Flarm in the US

You may be pleased to learn there are many good soaring areas in the
country where the glider density is so low, colliding with another
glider is the least of your worries. In fact, that is a - maybe "the" -
major reason that Flarm is not popular in the USA.

A national contest is not one of them. There, colliding with another
glider is undoubtedly one of your major worries. I think this
realization is moving the contest community towards Flarm. It may
make sense for contest gliders, and those operating in high glider
traffic areas (Whites, Ridges) to get Flarm, recreational gliders
operating in low glider but high power traffic airspace to get
transponders and Pcas, and lucky guys out in the middle of nowhere to
simply open eyeballs.

John Cochrane

Forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I don't know much about
transponder operation.

Is it a technical requirement for a transponder to only transmit when
it's been interrogated by a ping from a remote source? I'm just
wondering why transponders can't have a "timeout" mechanism built into
it where it will automatically report/transmit if it hasn't been
pinged in a certain amount of time. Something like a 30 second
timeout? Maybe user-selectable? For the folks who fly in remote areas,
wouldn't something like this help? Or is the transponder response of
no use without pairing it with a request (ping)?

FLARM - We NEED it yesterday.

How many more midairs do we need to have in our sport?

What if we have a midair with an airliner? Can you say soaring as a
sport is dead, as the FAA will reflexively eliminate all of our
flexibility.

The cost of FLARM in any form is negligible compared to staying
alive.

I have used FLARM at the IMGC Competition (International Military
Glider Comp) in Germany, and it turned a competition with 93 gliders
into the safest competition I have ever flown in anywhere.

It provides timely, accurate, important alerts for collision potential
with very few spurious or distracting warnings. It is vastly superior
to PCAS. There is absolutely no reason we shouldn't be requiring it
for all competition aircraft PERIOD!

The following midairs could all have been prevented by FLARM: Parowan
this summer, Uvalde this summer, Boulder last winter, the Hudson River
helicopter/light plane midair.

Thanks for reading my rant. But, having used it, I know how good it
is, and why we need it yesterday!

SSA could be helpful by providing loaner or rental FLARM units to
aircraft to use in competitions. In this way, we could get them into
every competition sooner. A pilot could rent a unit for say $100 a
competition, and over 2 summers the units would be paid off.

On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Westbender wrote:
Forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I don't know much about
transponder operation.

Is it a technical requirement for a transponder to only transmit when
it's been interrogated by a ping from a remote source? I'm just
wondering why transponders can't have a "timeout" mechanism built into
it where it will automatically report/transmit if it hasn't been
pinged in a certain amount of time. Something like a 30 second
timeout? Maybe user-selectable? For the folks who fly in remote areas,
wouldn't something like this help? Or is the transponder response of
no use without pairing it with a request (ping)?

That's the meaning of "transponder" -- it transmits a response (to a
radar paint), plus it includes additional information. It goes back
to
WWII days when it was originally known as IFF -- Identify Friend or
Foe. The detection methods based on transponder response depend
on the timing between when the primary pulse is seen and the response.
The larger the duration, the further from the transponder you are.

This is the point of the FLARM scheme -- all the units periodically
broadcast their status, so they are visible even when there is no
radar around.

-- Matt

On Aug 11, 10:09*am, mattm wrote:
On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Westbender wrote:

Forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I don't know much about
transponder operation.

Is it a technical requirement for a transponder to only transmit when
it's been interrogated by a ping from a remote source? I'm just
wondering why transponders can't have a "timeout" mechanism built into
it where it will automatically report/transmit if it hasn't been
pinged in a certain amount of time. Something like a 30 second
timeout? Maybe user-selectable? For the folks who fly in remote areas,
wouldn't something like this help? Or is the transponder response of
no use without pairing it with a request (ping)?

That's the meaning of "transponder" -- it transmits a response (to a
radar paint), plus it includes additional information. *It goes back
to
WWII days when it was originally known as IFF -- Identify Friend or
Foe. *The detection methods based on transponder response depend
on the timing between when the primary pulse is seen and the response.
The larger the duration, the further from the transponder you are.

This is the point of the FLARM scheme -- all the units periodically
broadcast their status, so they are visible even when there is no
radar around.

-- Matt

When I read the "how it works" on the Zaon website, it says it reads
the response. It doesn't say anything about using the primary pulse in
it's process. Is that typical of PCAS systems?

This is where my question originates. It seems that the PCAS system
might not need the initial request from a radar to evaluate threats.
If so, then wouldn't an aircraft transponder "replying" without a
radar pulse give surrounding aircraft with PCAS the means to detect?

On Aug 11, 11:27*am, Westbender wrote:
On Aug 11, 10:09*am, mattm wrote:



On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Westbender wrote:

Forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I don't know much about
transponder operation.

Is it a technical requirement for a transponder to only transmit when
it's been interrogated by a ping from a remote source? I'm just
wondering why transponders can't have a "timeout" mechanism built into
it where it will automatically report/transmit if it hasn't been
pinged in a certain amount of time. Something like a 30 second
timeout? Maybe user-selectable? For the folks who fly in remote areas,
wouldn't something like this help? Or is the transponder response of
no use without pairing it with a request (ping)?

That's the meaning of "transponder" -- it transmits a response (to a
radar paint), plus it includes additional information. *It goes back
to
WWII days when it was originally known as IFF -- Identify Friend or
Foe. *The detection methods based on transponder response depend
on the timing between when the primary pulse is seen and the response.
The larger the duration, the further from the transponder you are.

This is the point of the FLARM scheme -- all the units periodically
broadcast their status, so they are visible even when there is no
radar around.

-- Matt

When I read the "how it works" on the Zaon website, it says it reads
the response. It doesn't say anything about using the primary pulse in
it's process. Is that typical of PCAS systems?

