Ads-b and sailplanes

On Sunday, April 5, 2015 at 4:45:31 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Amazing how big a mess the FAA has made of the ADS-B thing isn't it? It seems like it had the potential to streamline things and provide useful situational awareness about other traffic with a relatively simple and inexpensive device - sort of a like a universal implementation of FLARM-like technology in all aircraft. So much for that.

My club held off on FLARM for a couple of years as some members thought that ADS-B would make it redundant. We're now installing it to club ships and the tow planes as funds allow and many of the privately owned gliders have it. In my case all it took was one flight to be convinced of the usefulness of FLARM and I was a bit skeptical of its value in our location at first..

I wouldn't ignore ADS-B as the long term solution to the collision avoidance puzzle. It's almost inevitable that this technology will be the cornerstone of collision avoidance for UAVs that are going to start sharing our US airspace.

The confusion of having two standards (1090ES and UAT) is unfortunate. The FAA (and originally MITRE, which developed the UAT standard) had good intentions. UAT provided the bandwidth needed for the kind of system that would permit a proliferation of other new services far into the future. Conversely adding 1090ES to the Mode S transponder standards provided such limited bandwidth to support ADS-B that there was legitimate concern that this technology would not work in some of the high density US airspaces (NYC, Atlanta, and Chicago), if all commercial and GA aircraft were so equipped.

Standardization on UAT would have been the ideal solution. Unfortunately this did not happen due to the lack of availability of a common frequency thru-out the world and the reluctance of the international aviation community to support this standard. If the FAA had insisted on UAT as the North American standard, it would have dramatically simplified the whole system at the cost of requiring dual equipage on a relatively small number of airliners used on international routes.

For most GA and commercial aircraft, operating within range of ADS-B ground stations, the current mixed UAT / 1090ES environment works well. The big issue is the lack of reliable ADS-B ground station coverage for low altitude operations in remote areas.

However, even in these environments, the future looks promising. There are now low cost dual frequency ADS-B IN receivers on the market that receive both 1090ES and UAT signals. Within the next year or two, single band ADS-B receivers will probably disappear from the market, due to the low cost of the much superior dual band receivers.

The big question is whether POWERFLARM will evolve to fully support this emerging ADS-B environment by incorporating a dual band ADS-B receiver and/or supporting the ADS-B ground station TIS-B capability, or if it will become irrelevant by the introduction of new low cost ADS-B IN solutions designed for the much larger GA community, incorporating not only dual band receivers, but also more sophisticated collision avoidance algorithms that take into account non-typical GA traffic like gliders, parachutists, and balloons.

On 4/5/15 7:11 PM, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Sunday, April 5, 2015 at 4:45:31 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Amazing how big a mess the FAA has made of the ADS-B thing isn't it? It seems like it had the potential to streamline things and provide useful situational awareness about other traffic with a relatively simple and inexpensive device - sort of a like a universal implementation of FLARM-like technology in all aircraft. So much for that.

My club held off on FLARM for a couple of years as some members thought that ADS-B would make it redundant. We're now installing it to club ships and the tow planes as funds allow and many of the privately owned gliders have it. In my case all it took was one flight to be convinced of the usefulness of FLARM and I was a bit skeptical of its value in our location at first.

I wouldn't ignore ADS-B as the long term solution to the collision avoidance puzzle. It's almost inevitable that this technology will be the cornerstone of collision avoidance for UAVs that are going to start sharing our US airspace.

The confusion of having two standards (1090ES and UAT) is unfortunate. The FAA (and originally MITRE, which developed the UAT standard) had good intentions. UAT provided the bandwidth needed for the kind of system that would permit a proliferation of other new services far into the future. Conversely adding 1090ES to the Mode S transponder standards provided such limited bandwidth to support ADS-B that there was legitimate concern that this technology would not work in some of the high density US airspaces (NYC, Atlanta, and Chicago), if all commercial and GA aircraft were so equipped.

Standardization on UAT would have been the ideal solution. Unfortunately this did not happen due to the lack of availability of a common frequency thru-out the world and the reluctance of the international aviation community to support this standard. If the FAA had insisted on UAT as the North American standard, it would have dramatically simplified the whole system at the cost of requiring dual equipage on a relatively small number of airliners used on international routes.

