ADS-B equiped glider in USA Contests.

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 8:41:53 AM UTC-8, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 11:06:22 AM UTC-5, wrote:
...When towing behind Keith E.'s 182 at Parowan my PFLarm sounded a new and totally annoying alarm. It turned out to be the ADS-B out signal from that towplane. While I could silence the alarm by pushing the appropriate button, it came back after a minute or so. How are we going to deal with that when in a busy thermal with 10 other ADS-B out transmitting gliders?

Doesn't Powerflarm filter out the spurious ADS-B proximity warnings when BOTH aircraft have Powerflarm (and 1+ aircraft have ADS-B-out)?

Yes, that would require PowerFLARM in the tow plane. ADS-B alone is quite noisy.
Jim

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 10:22:17 AM UTC-8, JS wrote:
On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 8:41:53 AM UTC-8, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 11:06:22 AM UTC-5, wrote:
...When towing behind Keith E.'s 182 at Parowan my PFLarm sounded a new and totally annoying alarm. It turned out to be the ADS-B out signal from that towplane. While I could silence the alarm by pushing the appropriate button, it came back after a minute or so. How are we going to deal with that when in a busy thermal with 10 other ADS-B out transmitting gliders?

Doesn't Powerflarm filter out the spurious ADS-B proximity warnings when BOTH aircraft have Powerflarm (and 1+ aircraft have ADS-B-out)?

Yes, that would require PowerFLARM in the tow plane. ADS-B alone is quite noisy.
Jim

Exactly. And been mentioned on r.a.s. in the past. PowerFLARM Out in the towplane if properly set up tells the other PowerFLARM units in the glider that the target is a towplane (no easy way to tell that over ADS-B), and a PowerFLARM equipped glider will deduplicate the target and use FLARM communicated data that provides better target flight path data. Not an issue for normal ADS-B GA traffic but other gliders and towplanes who will be flying close to PowerFLARM equipped gliders..... the implicit expectation is they have PowerFLARM Out.... which we don't seem to be actually installing in towplanes much in the USA. Folks putting ADS-B Out in a towplane for 2020 compliance reasons should be aware of this and thinking about adding PowerFLARM if they are towing lots of PowerFLARM equipped gliders.

I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.

Ramy

On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 12:26:53 AM UTC-5, Ramy wrote:
I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.

Ramy

Are you asking them to silence all ADS-B alarms for 10 minutes, or just the N number of the tow plane? Silencing all alarms is a VERY bad idea, as there could be other GA aircraft in the area that could be a threat to the tow. A classic example is the midair over Boulder a number of years ago where a Cirrus hit a glider and/or aircraft during a tow.

Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.

Ramy

On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 7:18:57 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm.. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.

Ramy

Ten minutes is a pretty good start! I'd prefer "permanently disable".
Towplane or other glider ADS-B (without PowerFLARM) audible alarms seem to me like the many hotel fire alarms that have gone off at 2am.
Jim

Can't you just turn down the volume during the tow?Â* You shouldn't be
looking inside too much at that time, anyway.

On 2/4/2019 9:43 PM, JS wrote:
On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 7:18:57 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.

Ramy
Ten minutes is a pretty good start! I'd prefer "permanently disable".
Towplane or other glider ADS-B (without PowerFLARM) audible alarms seem to me like the many hotel fire alarms that have gone off at 2am.
Jim

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Dan, 5J

Ramy, Thank you for this description. The ADS-B alarm is annoying on tow. My understanding is the warning is a result of an output from PowerFlarm to a display like LXNAV FlarmView or similar. Its the display that is doing audio annoyance. On FlarmView there is a 3 minute silence with a button push but I find when the alarm is sounding and the tug is identified as the target, I stop looking at the alarm as a real threat. The ten minute collision mute would be an improvement. Good idea to bring this up with the display manufacturers.


On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 8:18:57 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
Powerflarm provides two type of alerts: traffic alert and collision alarm.. The collision alarm is the most distracting one. I am asking them for a 10 minutes silence of the collision alalrm only. Ideally it would be for a particular aircraft but this would probably be too complicated to implement, so a 10 minutes silence is a good enough compromise in my opinion unless someone has other suggestions that can be implemented.

Ramy

On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 10:26:53 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.

Ramy

The Flarm Support team is working on the problem of tow plane ADS-B continuous collision alarms while on tow. I have tested some provided Flarm beta level code late last year with good results and plan on testing further with warmer weather. Goal is to address ADS-B alarms on tow without requiring the tow plane to install a Flarm unit. Below is a comment from Flarm Tech Support (they are well aware of this problem in the US) on how alarm suppression may work.

"For now it uses a mix of parameters similar to the tow detection for FLARM.. At the moment, all ADSB targets treated as potential towing airplanes. We might have a way to improve it by using only ADSB signal with an aircraft category set to "light". However this would mean more configuration needed and we're not sure how this is handled in the US at the moment, hence the need for some real live testing. "

I have found the Flarm Support team to be extremely helpful and responsive. Hopefully we will have a solution soon.

Gary Campbell (GC)

Why does "in the US" matter?Â* Is this an issue only with the US version
of Flarm?Â* I'm pretty sure ADS-B is the same world wide.

On 2/11/2019 4:33 PM, wrote:
On Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 10:26:53 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I made a request to LXNAV to add an option to silence the ADSB alarm for 10 minutes which is the length of a typical tow. If others will make such request they will probably consider this.

Ramy
The Flarm Support team is working on the problem of tow plane ADS-B continuous collision alarms while on tow. I have tested some provided Flarm beta level code late last year with good results and plan on testing further with warmer weather. Goal is to address ADS-B alarms on tow without requiring the tow plane to install a Flarm unit. Below is a comment from Flarm Tech Support (they are well aware of this problem in the US) on how alarm suppression may work.

"For now it uses a mix of parameters similar to the tow detection for FLARM. At the moment, all ADSB targets treated as potential towing airplanes. We might have a way to improve it by using only ADSB signal with an aircraft category set to "light". However this would mean more configuration needed and we're not sure how this is handled in the US at the moment, hence the need for some real live testing."

I have found the Flarm Support team to be extremely helpful and responsive. Hopefully we will have a solution soon.

Gary Campbell (GC)

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Dan, 5J