not to have to do that. But OK, it is what it is, and very clearly this product is *not* aimed at gliders.

I'm not sure uAvionix have promised USA FCC approval for that device yet. I expect they are likely to. It's not FCC approved today so can't even be advertised in the USA... which may well be why there is nothing mentioned on their USA website or why they don't want to irritate the FCC by even talking about it. Having been to the FCC approval mosh pit (I was going to call it a dance :-)) several times before uAvionix should know very well what they are doing with FCC approval.

Their launch for the product was very UK centric, which was pretty interesting given how far behind overall ADS-B adoption is in Europe vs. the USA, they seem to be hoping to move that needle, ride on UK interest in TABS and FIS-B trials and combining some FLARM capability. So quite a intersting kitchen sink of a product for those uses and very interesting that uAvionix are so growth oriented they are lookin at trying to seed that market.

So then you want to ask if you need an actual PowerFLARM device to connect to the SkyEcho 2 to do FLARM then what else does the SkyEcho 2 provide, and importantly is it a replacement for a transponder?

Importantly the SkyEcho 2 *not* a full transponder but does implement TABS/TSO-C199 so should provide compatibility with TCAS which is obviously important. I'd love to see one working. ATC will likely not see that device however and that's going to be an issue in many places near busy ATC areas. ATC *does* sees Trig transponders running as TABS devices, as they are full transponders underneath the TABS 1090ES Out part. The ATC visibility part is a large concern for me, especially around places like the Minden area which this thread started with. Without ATC visibility I would not recommend that device for use in that area. I'd love to eventually get my hands on one to confirm and to talk about it with the friendly NOCAL TRACON tech folks who cover the Reno area.

You also can't install this (or any other TABS) device in an aircraft with an existing Mode C or Mode S transponder.... so can't get visibility to ATC that way. I can't imagine any glider owner with a transponder in their glider who would want to pull it out and replace it with a SkyEcho 2 if that meant losing visibility to ATC... a large part of why they installed the transponder to start with.

The SkyEcho 2 also won't meet FAA 2020 ADS-B Out requirements, and although gliders are partially exempt, we still have folks who want to say overfly Class C airspace (but below 10,000').

It's a little confusing in some many ways the SkyEcho seems more targeted at UAVs (or maybe ultralights) but things like UAT In/FIS-B is more a GA feature, so it sure is an intersting product to follow for geeks like me, but kind of wedged into a space between others products, especially with full Mode S/1090ES Out transponders on one side. We'll see....

Other products with combined ADS-B and FLARM capabilities...

PowerFLARM today does 1090ES In (Direct only, no ADS-R and TIS-B) and FLARM. (effectively all PowerFLARM sold in the USA have the 1090ES In option).

LXNav PowerMouse is coming, apparently undergoing FCC approval, with its ADS-B In option it does 1090ES In (but unlike PowerFLARM it *does* ADS-R and hopefully TIS-B) and FLARM. (hopefully LXNav will be smart here and the PowerMouse sold in the USA will all have 1090ES In option).

Other vendors like AirAvionic have new FLARM products with 1090ES In capabilities coming, I wish they would start describing those product specs and capabilities more clearly and ideally clarifying their plans for the USA market. (their ATD57 display is still great however if anybody wants a dedicated FLARM display).

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Alastair I assume you are in the UK? or elsewhere in Europe. I'm you not sure why you care about FLARM and the USA with a LXNav 9070, but if you really want to operate in the USA hopefully you have a standard PowerFLARM external box (i.e. a model with FCC approval) connected to the 9070.