For most GA and commercial aircraft, operating within range of ADS-B ground stations, the current mixed UAT / 1090ES environment works well. The big issue is the lack of reliable ADS-B ground station coverage for low altitude operations in remote areas.

However, even in these environments, the future looks promising. There are now low cost dual frequency ADS-B IN receivers on the market that receive both 1090ES and UAT signals. Within the next year or two, single band ADS-B receivers will probably disappear from the market, due to the low cost of the much superior dual band receivers.

The big question is whether POWERFLARM will evolve to fully support this emerging ADS-B environment by incorporating a dual band ADS-B receiver and/or supporting the ADS-B ground station TIS-B capability, or if it will become irrelevant by the introduction of new low cost ADS-B IN solutions designed for the much larger GA community, incorporating not only dual band receivers, but also more sophisticated collision avoidance algorithms that take into account non-typical GA traffic like gliders, parachutists, and balloons.


The problem described not a few posts ago was how misinformed, and just
plain wrong, people had helped delay the introduction of PowerFLARM to a
location where it sounds like it could have been useful/wanted. And
those folks did that by harping on ADS-B,... let me guess influenced by
all that Bernald Smith/Miter/UAT pipe dream crap that too many folks
listened to including yourself. But don't let that stop you, and all the
previous harm done, keep on coming back, keep on telling people there is
something just around the corner...

---

So where is it again you fly? What glider do you own and what ADS-B
avionics have you been flying with? For how long? How long have you been
flying with a transponder? And how much practical experience do you have
flying with FLARM? All questions I've asked of you for before and you
never answer. So let me take a stab at that whole situation and if I get
any of this wrong I apologize and feel free to correct me...

You are a member of the Minnesota Soaring Club, you don't own your own
glider, you don't fly cross country much, you never fly competitions,
and you don't own or fly with a PowerFLARM or ADS-B Out? Is that right?
Just trying to judge your background for all the stuff you post about.
And from a technology viewpoint maybe you could let us know what
experience you have with high-technology, electronics, avionics, or say
actually getting any technology product to market?

You've been on r.a.s many times describing what seems like a dangerous
environment with lots of GA traffic where you fly and why gliders in
that environment apparently urgently need ADS-B equipment. And lots of
us have been baffled about why FLARM never seem appreciated by you since
it seems at times you might also fly with other gliders and/or towplanes
especially if operating from a club/gliderport. I've also asked you
several times where exactly you fly and you never answered. So let me
try there as well, again sorry for any mistakes and feel free to correct
any errors.

I believe you fly with the Minnesota Soaring Club, operating out of
Stanton Airfield. So based on all your past r.a.s posts you seem to
have serious concerns about (mostly GA) mid-air collision risks in that
location. Given those risks I would hope you have convinced the
Minnesota Soaring Club to at least equip their gliders with transponders
so at least ATC can easily see them if they fly within SSR radar
coverage and any PCAS, TCAD and TCAS equipped traffic also have a chance
to detect them as well. That would seem a prudent thing to do for any
glider club operating in what sounds from your past posts to be a high
traffic/high risk-environment. So I have to admit I was a little
surprised when I noticed that you had described to the SSA Executive
Committee back in 2011 that none of the Minnesota Soaring Club Gliders
were transponder equipped. I'm just going by your concerns you have
raised publicly, but in the four years since your comments to the SSA
has the club since corrected this apparent safety problem by installed
transponders and/or ADS-B Out in its glider fleet? Maybe you could give
everybody here an update about your mid-air collision concerns with the
Minnesota Soaring Club?

On 6/04/2015 12:11, Mike Schumann wrote:

...The big question is whether POWERFLARM will evolve to fully support
this emerging ADS-B environment by incorporating a dual band ADS-B
receiver and/or supporting the ADS-B ground station TIS-B capability,
or if it will become irrelevant by the introduction of new low cost
ADS-B IN solutions designed for the much larger GA community,
incorporating not only dual band receivers, but also more
sophisticated collision avoidance algorithms that take into account
non-typical GA traffic like gliders, parachutists, and balloons.


