Low Cost ADS-B Transceivers

The FAA in coordination with the SSA is doing a major test of low cost
ADS-B transceivers this summer in the Washington DC area. As part of
this effort, MIT is doing a survey of pilots' perception of the value of
ADS-B technology in their environments.

Please take 10 minutes and provide your input:

http://agena.mit.edu/ADSBsurvey

We are finally making some serious progress within the FAA to get them
to take a hard look at commercializing the low cost ADS-B technology
that has been developed by MITRE. If this effort is successful, we
should see fully functional ADS-B equipment available in the US at FLARM
price points (~$1K). Please make your voices heard in support of this
effort.

--
Mike Schumann

On Mar 16, 4:51*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:
The FAA in coordination with the SSA is doing a major test of low cost
ADS-B transceivers this summer in the Washington DC area. *As part of
this effort, MIT is doing a survey of pilots' perception of the value of
ADS-B technology in their environments.

Please take 10 minutes and provide your input:

http://agena.mit.edu/ADSBsurvey

We are finally making some serious progress within the FAA to get them
to take a hard look at commercializing the low cost ADS-B technology
that has been developed by MITRE. *If this effort is successful, we
should see fully functional ADS-B equipment available in the US at FLARM
price points (~$1K). *Please make your voices heard in support of this
effort.

--
Mike Schumann

Some very cool ideas for use of ADS-B in soaring.

I would like to see support for common hardware interfaces and public
APIs so that third-party developers could easily integrate ADS-B
output into existing software and/or make it easy to integrate the
display software into a few common platforms (Windows Mobile PDA/PNA,
iPhone, etc). No one wants to carry around another display unit and
switching between a flight computer app and a situational awareness
app is awkward given how frequently a pilot would need to refer to
both.

Hopefully the commercial unit would be more compact and/or allow the
antennas to be mounted remote from the unit. The prototype is pretty
bulky and appears to have the ADS-B antenna built in.

I'd buy one, especially if I didn't have to buy a transponder too.

Of course I may be retired from the sport by the time all that
infrastructure gets deployed.

9B

On 3/17/2010 4:35 AM, Andy wrote:

The MITRE prototype is actually a very compact unit, approximately the
size of a cigarette pack. It has an interface so that it can be
connected to a wide variety of external display devices. While the
prototype is a portable device, many of us are advocating that there
should be a permanent installation option, so that it does not use up
precious panel space and so that you can have an external antenna option
to maximize performance.

MITRE demonstrated the unit at the AOPA Expo last year using an iPhone
as the graphical display device. The intent is to also interface it to
a variety of glide computers and aviation GPS moving map display
devices. This is not too difficult, technically, by emulating the same
interfaces that currently exist to support FLARM and TIS.

Please take the survey and add your comments. We need to demonstrate to
the FAA that there is widespread enthusiasm for this type of device, so
the certification process will be put on the fast track.

--
Mike Schumann

On Mar 16, 4:51 pm, Mike
wrote:
The FAA in coordination with the SSA is doing a major test of low cost
ADS-B transceivers this summer in the Washington DC area. As part of
this effort, MIT is doing a survey of pilots' perception of the value of
ADS-B technology in their environments.

Please take 10 minutes and provide your input:

http://agena.mit.edu/ADSBsurvey

We are finally making some serious progress within the FAA to get them
to take a hard look at commercializing the low cost ADS-B technology
that has been developed by MITRE. If this effort is successful, we
should see fully functional ADS-B equipment available in the US at FLARM
price points (~$1K). Please make your voices heard in support of this
effort.

--
Mike Schumann

Some very cool ideas for use of ADS-B in soaring.

I would like to see support for common hardware interfaces and public
APIs so that third-party developers could easily integrate ADS-B
output into existing software and/or make it easy to integrate the
display software into a few common platforms (Windows Mobile PDA/PNA,
iPhone, etc). No one wants to carry around another display unit and
switching between a flight computer app and a situational awareness
app is awkward given how frequently a pilot would need to refer to
both.

