PowerFlarm for Rent/Loan for Elmira, U.S.A.?

Dan, I've managed to cram in a useful PF setup in my LS6 (small panel), if that helps. I use the brick as my primary GPS and igc logger, driving my SN10 and Oudie2 - which both by the way have their own Flarm displays and warnings, so you could get away with the little LED flarm display. I also have a Zaon MRX and use it in our towplanes and club gliders, but the PF has the huge advantage of also showing ADS-B equipped aircraft, and they show up really well on the Oudie map (you get what you pay for ;^).

I think LK8000 shows flarm traffic? What about TopHat?

Anyway - I feel blind nowadays when I'm flying without good traffic detection - and nowadays there is really no good reason not to have it - and the combination of a Mode S xponder and a PF is about the best setup you can have (unless you can fit an APG-82 AESA radar in your glider...)

Kirk

On Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 5:54:10 AM UTC+1, Ramy wrote:
Dan, if I recall correct your Streak is running XCSoar. As such it can not be used as a flarm display. As much as I like XCSoar, it's flarm support is close to useless. I opened many enhancement requests in attempt to bring the flarm support to SeeYou level but they are not getting any attention. So you will need the small butterfly display which you should be able to find a place to put instead of your Zaon As I did. You'll also get a more reliable and accurate Mode C alerts than the Zaon provides. Sell your Zaon to cover some of your cost.

Ramy

It's definitely true that XCSoar is unsuitable for use as a primary FLARM display, but this is somewhat by design. XCSoar's 'FLARM radar' was intended to complement the 'LED clock' type original FLARM displays, and warnings are intentionally left to dedicated hardware.

I'm a consummate renter, and I have a PF Portable. The big issue is where to mount it in a rental glider. Most places are OK with a temporary fix. Mounting it on top of the panel, however, blocks the compass, but I have a compass on my suction-cup mounted handheld.

I have never gotten a FLARM alert, but I do see xponders.

--b

Blocks compass? I do not think I have ever, other than training, used a compass, in powered aircraft or sailplanes. In sailplanes it is easy to look at the topographic features and see my rough heading, plus with GPS.... In powder aircraft the DG is the preferred instrument instead of compass. never had a complete power failure other than when I got the red light over temp warning due to my nicad on fire, was on the ground in seconds, thanks to muscle memory training.

I had a DG failure once while flying a T-33 over the Alaska Range east
of Mt. McKinley in the weather. The weapons controllers suggested I
descend to clear weather and go home. Ummm.. Let's see... Minimum
safe altitude within 100 miles of home plate was 16,000' and the
mountains where I was were 16,000' MSL. So we completed the intercept
and I joined up on the F-4E and he led me towards home until we got down
to VMC.

Otherwise, I've never used a compass, either...

On 7/3/2015 10:23 AM, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Blocks compass? I do not think I have ever, other than training, used a compass, in powered aircraft or sailplanes. In sailplanes it is easy to look at the topographic features and see my rough heading, plus with GPS.... In powder aircraft the DG is the preferred instrument instead of compass. never had a complete power failure other than when I got the red light over temp warning due to my nicad on fire, was on the ground in seconds, thanks to muscle memory training.

--
Dan Marotta

The only time I've used a compass is flying needle/ball/compass on my instrument checkride

On Friday, July 3, 2015 at 9:55:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
I had a DG failure once while flying a T-33 over the Alaska Range
east of Mt. McKinley in the weather.* The weapons controllers
suggested I descend to clear weather and go home.* Ummm..* Let's
see...* Minimum safe altitude within 100 miles of home plate was
16,000' and the mountains where I was were 16,000' MSL.* So we
completed the intercept and I joined up on the F-4E and he led me
towards home until we got down to VMC.



Otherwise, I've never used a compass, either...




On 7/3/2015 10:23 AM, Jonathan St.
Cloud wrote:



Blocks compass? I do not think I have ever, other than training, used a compass, in powered aircraft or sailplanes. In sailplanes it is easy to look at the topographic features and see my rough heading, plus with GPS.... In powder aircraft the DG is the preferred instrument instead of compass. never had a complete power failure other than when I got the red light over temp warning due to my nicad on fire, was on the ground in seconds, thanks to muscle memory training.





--

Dan Marotta

Indeed the XCSoar flarm functionality is mostly for situational awareness but not for collision alert. As such can not be used instead of a primary display like butterfly. There is no reason it can not be enhanced though.

Ramy

On Saturday, 4 July 2015 16:28:30 UTC+2, Ramy wrote:
Indeed the XCSoar flarm functionality is mostly for situational awareness but not for collision alert. As such can not be used instead of a primary display like butterfly. There is no reason it can not be enhanced though.

Ramy

The only problem is that XCSoar runs on a wide range of hardware and operating systems so stability , reliability and performance cannot be ensured by the XCSoar developers.
Do you really want to trust your life with a system that may not work correctly in a critical situation?

I think the legal issues also dissuade the main developers from adding full support but there is nothing stopping someone else from adding the code themselves. Most of the code is already there.

Personally I prefer a dedicated FLARM display with a black background so that the FLARM traffic is clearly visible at all times with a tactical range selected. By adding FLARM traffic onto a moving map display you normally lose the high contrast because of the map background and the range/zoom may constantly be changing between cruise and thermal modes.