I'm surprised you see the future of Flarm as a 'big question' Mike.
Your consistently negative and dismissive attitude to Flarm would make
me think you'd find its future hardly worth a moment's thought.

It seems to me that its mere existence and growing popularity and value
to the soaring community makes it a real burr under your saddle. A sore
you scratch continually, viciously, hopelessly, poignantly.

Let it go, Mike. Move upward and onward with your bright-futured ADS-B
life to the shining Nirvana of universal UAT. Let Flarm wither on the
vine - as in your dreams it surely will. On the other hand, seeing a
grown man bashing his head against a brick wall has had its interesting
moments.

GC

On Sunday, April 5, 2015 at 7:11:32 PM UTC-7, Mike Schumann wrote:

I wouldn't ignore ADS-B as the long term solution to the collision avoidance puzzle. It's almost inevitable that this technology will be the cornerstone of collision avoidance for UAVs that are going to start sharing our US airspace.

I've been told that Flarm is working with commercial drone companies. Maybe because the drone manufacturers want something that is light, compact, can run off a battery and won't triple the cost of the drone, in which case those companies making dual-band receivers ought to add a Flarm receiver.

I have not heard of anyone working on, or even contemplating, glider (much less balloon) anti-collision algorithms to their ADS-B solutions. In part I suspect this is because of the possibility that if you don't have all systems using the same algorithm you could generate a situation where a close-proximity anti-collision system makes matters worse rather than better. Has anyone heard of an ADS-B standards body working specifically on developing a single algorithm for collision detection/avoidance (a capability that goes well beyond detecting traffic in an envelope)? Not me. The issue is that the overall philosophy for ADS-B was developed under 5-mile/1000-foot separation assumptions. Anyone who tells you it can be easily adapted to glider scenarios is either misinformed or deliberately misleading you.

Please let us all know when there is an ADS-B-based collision detection and avoidance system available on the market for less than $1000 that has algorithms that have been proven to work for gliders. Speculation about someone maybe in the future thinking about developing something that might kind of work despite the technical challenges with using ADS-B for this purpose - in addition to amounting to spitting into the wind - is irresponsible.

Andy

On Monday, April 6, 2015 at 7:15:21 AM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
I have not heard of anyone working on, or even contemplating, glider (much less balloon) anti-collision algorithms to their ADS-B solutions. In part I suspect this is because of the possibility that if you don't have all systems using the same algorithm you could generate a situation where a close-proximity anti-collision system makes matters worse rather than better. Has anyone heard of an ADS-B standards body working specifically on developing a single algorithm for collision detection/avoidance (a capability that goes well beyond detecting traffic in an envelope)? Not me. The issue is that the overall philosophy for ADS-B was developed under 5-mile/1000-foot separation assumptions. Anyone who tells you it can be easily adapted to glider scenarios is either misinformed or deliberately misleading you.

Sorry, FLARM is not an "anti-collision" system like TCAS, it is a "traffic advisory" system like ADS-B. The only thing that FLARM-specific algorithms do is reduce the number of warnings provided of nearby gliders that are determined not to be on conflicting paths. Having identical firmware in all FLARM units simplifies the programming issues and allows for use of lower-powered processors. Implementing similar algorithms on top of the more diverse ADS-B environment will not have any innate tendency towards making matters worse.

I understand the push for PowerFLARM adoption in the US, and I understand the desire to pushback on misinformed ADS-B speculation. But making crap arguments against crap arguments does not improve this situation. Eventually we will have to come to terms with ADS-B in the US soaring community, whether we like it or not.

Marc

On Monday, April 6, 2015 at 3:35:11 AM UTC-4, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On 4/5/15 7:11 PM, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Sunday, April 5, 2015 at 4:45:31 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Amazing how big a mess the FAA has made of the ADS-B thing isn't it? It seems like it had the potential to streamline things and provide useful situational awareness about other traffic with a relatively simple and inexpensive device - sort of a like a universal implementation of FLARM-like technology in all aircraft. So much for that.