Hopefully the commercial unit would be more compact and/or allow the
antennas to be mounted remote from the unit. The prototype is pretty
bulky and appears to have the ADS-B antenna built in.

I'd buy one, especially if I didn't have to buy a transponder too.

Of course I may be retired from the sport by the time all that
infrastructure gets deployed.

9B

On Mar 17, 6:19*am, Mike Schumann
wrote:
On 3/17/2010 4:35 AM, Andy wrote:

The MITRE prototype is actually a very compact unit, approximately the
size of a cigarette pack. *It has an interface so that it can be
connected to a wide variety of external display devices. *While the
prototype is a portable device, many of us are advocating that there
should be a permanent installation option, so that it does not use up
precious panel space and so that you can have an external antenna option
to maximize performance.

MITRE demonstrated the unit at the AOPA Expo last year using an iPhone
as the graphical display device. *The intent is to also interface it to
a variety of glide computers and aviation GPS moving map display
devices. *This is not too difficult, technically, by emulating the same
interfaces that currently exist to support FLARM and TIS.

Please take the survey and add your comments. *We need to demonstrate to
the FAA that there is widespread enthusiasm for this type of device, so
the certification process will be put on the fast track.

--
Mike Schumann

On Mar 16, 4:51 pm, Mike
wrote:
The FAA in coordination with the SSA is doing a major test of low cost
ADS-B transceivers this summer in the Washington DC area. *As part of
this effort, MIT is doing a survey of pilots' perception of the value of
ADS-B technology in their environments.

Please take 10 minutes and provide your input:

http://agena.mit.edu/ADSBsurvey

We are finally making some serious progress within the FAA to get them
to take a hard look at commercializing the low cost ADS-B technology
that has been developed by MITRE. *If this effort is successful, we
should see fully functional ADS-B equipment available in the US at FLARM
price points (~$1K). *Please make your voices heard in support of this
effort.

--
Mike Schumann

Some very cool ideas for use of ADS-B in soaring.

I would like to see support for common hardware interfaces and public
APIs so that third-party developers could easily integrate ADS-B
output into existing software and/or make it easy to integrate the
display software into a few common platforms (Windows Mobile PDA/PNA,
iPhone, etc). *No one wants to carry around another display unit and
switching between a flight computer app and a situational awareness
app is awkward given how frequently a pilot would need to refer to
both.

Hopefully the commercial unit would be more compact and/or allow the
antennas to be mounted remote from the unit. The prototype is pretty
bulky and appears to have the ADS-B antenna built in.

I'd buy one, especially if I didn't have to buy a transponder too.

Of course I may be retired from the sport by the time all that
infrastructure gets deployed.

9B

Have any of you considered this device?

http://www.powerflarm.aero/

It seems to have a lot more capability than just ADS-B

Bob

I did some study on the Power Flarm and set in on the presentation at
the Little Rock Convention. It is interesting, but doesn't provide the
capabilities of ADS-B UAT. The plus is that it contains an IGC flight
recorder. It provides very good traffic location for Flarm and ADS-B
1090ES equipped aircraft. It works similar to a PCAS for mode C and S
transponder targets and receives their altitude reports and senses
distance. The traffic location is a good guess and alerts to get your
head up. I'm not sure what it would report if the transponders
altitude reporting was missing as you would have froma mode A
trasnponder. You do not have any of the ADS-B FIS (Flight Information
Services) such as Nexrad weather radar, TFR's, METARs, SIGMETs, etc.
Most importantly, only other aircraft equipped with Flarm would see
you! You would not be visible to ATC or aircraft equipped with TCAS,
PCS, etc.

In addition to all the FIS information that you can receive over ADS-B
UAT, you are visible to ATC. You are also visible directly visible to
other ADS-B UAT equipped aircraft. ADSB ground stations relay your UAT
position information to aircraft equipped with ADSB 1090ES. Those same
ground station also transmit all traffic ATC is following (primary
radar, Mode A/C/S transponder, ADSB 1090ES, ADSB UAT). Now you have a
much more complete picture of traffic, expect for Flarm only equipped
aircraft, and ATC and many other aircraft can see you!

