Flarm suppression of ADS-B out on Tow Planes

On Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 6:44:42 PM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:


skyBeacon is a pretty darn inexpensive and easy to implement way to make a tow plane 2020 compliant. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people don't go that route, even though it is UAT instead of 1090ES.


That would be the stupidest thing in the world. "significant number".... bull****. There are very few towplanes anywhere that I know of that are planning to equip with ADS-B Out for 2020 compliance reasons. I'm not aware of any of them going UAT, I had one question asked months ago and that person went away understanding why to use 1090ES Out not UAT. I only hear about ADS-B Out installs that folks ask for help with, but by now I'd hope that enough people know to keep UAT away from PowerFLARM equipped gliders.

Must be a lot of stupid pilots! uAvionix is backed up close to a month on skyBeacon orders.....

.... around gliders. You have been here on r.a.s enough that if you do not understand the issues and context by now you never will.

On Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 11:46:10 PM UTC-4, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 6:44:42 PM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:


skyBeacon is a pretty darn inexpensive and easy to implement way to make a tow plane 2020 compliant. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people don't go that route, even though it is UAT instead of 1090ES.


That would be the stupidest thing in the world. "significant number".... bull****. There are very few towplanes anywhere that I know of that are planning to equip with ADS-B Out for 2020 compliance reasons. I'm not aware of any of them going UAT, I had one question asked months ago and that person went away understanding why to use 1090ES Out not UAT. I only hear about ADS-B Out installs that folks ask for help with, but by now I'd hope that enough people know to keep UAT away from PowerFLARM equipped gliders.

The stupidest thing in the world is that PowerFlarm doesn't support ADS-R or TIS-B. The fact of the matter is that UAT exists in the US and a significant number of GA aircraft are going to use this technology whether or not they are tow planes. We have 30+ gliders operating out of Stanton MN, within the MSP Mode C veil. At least half of the mid-air threats are not gliders, but other GA aircraft operating in our airspace. Not only do gliders need to be visible to this traffic, but they should also be equipped with real, US standards compliant ADS-B IN receivers (preferably dual frequency) so they can see all of the non-glider traffic in the area.

On Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 8:43:50 AM UTC-5, Mike Schumann wrote:

The stupidest thing in the world is that PowerFlarm doesn't support ADS-R or TIS-B.

That was a mistake and as I understand it a long story. I hope they find a way to fix it, but the US is a tiny market. The only dumber mistake was the US deploying UAT instead of sunsetting Mode C transponders and adopting 1090ES exclusively like Europe. UAT causes innumerable problems in the airspace - as evidenced by this discussion. ADS-R is not a panacea either - you have to be within range of an ADS-B ground station.

We made a fork in the Stratux code to put out NMEA for glider instruments. It works but the mixing of all the different sources made de-duplicating targets quite challenging.

For goodness sake if you are going to put ADS-B in an aircraft that tows, put in 1090ES. There aren't going to be any UAT gliders out there and a tiny fraction of powered aircraft will have UAT - especially true if you fly any where near a commercial airport. If you're worried about the stray UAT target, get a dual-band receiver.

Thanks Urban for the clarification. Nature abhors a vacuum and then people tend to connect the dots in the most pathological way possible.

Andy Blackburn
PowerFLARM, Trig TT-22 with 1090ES Out

You are back whining about stuff we all know about and we can't change. We live in an imperfect world with an imperfect technology. But as I've said before here, perfect is the enemy of good and the goal we all should have is to help reduce risks and improve safety.

To that point it would be incredibly stupid to be operating a UAT Out equipped towplane where there is a fleet of PowerFLARM equipped gliders. There is just no way to sugar coat that stupidity.

And again you are using examples of Stanton MN. Sounds like there are lots of traffic concerns there. If so some of the GA traffic risks should be able to be reduced today by equipping gliders and towplanes with transponders. If it is such a problem I would hope there is 100% transponder carriage.


On Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 6:43:50 AM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 11:46:10 PM UTC-4, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Tuesday, March 19, 2019 at 6:44:42 PM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:


skyBeacon is a pretty darn inexpensive and easy to implement way to make a tow plane 2020 compliant. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people don't go that route, even though it is UAT instead of 1090ES.


That would be the stupidest thing in the world. "significant number"..... bull****. There are very few towplanes anywhere that I know of that are planning to equip with ADS-B Out for 2020 compliance reasons. I'm not aware of any of them going UAT, I had one question asked months ago and that person went away understanding why to use 1090ES Out not UAT. I only hear about ADS-B Out installs that folks ask for help with, but by now I'd hope that enough people know to keep UAT away from PowerFLARM equipped gliders.