My club held off on FLARM for a couple of years as some members thought that ADS-B would make it redundant. We're now installing it to club ships and the tow planes as funds allow and many of the privately owned gliders have it. In my case all it took was one flight to be convinced of the usefulness of FLARM and I was a bit skeptical of its value in our location at first.

I wouldn't ignore ADS-B as the long term solution to the collision avoidance puzzle. It's almost inevitable that this technology will be the cornerstone of collision avoidance for UAVs that are going to start sharing our US airspace.

The confusion of having two standards (1090ES and UAT) is unfortunate. The FAA (and originally MITRE, which developed the UAT standard) had good intentions. UAT provided the bandwidth needed for the kind of system that would permit a proliferation of other new services far into the future. Conversely adding 1090ES to the Mode S transponder standards provided such limited bandwidth to support ADS-B that there was legitimate concern that this technology would not work in some of the high density US airspaces (NYC, Atlanta, and Chicago), if all commercial and GA aircraft were so equipped.

Standardization on UAT would have been the ideal solution. Unfortunately this did not happen due to the lack of availability of a common frequency thru-out the world and the reluctance of the international aviation community to support this standard. If the FAA had insisted on UAT as the North American standard, it would have dramatically simplified the whole system at the cost of requiring dual equipage on a relatively small number of airliners used on international routes.

For most GA and commercial aircraft, operating within range of ADS-B ground stations, the current mixed UAT / 1090ES environment works well. The big issue is the lack of reliable ADS-B ground station coverage for low altitude operations in remote areas.

However, even in these environments, the future looks promising. There are now low cost dual frequency ADS-B IN receivers on the market that receive both 1090ES and UAT signals. Within the next year or two, single band ADS-B receivers will probably disappear from the market, due to the low cost of the much superior dual band receivers.

The big question is whether POWERFLARM will evolve to fully support this emerging ADS-B environment by incorporating a dual band ADS-B receiver and/or supporting the ADS-B ground station TIS-B capability, or if it will become irrelevant by the introduction of new low cost ADS-B IN solutions designed for the much larger GA community, incorporating not only dual band receivers, but also more sophisticated collision avoidance algorithms that take into account non-typical GA traffic like gliders, parachutists, and balloons.


The problem described not a few posts ago was how misinformed, and just
plain wrong, people had helped delay the introduction of PowerFLARM to a
location where it sounds like it could have been useful/wanted. And
those folks did that by harping on ADS-B,... let me guess influenced by
all that Bernald Smith/Miter/UAT pipe dream crap that too many folks
listened to including yourself. But don't let that stop you, and all the
previous harm done, keep on coming back, keep on telling people there is
something just around the corner...

---

So where is it again you fly? What glider do you own and what ADS-B
avionics have you been flying with? For how long? How long have you been
flying with a transponder? And how much practical experience do you have
flying with FLARM? All questions I've asked of you for before and you
never answer. So let me take a stab at that whole situation and if I get
any of this wrong I apologize and feel free to correct me...

You are a member of the Minnesota Soaring Club, you don't own your own
glider, you don't fly cross country much, you never fly competitions,
and you don't own or fly with a PowerFLARM or ADS-B Out? Is that right?
Just trying to judge your background for all the stuff you post about.
And from a technology viewpoint maybe you could let us know what
experience you have with high-technology, electronics, avionics, or say
actually getting any technology product to market?

You've been on r.a.s many times describing what seems like a dangerous
environment with lots of GA traffic where you fly and why gliders in
that environment apparently urgently need ADS-B equipment. And lots of
us have been baffled about why FLARM never seem appreciated by you since
it seems at times you might also fly with other gliders and/or towplanes
especially if operating from a club/gliderport. I've also asked you
several times where exactly you fly and you never answered. So let me
try there as well, again sorry for any mistakes and feel free to correct
any errors.