I have nothing against Flarm and think it was a great technology.
However, it hasn't been adopted in the US. Why not go with with the
newer technology and receive the additional benefits along with the
safety of visibility to ATC and others? The pricing ranges for power
Flarm that ware discussed at the convention, would be similar to the
total cost of a Flight Recorder and the anticipated cost of the ADS-B
UAT.

Charlie


Have any of you considered this device?

http://www.powerflarm.aero/

It seems to have a lot more capability than just ADS-B

Bob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Mar 17, 8:12*am, cfinn wrote:
I did some study on the Power Flarm and set in on the presentation at
the Little Rock Convention. It is interesting, but doesn't provide the
capabilities of ADS-B UAT. The plus is that it contains an IGC flight
recorder. It provides very good traffic location for Flarm and ADS-B
1090ES equipped aircraft. It works similar to a PCAS for mode C and S
transponder targets and receives their altitude reports and senses
distance. The traffic location is a good guess and alerts to get your
head up. I'm not sure what it would report if the transponders
altitude reporting was missing as you would have froma mode A
trasnponder. You do not have any of the ADS-B FIS (Flight Information
Services) such as Nexrad weather radar, TFR's, METARs, SIGMETs, etc.
Most importantly, only other aircraft equipped with Flarm would see
you! You would not be visible to ATC or aircraft equipped with TCAS,
PCS, etc.

A UAT does not really make you "visible" to TCAS either.


In addition to all the FIS information that you can receive over ADS-B
UAT, you are visible to ATC.

That depends if the UAT device is a receiver or tramismitter (or
both). Yes I know the "T" in UAT stands for transceiver, so in a sane
world you would think that.... sigh.

Just like with 1090ES there are devices in UAT land that are only
receivers.


You are also visible directly visible to
other ADS-B UAT equipped aircraft. ADSB ground stations relay your UAT
position information to aircraft equipped with ADSB 1090ES. Those same
ground station also transmit all traffic ATC is following (primary
radar, Mode A/C/S transponder, ADSB 1090ES, ADSB UAT). Now you have a
much more complete picture of traffic, expect for Flarm only equipped
aircraft, and ATC and many other aircraft can see you!

But a 1090ES (e.g. PowerFLARM) or UAT receiver gives you that same
"complete picture".

TIS-B is the part that resends what ATC is seeing and it relies on
position ATC position data that requires aircraft to have a Mode-C or
Mode-S transponders. A primary radar target is never retransmitted
over TIS-B. Obviously you need to be within ATC radar coverage for
this to work.

ADS-R is the retramsission by a ground station of UAT to 1090ES and
1090ES to UAT. Since it's bidirectinal a Power-Flarm sees UAT (as well
as it's native 1090ES) traffic as long as it is within range of a ADS-
B ground station.

PowerFlarm (with 1090ES) is clearly intended to be installed along
with a transponder, and I hope people get that. Using it for Flarm
only really does not make much sense in the USA. If you have something
like a Trig TT-21 then that does basic mode-S and is also 1090ES ADS-B
capable so in future you hook up a GPS source to that and be good to
go. Many manufactures (inc. Garmin) are taking this two box approach
to 1090ES, where you add a separate receiver to the aircraft to
complement the Mode-S/1090ES transponder. You will see new products
coming out that do that. Given Europe has gone Mode S, the European
soaring manufacteurs are goign to be focusing on 1090ES based
products.

Be careful in general what you think you are getting with any ADS-B
box. Just being "ADS-B" does not tell you much as to what it does at a
user level. Is it a receiver only, a transmitter only, or both. What
communication protocol does it support to a PDA display? What do I
need to do to get it to display say FIS-B data? If it is a receiver
does it display traffic information? Does it issue traffic alerts? Can
it connect to my PDA to issue pop-up traffic warnings/alarms through
the PDA? Can it display a traffic map on the PDA? BTW most people will
want the box to use the Flarm serial protocol to the PDA (yes Flarm
protocol for ADS-B/TIS-B/ADS-R traffic) since soaring software on PDAs
speak that protocol and we don't have a spare second serial port to
run the Garmin TIS protocol.