This is where my question originates. It seems that the PCAS system
might not need the initial request from a radar to evaluate threats.
If so, then wouldn't an aircraft transponder "replying" without a
radar pulse give surrounding aircraft with PCAS the means to detect?

A PCAS system replies on someone else interrogating the
transponders. "Someone" is either a ground radar station or
a TCAS-II equipped aircraft. If you are in a valley without
radar and without overflying jets, you will hear nothing.

Hope that helps,
Best Regards, Dave

On Aug 11, 12:29*am, Brad wrote:

I bought a PowerFlarm today.............now it's up to my flying
buddies to do the same thing.

Ordered mine this morning.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Aug 11, 11:27*am, Westbender wrote:





On Aug 11, 10:09*am, mattm wrote:

On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Westbender wrote:

Forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I don't know much about
transponder operation.

Is it a technical requirement for a transponder to only transmit when
it's been interrogated by a ping from a remote source? I'm just
wondering why transponders can't have a "timeout" mechanism built into
it where it will automatically report/transmit if it hasn't been
pinged in a certain amount of time. Something like a 30 second
timeout? Maybe user-selectable? For the folks who fly in remote areas,
wouldn't something like this help? Or is the transponder response of
no use without pairing it with a request (ping)?

That's the meaning of "transponder" -- it transmits a response (to a
radar paint), plus it includes additional information. *It goes back
to
WWII days when it was originally known as IFF -- Identify Friend or
Foe. *The detection methods based on transponder response depend
on the timing between when the primary pulse is seen and the response..
The larger the duration, the further from the transponder you are.

This is the point of the FLARM scheme -- all the units periodically
broadcast their status, so they are visible even when there is no
radar around.

-- Matt

When I read the "how it works" on the Zaon website, it says it reads
the response. It doesn't say anything about using the primary pulse in
it's process. Is that typical of PCAS systems?

This is where my question originates. It seems that the PCAS system
might not need the initial request from a radar to evaluate threats.
If so, then wouldn't an aircraft transponder "replying" without a
radar pulse give surrounding aircraft with PCAS the means to detect?

A PCAS system replies on someone else interrogating the
transponders. "Someone" is either a ground radar station or
a TCAS-II equipped aircraft. If you are in a valley without
radar and without overflying jets, you will hear nothing.

Hope that helps,
Best Regards, Dave- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Right, did you read my first post?

Since the MRX PCAS (passive) only uses the reply from transponders,
wouldn't it be nice if the trig had a timed/scheduled transmit when
not interrogated for a certain amount of time? If so, a combination of
a trig/PCAS would be relatively inexpensive for glider-to-glider
detection (yeah, yeah, assuming everyone had that combo). The best
part would be the benefits of the "normal" operating mode of the trig
and PCAS in relation to other GA and commercial aircraft.

What are the ramifications of doing something such a thing?

On Aug 11, 10:55*am, Westbender wrote:
On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Dave Nadler wrote:





On Aug 11, 11:27*am, Westbender wrote:

On Aug 11, 10:09*am, mattm wrote:

On Aug 11, 10:41*am, Westbender wrote:

Forgive me if this is a really dumb question. I don't know much about
transponder operation.

Is it a technical requirement for a transponder to only transmit when
it's been interrogated by a ping from a remote source? I'm just
wondering why transponders can't have a "timeout" mechanism built into
it where it will automatically report/transmit if it hasn't been
pinged in a certain amount of time. Something like a 30 second
timeout? Maybe user-selectable? For the folks who fly in remote areas,
wouldn't something like this help? Or is the transponder response of
no use without pairing it with a request (ping)?

That's the meaning of "transponder" -- it transmits a response (to a
radar paint), plus it includes additional information. *It goes back
to
WWII days when it was originally known as IFF -- Identify Friend or
Foe. *The detection methods based on transponder response depend
on the timing between when the primary pulse is seen and the response.
The larger the duration, the further from the transponder you are.

This is the point of the FLARM scheme -- all the units periodically
broadcast their status, so they are visible even when there is no
radar around.

-- Matt

When I read the "how it works" on the Zaon website, it says it reads
the response. It doesn't say anything about using the primary pulse in
it's process. Is that typical of PCAS systems?

This is where my question originates. It seems that the PCAS system
might not need the initial request from a radar to evaluate threats.
If so, then wouldn't an aircraft transponder "replying" without a
radar pulse give surrounding aircraft with PCAS the means to detect?

A PCAS system replies on someone else interrogating the
transponders. "Someone" is either a ground radar station or
a TCAS-II equipped aircraft. If you are in a valley without
radar and without overflying jets, you will hear nothing.

Hope that helps,
Best Regards, Dave- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Right, did you read my first post?

Since the MRX PCAS (passive) only uses the reply from transponders,
wouldn't it be nice if the trig had a timed/scheduled transmit when
not interrogated for a certain amount of time? If so, a combination of
a trig/PCAS would be relatively inexpensive for glider-to-glider
detection (yeah, yeah, assuming everyone had that combo). The best
part would be the benefits of the "normal" operating mode of the trig
and PCAS in relation to other GA and commercial aircraft.

What are the ramifications of doing something such a thing?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm thinking along the lines of a "passive detection mode" in the
Trig...

Details, please, if anyone has them. *It seems unlikely that it would
include an aneroid altimeter or engine run monitor... perhaps it is
good enough to be a backup logger for comp use? *How does one extract
the logs?

-T8

The original Flarm device appears to have both an ENL sensor and a
pressure altimeter. Don't see the specs for the new Power Flarm.
See:
http://www.fai.org/gliding/system/files/flarm-igc.pdf

V3