I believe you fly with the Minnesota Soaring Club, operating out of
Stanton Airfield. So based on all your past r.a.s posts you seem to
have serious concerns about (mostly GA) mid-air collision risks in that
location. Given those risks I would hope you have convinced the
Minnesota Soaring Club to at least equip their gliders with transponders
so at least ATC can easily see them if they fly within SSR radar
coverage and any PCAS, TCAD and TCAS equipped traffic also have a chance
to detect them as well. That would seem a prudent thing to do for any
glider club operating in what sounds from your past posts to be a high
traffic/high risk-environment. So I have to admit I was a little
surprised when I noticed that you had described to the SSA Executive
Committee back in 2011 that none of the Minnesota Soaring Club Gliders
were transponder equipped. I'm just going by your concerns you have
raised publicly, but in the four years since your comments to the SSA
has the club since corrected this apparent safety problem by installed
transponders and/or ADS-B Out in its glider fleet? Maybe you could give
everybody here an update about your mid-air collision concerns with the
Minnesota Soaring Club?

You are correct. I am a member of the MN Soaring Club. I don't fly competitions. We operate out of Stanton Airfield, which is just inside the Twin Cities Mode C veil.

None of our club ships and most private gliders at Stanton are neither FLARM, Transponder, nor ADS-B equipped. The reason for that is that most of our pilots are not willing to invest in partial solutions that we think will become obsolete in the next couple of years, as lower cost ADS-B options become available.

As far as my background goes, I was extensively involved with MITRE a number of years ago in their attempt to demonstrate to the FAA the performance capabilities of their low cost UAT ADS-B technology. All the testing was a success. The problem, which continues to this day, is that the FAA has dug in their heels on authorizing low cost consumer grade GPS chip sets for ADS-B OUT applications in VFR GA aircraft. My personal feeling is that eventually the FAA is going to cave on this issue, or they are going to be forced to subsidize a certified chip set that meets their specs. Otherwise, the political pressure from AOPA is going to become unsustainable as 2020 approaches.

As far as FLARM goes, a number of us were quite excited about this technology when it was first introduced in Europe, before the ADS-B bandwagon started rolling here in the US. Unfortunately, FLARM specifically prohibited the use of this technology in the US. One reason was that the European FLARM frequency was unavailable in the US. A bigger reason seemed to be the unwillingness of FLARM to expose themselves to the litigious US product liability environment, which is certainly understandable.

A number of years ago FLARM apparently had a change of heart, resulting in the introduction of the POWERFLARM product. The problem that I, and numerous other glider pilots have with POWERFLARM is the half baked implementation of ADS-B support, which significantly limits its usefulness in identifying non-glider based threats. TIS-B support would have been a huge feature, as this would immediately make all existing transponder equipped aircraft visible.

Unfortunately, the FLARM team did not want to bother with TIS-B. I assume that one reason is that they though this would be a temporary technology, which would become redundant in 2020 when most aircraft will be ADS-B out equipped. Unfortunately, the FLARM team didn't take into account that there are going to be UAT equipped aircraft that will be invisible without the TIS-B function. One work around would be incorporating a dual frequency ADS-B receiver so that POWERFLARM can see both UAT and 1090ES equipped aircraft.. That approach is actually technically better than TIS-B in remote rural areas where aircraft are out of range of ADS-B ground stations.

Blaming me and other pilots who are trying to educate the glider community on what their options are for the disappointing sales of POWERFLARM is ridiculous. The reason a lot of people aren't buying POWERFLARM units is that they perceive this to be a half baked solution for areas near major metropolitan airports, where a significant collision threat is non-glider traffic.

I suspect that if POWERFLARM got their act together and fully supported the FAA's ADS-B architecture, pilots like me would have whole different attitude. With that kind of product the MN Soaring Club might even become a customer.

On 4/6/15 11:36 AM, wrote:
On Monday, April 6, 2015 at 7:15:21 AM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
I have not heard of anyone working on, or even contemplating, glider (much less balloon) anti-collision algorithms to their ADS-B solutions. In part I suspect this is because of the possibility that if you don't have all systems using the same algorithm you could generate a situation where a close-proximity anti-collision system makes matters worse rather than better. Has anyone heard of an ADS-B standards body working specifically on developing a single algorithm for collision detection/avoidance (a capability that goes well beyond detecting traffic in an envelope)? Not me. The issue is that the overall philosophy for ADS-B was developed under 5-mile/1000-foot separation assumptions. Anyone who tells you it can be easily adapted to glider scenarios is either misinformed or deliberately misleading you.