The main benefit of a 1090ES transmitter ove a UAT is that since it is
transponder based airborne TCAS systems see it. Even if the aircraft
has ADS-B receivers the TCAS systems do not issue resolution
advisories based on ADS-B. That requires a transponder in the glider.
In high traffic areas where we fly amongst fast jets/airliners I would
rather see people thinking about using transponder/1090ES and add-on
ADS-B receivers (either 1090ES or UAT). The powerFlarm looks like an
excellent add-on for a transponder in that scenario.

I worry about how well we will have ADS-B ground station coverage
along busy low-level routs like major ridge soaring locations, the
white mountains etc. Without that, gliders with UATs and 1090ES will
not see each other. The low-level ground station coverage test maps
I've see are very impressive but still in mountainous terrain we are
goign to have holes. There probably needs to be attention paid to what
the actual coverage is in areas. Look at adopting dual 1090ES/UAT
receivers (some vendors appear to be working on those) or try to
standardize on one standard in an area (driven by clubs or FBOS?).
Since the PowerFLarm is a packaged unit that is available and works
today I think we will start to see some clubs standardizing around
that already for all the PCAS/ADS-B goodness and the proven Flarm
capability in situations like glider-on glider traffic on mountain
ridges. (but still I am really worried that people don't adopt Flarm
alone in the USA where they really need to be moving to ADS-B).


Darryl



I have nothing against Flarm and think it was a great technology.
However, it hasn't been adopted in the US. Why not go with with the
newer technology and receive the additional benefits along with the
safety of visibility to ATC and others? The pricing ranges for power
Flarm that ware discussed at the convention, would be similar to the
total cost of a Flight Recorder and the anticipated cost of the ADS-B
UAT.

Charlie



Have any of you considered this device?

http://www.powerflarm.aero/

It seems to have a lot more capability than just ADS-B

Bob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Mar 17, 11:12*am, cfinn wrote:
I did some study on the Power Flarm and set in on the presentation at
the Little Rock Convention. It is interesting, but doesn't provide the
capabilities of ADS-B UAT. The plus is that it contains an IGC flight
recorder. It provides very good traffic location for Flarm and ADS-B
1090ES equipped aircraft. It works similar to a PCAS for mode C and S
transponder targets and receives their altitude reports and senses
distance. The traffic location is a good guess and alerts to get your
head up. I'm not sure what it would report if the transponders
altitude reporting was missing as you would have froma mode A
trasnponder. You do not have any of the ADS-B FIS (Flight Information
Services) such as Nexrad weather radar, TFR's, METARs, SIGMETs, etc.
Most importantly, only other aircraft equipped with Flarm would see
you! You would not be visible to ATC or aircraft equipped with TCAS,
PCS, etc.

In addition to all the FIS information that you can receive over ADS-B
UAT, you are visible to ATC. You are also visible directly visible to
other ADS-B UAT equipped aircraft. ADSB ground stations relay your UAT
position information to aircraft equipped with ADSB 1090ES. Those same
ground station also transmit all traffic ATC is following (primary
radar, Mode A/C/S transponder, ADSB 1090ES, ADSB UAT). Now you have a
much more complete picture of traffic, expect for Flarm only equipped
aircraft, and ATC and many other aircraft can see you!

I have nothing against Flarm and think it was a great technology.
However, it hasn't been adopted in the US. Why not go with with the
newer technology and receive the additional benefits along with the
safety of visibility to ATC and others? The pricing ranges for power
Flarm that ware discussed at the convention, would be similar to the
total cost of a Flight Recorder and the anticipated cost of the ADS-B
UAT.