The stupidest thing in the world is that PowerFlarm doesn't support ADS-R or TIS-B. The fact of the matter is that UAT exists in the US and a significant number of GA aircraft are going to use this technology whether or not they are tow planes. We have 30+ gliders operating out of Stanton MN, within the MSP Mode C veil. At least half of the mid-air threats are not gliders, but other GA aircraft operating in our airspace. Not only do gliders need to be visible to this traffic, but they should also be equipped with real, US standards compliant ADS-B IN receivers (preferably dual frequency) so they can see all of the non-glider traffic in the area.

Lot of people calling each other stupid on here....

I’ve installed a lot of different ADS-B out systems. If it was my personal power airplane I would put in an ESGi transponder. I was recently involved in a Trig ADS-B out transponder installation. It’s a very elegant solution for a glider.

If I was going to put an UAT system in it would probably be a GDL 82. The skyBeacon is quick, easy and cheap but I would worry about the impact of the lawsuit between Garmin and uAvionix.

A skyBeacon would be better then nothing in a tow plane. I’ve had more close calls with power planes while towing and flying gliders then with other gliders. Installed the skyBeacon is around $2,000 compared to the ESGi’s $5,000.

My experienced 2 cents

On Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 9:01:06 PM UTC-7, Charles Longley wrote:
Lot of people calling each other stupid on here....

I’ve installed a lot of different ADS-B out systems. If it was my personal power airplane I would put in an ESGi transponder. I was recently involved in a Trig ADS-B out transponder installation. It’s a very elegant solution for a glider.

If I was going to put an UAT system in it would probably be a GDL 82. The skyBeacon is quick, easy and cheap but I would worry about the impact of the lawsuit between Garmin and uAvionix.

A skyBeacon would be better then nothing in a tow plane. I’ve had more close calls with power planes while towing and flying gliders then with other gliders. Installed the skyBeacon is around $2,000 compared to the ESGi’s $5,000.

My experienced 2 cents

I have no idea where you fly gliders and how many of those are PowerFLARM equipped.

Please lets not paint the picture that it's a $2k vs $5k price difference for UAT vs 1090ES in a towplane. An Appareo Stratus ESG at ~$3k is a better comparison, including because you are comparing the price of a UAT Out only skyBeacon to a 1090ES Out/Dual-link In packaged ESGi.

Another good choice is Garmin GTX-335 ~$3k (with integral GPS option) or so plus install. Maybe better with support and service availability. Like the Stratus ESG, it is Mode S/1090ES Out with integral GPS. I am not sure how many tow pilots want ADS-B traffic-in or how many tow plane owners want to pay for that. One of Appareo's great service to GA has been pushing Garmin down on GTX-335 pricing. That extra $1k - $1.5k should not be a huge difference to go with the non-stupid for PowerFLARM compatibility option.

And it seem some towplanes in areas where ADS-B Out may be needed by them after January 1 2020, have aging mode C transponders (like crusty old KT76), so there is likely a benefit in those owners upgrading to a new transponder as part of any upgrade. To quantify that, a towplane owner could say upgrade to a more modern used GTX-330 Mode C transponder for ~$500-$1k or so. So in those cases a GTX-335 or ESG transponder for 1090ES Out and skyBeacon UAT Out effective cost likely gets close. And a Mode S+1090ES transponder in a towplane as part of an ADS-B Out upgrade is even nicer to have near high-density PowerFLARM operations to help avoid spurious Mode C PCAS alerts that Mode C equipped towplanes can cause.

Interesting comment on the lawsuit. I'm not a fan of the skyBeacon or Garmin headless setups, would prefer direct hardwired control of squawk and other settings and access to other controls on the panel. I wonder how skyBeacons are going to work in rental aircraft if somebody messes with the settings vis their iPhone and the next pilot renting it can't even see what stuff is set to. You naturally get better usability with integrated transponder solutions... but thats more a connivence not the main reason to go there.

All good points!

I fly out of Arlington, WA about half the time. It can be a F-ing zoo! Every type of airplane you can think of at an uncontrolled airport.

The cost of install between the skyBeacon and ESG/ESGi is significant. $180 for the skyBeacon and $1200 to $1500 for the ESGi. I don’t recommend doing the ESG even if you have a portable ADS-B in/AHRS device. For an extra $500 with the ESGi you get it all hardwired and out of sight.

A renter couldn’t mess with the skyBeacon as it’s password protected. Interestingly you can turn the Nav and strobe light off on the ground with the app. (Found that out the hard way.)

Thread drift warning I installed a Skybeacon on our 170B. It has a tow hook but with only the 0-300 in it we dont tow with it. I primarily use it for weekly commute to my property about 100 miles away.

It was by far the simplest install and the only cost is the 337 paperwork, and a friend IA did that for me. We arent planning on flying in controlled airspace or out of the country so couldn't justify the higher expense of 1080es and replacing the AT150 transponder. I know of many that have and are going the skybeacon route.

CH