Sorry, FLARM is not an "anti-collision" system like TCAS, it is a "traffic advisory" system like ADS-B. The only thing that FLARM-specific algorithms do is reduce the number of warnings provided of nearby gliders that are determined not to be on conflicting paths. Having identical firmware in all FLARM units simplifies the programming issues and allows for use of lower-powered processors. Implementing similar algorithms on top of the more diverse ADS-B environment will not have any innate tendency towards making matters worse.

I understand the push for PowerFLARM adoption in the US, and I understand the desire to pushback on misinformed ADS-B speculation. But making crap arguments against crap arguments does not improve this situation. Eventually we will have to come to terms with ADS-B in the US soaring community, whether we like it or not.

Marc


OK so being careful on semantics is useful, yes the only
*anti-collision* system is TCAS-II, everything else is situations
awareness or traffic warning only. And to look at ADS-B, how/whether
ADS-B plays a role in any anti-collision future needs to be decided.
RTCA and the word's avionics manufactures and regulators don't have
anything close a clear path for use of ADS-B in real collision avoidance
either at the high-end where TCAS II us used today or something more
affordable for say the GA market. And to some extent they don't need to
as TCAS II while not perfect works pretty well and doing much more is an
extremely difficult problem. And hey besides everybody out there who is
a collision threat has a transponder... right?

And that leads to the double damnation with all the past talk about
UAT-Out in gliders. It did not provide TCAS II compatibility for
aircraft equipped with TCAS II, you needed a separate transponder for
that so an issue where you have lots of airliners and fast jets. But
even at a simpler level, forgetting anti-collision stuff, the
low-cost/low-power/compact UAT-Out systems talked about for gliders
can't even do situational awareness or traffic warning. There were
UAT-Out boxes with no receiver, and no display, and no integration with
common soaring displays or software etc. Not anything even as
start/proof of concept. And certainly no smarts for predicting/warning
about threats in a soaring like environment like FLARM has, and no signs
for who would ever do all that development and integration and
production and support work for a very small soaring community (and a
market effectively unique to the USA).

Especially while ADS-B remains prohibitively experience and complex at
least for a certified aircraft I don't the need for most members of the
US soaring community to worry too about it. Folks operating tow planes
in areas where they will need to comply with the 2020 carriage mandate
are the ones I most feel for at the moment, and I hope as that deadline
gets closer the product available will help reduce costs to those
operators and there is useful sharing of information between folks.
Otherwise right now it's mostly just keeping an eye on budgets and
planning for some ADS-B equipage hit for those tow planes prior to 2020.

Otherwise it's the same old same old. If you feel gliders-glider and
glider-towplane collision risks are significant equip with a PowerFLARM,
and get others locally to do the same. If the concern is
GA/Airliner/Military traffic etc. equip with a transponder. If you are
technically inclined and own an experimental glider say with a Trig
TT-21/22 then by all means play with ADS-B Out, be careful how that is
set up (I've helped several owners who want to do that get going with
1090ES Out). And those experiments could help see if ADS-B Out is useful
for things like longer-range air-air and ground trackng of gliders etc.,
SAR last location, etc. There *is* interesting and useful things that
could be looked at there. Anybody want geek help/have questions there
let me know and I'll see if I can help or find you help.

Forgetting *anti-collision*, there is still just nothing close to a
practical ADS-B Out and In (=compact, low power, affordable and
compatible with displays etc.) product(s) today that an owner would
install in a typical glider that would give traffic/collision threat
information to/from nearby ADS-B equipped aircraft. I'd like to see
folks who are still pushing ADS-B crap in the soaring community to have
some, or any, experience flying with what they keep going on about, and
to be able to describe exactly what traffic awareness/traffic warnings
works, how you integrate things, how much it costs, etc.