Charlie



Have any of you considered this device?

http://www.powerflarm.aero/

It seems to have a lot more capability than just ADS-B

Bob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I remember when TCAS was showing up in the 80's, and my friend was
complaining
that they should just use GPS location info to resolve conflicts. It
seems that day
is finally here.

The FLARM nmea sentences are designed to add the conflict information
to an
existing GPS datastream. It would make life pretty easy if the ADS-B
conflict
information was forwarded using the same sentences. Most of the PDA
apps already
read the FLARM sentences and integrate them into their display. I
don't know how
you would integrate the weather data into a 4800bps nmea datastream,
though.

-- Matt

On Mar 17, 9:27*am, mattm wrote:
On Mar 17, 11:12*am, cfinn wrote:



I did some study on the Power Flarm and set in on the presentation at
the Little Rock Convention. It is interesting, but doesn't provide the
capabilities of ADS-B UAT. The plus is that it contains an IGC flight
recorder. It provides very good traffic location for Flarm and ADS-B
1090ES equipped aircraft. It works similar to a PCAS for mode C and S
transponder targets and receives their altitude reports and senses
distance. The traffic location is a good guess and alerts to get your
head up. I'm not sure what it would report if the transponders
altitude reporting was missing as you would have froma mode A
trasnponder. You do not have any of the ADS-B FIS (Flight Information
Services) such as Nexrad weather radar, TFR's, METARs, SIGMETs, etc.
Most importantly, only other aircraft equipped with Flarm would see
you! You would not be visible to ATC or aircraft equipped with TCAS,
PCS, etc.

In addition to all the FIS information that you can receive over ADS-B
UAT, you are visible to ATC. You are also visible directly visible to
other ADS-B UAT equipped aircraft. ADSB ground stations relay your UAT
position information to aircraft equipped with ADSB 1090ES. Those same
ground station also transmit all traffic ATC is following (primary
radar, Mode A/C/S transponder, ADSB 1090ES, ADSB UAT). Now you have a
much more complete picture of traffic, expect for Flarm only equipped
aircraft, and ATC and many other aircraft can see you!

I have nothing against Flarm and think it was a great technology.
However, it hasn't been adopted in the US. Why not go with with the
newer technology and receive the additional benefits along with the
safety of visibility to ATC and others? The pricing ranges for power
Flarm that ware discussed at the convention, would be similar to the
total cost of a Flight Recorder and the anticipated cost of the ADS-B
UAT.

Charlie

Have any of you considered this device?

http://www.powerflarm.aero/

It seems to have a lot more capability than just ADS-B

Bob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I remember when TCAS was showing up in the 80's, and my friend was
complaining
that they should just use GPS location info to resolve conflicts. *It
seems that day
is finally here.

Yes except TCAS (strictly TCAS-II) is the only thing that issues
resolution advisories, to tell pilots what to do to avoid another
aircraft. It is the only cockpit technology that allows say an
airliner to deviate from an aircraft they can's otherwise see. And
TCAS only does that against transponder equipped threat. We need to
remember we are dealing with a system that thinks everybody has a
transponder (at least where the jets fly).


The FLARM nmea sentences are designed to add the conflict information
to an
existing GPS datastream. *It would make life pretty easy if the ADS-B
conflict
information was forwarded using the same sentences. *

I believe that is what the PowerFlarm does, the Flarm serial protocol
is publicly documented so anybody can use it, but there will still be
devil in the details to check out for an particular device-software
combination of exactly what the capabilities are.

Most of the PDA
apps already
read the FLARM sentences and integrate them into their display. *I
don't know how
you would integrate the weather data into a 4800bps nmea datastream,
though.

The display of other data may be problematic unless features are added
to existing soaring software/flight computers (e.g. CLearNav). Be
careful of demos of that stuff running on a PDA, since switching
between your current soaring software to some other application can be
a pain/unreliable, esp. on Windows Mobile.

The downside of FIS-B is that you may not have reception on the ground
(it will depend where you are) so getting weather or other data off
FIS-B before you fly may not be possible. That is one benefit of XM
Weather over FIS-B (I have XM Weather in my Garmin 496 - nexrad storm
cell and real-time TFR data has been useful in the glider on
occasions). XM Weather is not free, basic FIS-B is, it's not clear
what enhanced FIS-B data will cost in future if it is delivered.

