Flarm collision alert from Tow Plane ADS-B

On Saturday, March 17, 2018 at 7:01:12 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, March 16, 2018 at 9:42:59 PM UTC, wrote:
Now that our club tow plane has installed ADS-B out, I’m getting a constant collision alert on my S80, Flarm butterfly and Qudie while on tow. Is there any way to silence the collision alarm while on tow without turning off ADS-B targets on Flarm all together. I like seeing ADS-B targets while flying in congested areas. It would be nice is there was a way to identify specific ADS-B IDs that should not be reported like tow planes. It’s bad enough to just see the Flarm collision alert screen with the red 12 o’clock the whole time on tow, but having the constant beeping is just too much to tolerate.



I don't know what the answer is, but masking all tow planes all the time is probably not a good one. "There have been a few collisions between tow planes and gliders, those are ones you really want to avoid."

Do you mean at crowded contests or a one off tow or a commercial site with concurrect tows, or what? And where?

One off tow at a commercial site, not crowded at all, is the one I'm thinking about. A few near misses at others. At any gliderport, tow planes and gliders operate in close proximity. Your chance of midair collision is higher with a two plane than anything else. That's what's flying around. Not just the one you are following on a rope.

https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...=HTML&IType=FA

Reading that accident report from Crazycreek soaring made me sad. A radio in the towplane should have easily prevented that accident. So simple and inexpensive too. When I flew at another major gliderport in southern California a few years ago I was really surprised when they told me don't do a radio check, the tug doesn't have a radio. That seemed so archaic to me. Why not? A simple radio call can sort out alot of small problems that can blossom into major problems.
Do any gliderports still operate without radios in the towplanes?

On a related note, what happens when two gliders in a gaggle have ADS-B-out (or TABS)?

Scenarios:

1. Both gliders have ADS-B-out and Powerflarm flavor of ADS-B-in. Does Powerflarm filter spurious ADS-B collision alerts?

2. Glider 1 has ADS-B-out, no Powerflarm, and non-Powerflarm ADS-B-in

Glider 2 has ADS-B-out and Powerflarm flavor ADS-B-in

Does Glider 1 get spurious ADS-B collision alerts?

3. Both gliders have ADS-B-out, no Powerflarm, and non-Powerflarm ADS-B-in

Do both gliders get spurious ADS-B collision alerts?

I don’t see the option to enter ADS-B info in flarmnet. This could be useful though. Or perhaps flarm displays already recognize the contest ID for an ADSB target if their flarm already registered in flarmnet?

Ramy

On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 9:15:29 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I don’t see the option to enter ADS-B info in flarmnet. This could be useful though. Or perhaps flarm displays already recognize the contest ID for an ADSB target if their flarm already registered in flarmnet?

Ramy

Just register as you would a Flarm and use your ICAO address as FLARM ID.

That's all fine and good, but I doubt that will matter to the OP whose
complaint was the constant alarm.

A glider tow is a formation flight and, in a formation flight, everyone
except the leader turns off his transponder (sets it on Standby, I'd say
the same for ADS-B and/or Flarm) to avoid mucking up the radar screens
on the ground and in the Flarm in the glider. At least that's the way it
was done when I was doing it for a living.Â* My suggestion would be for
the glider to turn off his Flarm until after releasing and gaining safe
spacing from the tug.Â* If it's a brick wired to the avionics bus, put a
switch in series with the power line.Â* Problem solved.

On 3/18/2018 9:02 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 9:15:29 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I don’t see the option to enter ADS-B info in flarmnet. This could be useful though. Or perhaps flarm displays already recognize the contest ID for an ADSB target if their flarm already registered in flarmnet?

Ramy
Just register as you would a Flarm and use your ICAO address as FLARM ID.

--
Dan, 5J

On Monday, March 19, 2018 at 8:12:06 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
That's all fine and good, but I doubt that will matter to the OP whose
complaint was the constant alarm.