And we'll have to wait and see what happens with low-power Mode S
beacon/1090ES Out. Maybe technology will come along there. It's a little
too early to be able to guess. But I suspect if anything that type of
technology might end up being used in mid-size UAVs. For the soaring
community's sake I hope those systems end-up being 1090ES (not UAT)-Out
or Dual-link Out. They damn well better have Mode-S transponders, and
companies are already building some impressive Mode-S systems targeting
UAVs (like Sagetech http://www.sagetechcorp.com/unmanned-solutions/).
Hopefully the Mitre/pro-UAT folks don't get to cause a dangerous mess
there, but clearly pushing UAT-Out for UAV use is what Mitre wants to
do. Mid-size and larger UAV certainly worry me. The emergence of UAVs
and their regulation and avionics requirements, and what Mitre exactly
is doing there (they may not be working towards the best interests of
the soaring community at all, I do not see how pushing any UAT-Out
beacon technology does) would be a good area for the SSA to keep watching.

On 4/6/15 12:15 PM, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Monday, April 6, 2015 at 3:35:11 AM UTC-4, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On 4/5/15 7:11 PM, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Sunday, April 5, 2015 at 4:45:31 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Amazing how big a mess the FAA has made of the ADS-B thing isn't it? It seems like it had the potential to streamline things and provide useful situational awareness about other traffic with a relatively simple and inexpensive device - sort of a like a universal implementation of FLARM-like technology in all aircraft. So much for that.

My club held off on FLARM for a couple of years as some members thought that ADS-B would make it redundant. We're now installing it to club ships and the tow planes as funds allow and many of the privately owned gliders have it. In my case all it took was one flight to be convinced of the usefulness of FLARM and I was a bit skeptical of its value in our location at first.

I wouldn't ignore ADS-B as the long term solution to the collision avoidance puzzle. It's almost inevitable that this technology will be the cornerstone of collision avoidance for UAVs that are going to start sharing our US airspace.

The confusion of having two standards (1090ES and UAT) is unfortunate. The FAA (and originally MITRE, which developed the UAT standard) had good intentions. UAT provided the bandwidth needed for the kind of system that would permit a proliferation of other new services far into the future. Conversely adding 1090ES to the Mode S transponder standards provided such limited bandwidth to support ADS-B that there was legitimate concern that this technology would not work in some of the high density US airspaces (NYC, Atlanta, and Chicago), if all commercial and GA aircraft were so equipped.

Standardization on UAT would have been the ideal solution. Unfortunately this did not happen due to the lack of availability of a common frequency thru-out the world and the reluctance of the international aviation community to support this standard. If the FAA had insisted on UAT as the North American standard, it would have dramatically simplified the whole system at the cost of requiring dual equipage on a relatively small number of airliners used on international routes.

For most GA and commercial aircraft, operating within range of ADS-B ground stations, the current mixed UAT / 1090ES environment works well. The big issue is the lack of reliable ADS-B ground station coverage for low altitude operations in remote areas.

However, even in these environments, the future looks promising. There are now low cost dual frequency ADS-B IN receivers on the market that receive both 1090ES and UAT signals. Within the next year or two, single band ADS-B receivers will probably disappear from the market, due to the low cost of the much superior dual band receivers.

The big question is whether POWERFLARM will evolve to fully support this emerging ADS-B environment by incorporating a dual band ADS-B receiver and/or supporting the ADS-B ground station TIS-B capability, or if it will become irrelevant by the introduction of new low cost ADS-B IN solutions designed for the much larger GA community, incorporating not only dual band receivers, but also more sophisticated collision avoidance algorithms that take into account non-typical GA traffic like gliders, parachutists, and balloons.


The problem described not a few posts ago was how misinformed, and just
plain wrong, people had helped delay the introduction of PowerFLARM to a
location where it sounds like it could have been useful/wanted. And
those folks did that by harping on ADS-B,... let me guess influenced by
all that Bernald Smith/Miter/UAT pipe dream crap that too many folks
listened to including yourself. But don't let that stop you, and all the
previous harm done, keep on coming back, keep on telling people there is
something just around the corner...

---

So where is it again you fly? What glider do you own and what ADS-B
avionics have you been flying with? For how long? How long have you been
flying with a transponder? And how much practical experience do you have
flying with FLARM? All questions I've asked of you for before and you
never answer. So let me take a stab at that whole situation and if I get
any of this wrong I apologize and feel free to correct me...