Darryl

People need to be very wary about buying ADS-B UAT receive only devices.
The ITT ADS-B ground stations only transmit TIS-B information in
response to an ADS-B interrogation. If you only have an ADS-B receiver,
and there is no other ADS-B equipped aircraft in your vicinity, you will
not see any ground station relayed traffic.

In the long term, once we get widespread deployment of ADS-B systems,
there will be a serious push to get TCAS systems to directly respond to
ADS-B equipped aircraft, with the eventual goal of phasing out Mode C
transponders completely. This, however, is many years off.

As far as mountain flying goes, ADS-B ground station coverage should be
significantly better than radar coverage. The original FAA plan was
that all general aviation aircraft in the US would use ADS-B UAT, and
1090 Extended Squitter would be reserved for commercial aircraft. In
this kind of environment, gliders would still be protected from each
other while ridge soaring out of range of a ground station, as they
could see each other.

The recent availability of ADS-B compatible Mode S transponders for the
soaring market complicates maters significantly, as we may now may see a
mixed environment of ADS-B UAT and 1090ES based systems at low
altitudes, which would require ground station coverage to work properly.
This complexity could have been avoided if the FAA had focused on low
cost ADS-B UAT equipment from the get go, so that it wouldn't have been
unduly burdensome on foreign air carriers to standardize on ADS-B UAT as
the single technology platform in the US.

Mike Schumann

On 3/17/2010 12:22 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Mar 17, 8:12 am, wrote:
I did some study on the Power Flarm and set in on the presentation at
the Little Rock Convention. It is interesting, but doesn't provide the
capabilities of ADS-B UAT. The plus is that it contains an IGC flight
recorder. It provides very good traffic location for Flarm and ADS-B
1090ES equipped aircraft. It works similar to a PCAS for mode C and S
transponder targets and receives their altitude reports and senses
distance. The traffic location is a good guess and alerts to get your
head up. I'm not sure what it would report if the transponders
altitude reporting was missing as you would have froma mode A
trasnponder. You do not have any of the ADS-B FIS (Flight Information
Services) such as Nexrad weather radar, TFR's, METARs, SIGMETs, etc.
Most importantly, only other aircraft equipped with Flarm would see
you! You would not be visible to ATC or aircraft equipped with TCAS,
PCS, etc.

A UAT does not really make you "visible" to TCAS either.


In addition to all the FIS information that you can receive over ADS-B
UAT, you are visible to ATC.

That depends if the UAT device is a receiver or tramismitter (or
both). Yes I know the "T" in UAT stands for transceiver, so in a sane
world you would think that.... sigh.

Just like with 1090ES there are devices in UAT land that are only
receivers.


You are also visible directly visible to
other ADS-B UAT equipped aircraft. ADSB ground stations relay your UAT
position information to aircraft equipped with ADSB 1090ES. Those same
ground station also transmit all traffic ATC is following (primary
radar, Mode A/C/S transponder, ADSB 1090ES, ADSB UAT). Now you have a
much more complete picture of traffic, expect for Flarm only equipped
aircraft, and ATC and many other aircraft can see you!

But a 1090ES (e.g. PowerFLARM) or UAT receiver gives you that same
"complete picture".

TIS-B is the part that resends what ATC is seeing and it relies on
position ATC position data that requires aircraft to have a Mode-C or
Mode-S transponders. A primary radar target is never retransmitted
over TIS-B. Obviously you need to be within ATC radar coverage for
this to work.

ADS-R is the retramsission by a ground station of UAT to 1090ES and
1090ES to UAT. Since it's bidirectinal a Power-Flarm sees UAT (as well
as it's native 1090ES) traffic as long as it is within range of a ADS-
B ground station.