A glider tow is a formation flight and, in a formation flight, everyone
except the leader turns off his transponder (sets it on Standby, I'd say
the same for ADS-B and/or Flarm) to avoid mucking up the radar screens
on the ground and in the Flarm in the glider. At least that's the way it
was done when I was doing it for a living.Â* My suggestion would be for
the glider to turn off his Flarm until after releasing and gaining safe
spacing from the tug.Â* If it's a brick wired to the avionics bus, put a
switch in series with the power line.Â* Problem solved.

On 3/18/2018 9:02 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 9:15:29 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I don’t see the option to enter ADS-B info in flarmnet. This could be useful though. Or perhaps flarm displays already recognize the contest ID for an ADSB target if their flarm already registered in flarmnet?

Ramy
Just register as you would a Flarm and use your ICAO address as FLARM ID.

--
Dan, 5J

Flarm does not alarm when you are following another flarm equipped glider at 200 ft, so it should not following a tow plane either. If flarm uses the ICAO address it could identify the towplane as a towplane and treat it accordingly.

A switch in the power line to the Flarm isn't going to help if you are depending on it for a valid IGC flight log.

On Monday, March 19, 2018 at 11:35:25 AM UTC-4, jfitch wrote:

If flarm uses the ICAO address it could identify the towplane as a towplane and treat it accordingly.

But Flarm, in its current state of development, has no obvious way to do this. The flarmnet database resides in whatever display you are using, not in the flarm.


T8

I feel you pain, jfitch, but I think the OP was complaining about the
ADS-B output from the tug being alarmed on his Flarm.Â* The way everyone
complains about loggers, I'd think he'd have an alternate, as in a
vario, flight computer, portable logger, etc...

Or the OP could simply disable ADS-B targets but that would remove
protection from ADS-B equipped but non-Flarm-equipped aircraft.

Dan

On 3/19/2018 9:35 AM, jfitch wrote:
On Monday, March 19, 2018 at 8:12:06 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
That's all fine and good, but I doubt that will matter to the OP whose
complaint was the constant alarm.

A glider tow is a formation flight and, in a formation flight, everyone
except the leader turns off his transponder (sets it on Standby, I'd say
the same for ADS-B and/or Flarm) to avoid mucking up the radar screens
on the ground and in the Flarm in the glider. At least that's the way it
was done when I was doing it for a living.Â* My suggestion would be for
the glider to turn off his Flarm until after releasing and gaining safe
spacing from the tug.Â* If it's a brick wired to the avionics bus, put a
switch in series with the power line.Â* Problem solved.

On 3/18/2018 9:02 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Sunday, March 18, 2018 at 9:15:29 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I don’t see the option to enter ADS-B info in flarmnet. This could be useful though. Or perhaps flarm displays already recognize the contest ID for an ADSB target if their flarm already registered in flarmnet?

Ramy
Just register as you would a Flarm and use your ICAO address as FLARM ID.
--
Dan, 5J
Flarm does not alarm when you are following another flarm equipped glider at 200 ft, so it should not following a tow plane either. If flarm uses the ICAO address it could identify the towplane as a towplane and treat it accordingly.

A switch in the power line to the Flarm isn't going to help if you are depending on it for a valid IGC flight log.

--
Dan, 5J

I'm having a similar problem with just a mode-c transponder in the towplane.. I'm not getting a 'collision' warning per se, but the S80 does indicate a xpndr equipped aircraft is in close proximity. The issue with this is that the display is simply locked out from all other functions during the entire tow. That is, there is no way to get your vario display back until after the tow and the aircraft exceeds the threat threshold. This 'problem' also occurs when flying close to xpdr equipped gliders. I had caught up to a friend that had a mode-c xpdr and we flew together for over an hour. During the whole time, the S80 displayed the xpdr traffic page and I couldn't navigate past it to see any other pages. I had to ask my friend to turn off his transponder while we were flying together. It would be nice if the instrument had an "acknowledge" feature where I could suppress the alert for some configurable period of time so I can get access to the rest of the vario features (similar to the way modern computers handle airspace warnings). I want to tell the computer... "I see the traffic, now go away for 5 minutes", but I don't want to turn it off permanently, however for obvious reasons.

Has anyone else experienced this and have a solution?