Midair Warning

On Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 9:34:31 AM UTC-7, wrote:
/snip/


I'm no expert but in reading through the discussion above, short of the F-16 carrying TCAS, it doesn't sound like any of the current equipment would have prevented this collision.

TCAS is certainly impressive and proven technology, but I don't think you can claim that an F-16 with TCAS would have "prevented" this collision. We don't know the important details about how/why the collision happened. AFAIK it is still not clear if the Cessna 150 transponder was actually operating--was it actually turned it on? Was the encoder reading the correct altitude? Was the Transponder correctly set to Mode-C/S (not Mode A aka "ON" on many transponders... then a TCAS would not "see" the Cessna at all). Did the F-16 have its radar on/in what mode? IFF interrogator on?/in what mode? (I am pretty sure the BAE IFF/Transponder in the F-16C is capable of interrogating Mode 3C/S so can receive back target altitude if in the appropriate mode, but I have no clue what is actually displayed to the pilot in what mode). I could go on for paragraphs more with questions, there are many questions about equipment, ATC and the pilots working correctly. Some answers to which would imply having a full TCAS-II in the F-16 would would not have helped.

There was a horrible accident and some kind of failure that absolutely needs to be understood, and I want to wait to see that finding, but I suspect this may just be a case where the aircraft were suitably equipped and bad still bad things happened and bolting yet more technology on may not necessarily be the right way to move forward...

Summary after one flight: FLARM is a nice addition to the cockpit but doesn't confer immunity from collision with anyone or obviate the need to keep looking around. It also provides some tactical info on nearby gliders that changes the game in small but significant ways.

FLARM was *never* intended to reduce the importance of visual lookout. I don't think (and hope that) anybody who flies with FLARM has the expectation that it confers any "immunity". It is a supplement/enhancement to make up for the inherent and serious problems in visual avoidance especially with gliders. Interestingly the whole development of FLARM started by looking for ways to reduce mid-air glider collision risk, including high-visibility marking, etc.

No technology (including TCAS) can provide immunity from collision risks. Nobody should be expecting that, and describing any saftey related product as not *perfect* is really not a useful way to think about saftey. It needs to be a more nuanced discussion about risks, technology benefits, effectiveness and costs. An area that has been well covered for FLARM. including Andy Blackburn's article in Soaring Magazine last year.

I understand you pain on the cost of all this, and we've got to be careful moving forward, with PowerFLARM, Transponders, ADS-B and maybe TABS all offering different capabilities, some being fairly clearly useful in some cases but just bolting in more and more technology does not necessarily keep providing a useful improvement in saftey, let alone saftey value for money. Especially as some of this stuff just becomes incompatible/risks overloading/distracting the pilot or just confusing owners/pilots on what the actual capabilities of all these technology boxes are...

Great to see you got offers for PowerFLARM loan/rentals for your contest.