PowerFlarm (with 1090ES) is clearly intended to be installed along
with a transponder, and I hope people get that. Using it for Flarm
only really does not make much sense in the USA. If you have something
like a Trig TT-21 then that does basic mode-S and is also 1090ES ADS-B
capable so in future you hook up a GPS source to that and be good to
go. Many manufactures (inc. Garmin) are taking this two box approach
to 1090ES, where you add a separate receiver to the aircraft to
complement the Mode-S/1090ES transponder. You will see new products
coming out that do that. Given Europe has gone Mode S, the European
soaring manufacteurs are goign to be focusing on 1090ES based
products.

Be careful in general what you think you are getting with any ADS-B
box. Just being "ADS-B" does not tell you much as to what it does at a
user level. Is it a receiver only, a transmitter only, or both. What
communication protocol does it support to a PDA display? What do I
need to do to get it to display say FIS-B data? If it is a receiver
does it display traffic information? Does it issue traffic alerts? Can
it connect to my PDA to issue pop-up traffic warnings/alarms through
the PDA? Can it display a traffic map on the PDA? BTW most people will
want the box to use the Flarm serial protocol to the PDA (yes Flarm
protocol for ADS-B/TIS-B/ADS-R traffic) since soaring software on PDAs
speak that protocol and we don't have a spare second serial port to
run the Garmin TIS protocol.


The main benefit of a 1090ES transmitter ove a UAT is that since it is
transponder based airborne TCAS systems see it. Even if the aircraft
has ADS-B receivers the TCAS systems do not issue resolution
advisories based on ADS-B. That requires a transponder in the glider.
In high traffic areas where we fly amongst fast jets/airliners I would
rather see people thinking about using transponder/1090ES and add-on
ADS-B receivers (either 1090ES or UAT). The powerFlarm looks like an
excellent add-on for a transponder in that scenario.

I worry about how well we will have ADS-B ground station coverage
along busy low-level routs like major ridge soaring locations, the
white mountains etc. Without that, gliders with UATs and 1090ES will
not see each other. The low-level ground station coverage test maps
I've see are very impressive but still in mountainous terrain we are
goign to have holes. There probably needs to be attention paid to what
the actual coverage is in areas. Look at adopting dual 1090ES/UAT
receivers (some vendors appear to be working on those) or try to
standardize on one standard in an area (driven by clubs or FBOS?).
Since the PowerFLarm is a packaged unit that is available and works
today I think we will start to see some clubs standardizing around
that already for all the PCAS/ADS-B goodness and the proven Flarm
capability in situations like glider-on glider traffic on mountain
ridges. (but still I am really worried that people don't adopt Flarm
alone in the USA where they really need to be moving to ADS-B).


Darryl



I have nothing against Flarm and think it was a great technology.
However, it hasn't been adopted in the US. Why not go with with the
newer technology and receive the additional benefits along with the
safety of visibility to ATC and others? The pricing ranges for power
Flarm that ware discussed at the convention, would be similar to the
total cost of a Flight Recorder and the anticipated cost of the ADS-B
UAT.

Charlie



Have any of you considered this device?

http://www.powerflarm.aero/

It seems to have a lot more capability than just ADS-B

Bob- Hide quoted text -

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Mike Schumann

On Mar 17, 9:22*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

I worry about how well we will have ADS-B ground station coverage
along busy low-level routs like major ridge soaring locations, the
white mountains etc. Without that, gliders with UATs and 1090ES will
not see each other.

Darryl,

Was I mistaken in taking from the survey that ADS-B supports aircraft-
to-aircraft position reporting without a ground station repeater? I
figured that would allow two gliders in any remote location to see
each other if they both had ADS-B transceivers (like the Mitre unit).
With ground stations you then should get position reporting between
transponder and ADS-B.

I figured any collision avoidance advice would be a function of on-
board software capability, not constrained by the means of position
reporting - as long as you know your position and track and a target's
position and track, shouldn't you be able to figure out the collision
avoidance part?

It seems to me that you should be able to design ADS-B such that you
no longer need transponders. What did I miss?

9B