You are a member of the Minnesota Soaring Club, you don't own your own
glider, you don't fly cross country much, you never fly competitions,
and you don't own or fly with a PowerFLARM or ADS-B Out? Is that right?
Just trying to judge your background for all the stuff you post about.
And from a technology viewpoint maybe you could let us know what
experience you have with high-technology, electronics, avionics, or say
actually getting any technology product to market?

You've been on r.a.s many times describing what seems like a dangerous
environment with lots of GA traffic where you fly and why gliders in
that environment apparently urgently need ADS-B equipment. And lots of
us have been baffled about why FLARM never seem appreciated by you since
it seems at times you might also fly with other gliders and/or towplanes
especially if operating from a club/gliderport. I've also asked you
several times where exactly you fly and you never answered. So let me
try there as well, again sorry for any mistakes and feel free to correct
any errors.

I believe you fly with the Minnesota Soaring Club, operating out of
Stanton Airfield. So based on all your past r.a.s posts you seem to
have serious concerns about (mostly GA) mid-air collision risks in that
location. Given those risks I would hope you have convinced the
Minnesota Soaring Club to at least equip their gliders with transponders
so at least ATC can easily see them if they fly within SSR radar
coverage and any PCAS, TCAD and TCAS equipped traffic also have a chance
to detect them as well. That would seem a prudent thing to do for any
glider club operating in what sounds from your past posts to be a high
traffic/high risk-environment. So I have to admit I was a little
surprised when I noticed that you had described to the SSA Executive
Committee back in 2011 that none of the Minnesota Soaring Club Gliders
were transponder equipped. I'm just going by your concerns you have
raised publicly, but in the four years since your comments to the SSA
has the club since corrected this apparent safety problem by installed
transponders and/or ADS-B Out in its glider fleet? Maybe you could give
everybody here an update about your mid-air collision concerns with the
Minnesota Soaring Club?

You are correct. I am a member of the MN Soaring Club. I don't fly competitions. We operate out of Stanton Airfield, which is just inside the Twin Cities Mode C veil.

None of our club ships and most private gliders at Stanton are neither FLARM, Transponder, nor ADS-B equipped. The reason for that is that most of our pilots are not willing to invest in partial solutions that we think will become obsolete in the next couple of years, as lower cost ADS-B options become available.

As far as my background goes, I was extensively involved with MITRE a number of years ago in their attempt to demonstrate to the FAA the performance capabilities of their low cost UAT ADS-B technology. All the testing was a success. The problem, which continues to this day, is that the FAA has dug in their heels on authorizing low cost consumer grade GPS chip sets for ADS-B OUT applications in VFR GA aircraft. My personal feeling is that eventually the FAA is going to cave on this issue, or they are going to be forced to subsidize a certified chip set that meets their specs. Otherwise, the political pressure from AOPA is going to become unsustainable as 2020 approaches.

As far as FLARM goes, a number of us were quite excited about this technology when it was first introduced in Europe, before the ADS-B bandwagon started rolling here in the US. Unfortunately, FLARM specifically prohibited the use of this technology in the US. One reason was that the European FLARM frequency was unavailable in the US. A bigger reason seemed to be the unwillingness of FLARM to expose themselves to the litigious US product liability environment, which is certainly understandable.

A number of years ago FLARM apparently had a change of heart, resulting in the introduction of the POWERFLARM product. The problem that I, and numerous other glider pilots have with POWERFLARM is the half baked implementation of ADS-B support, which significantly limits its usefulness in identifying non-glider based threats. TIS-B support would have been a huge feature, as this would immediately make all existing transponder equipped aircraft visible.

Unfortunately, the FLARM team did not want to bother with TIS-B. I assume that one reason is that they though this would be a temporary technology, which would become redundant in 2020 when most aircraft will be ADS-B out equipped. Unfortunately, the FLARM team didn't take into account that there are going to be UAT equipped aircraft that will be invisible without the TIS-B function. One work around would be incorporating a dual frequency ADS-B receiver so that POWERFLARM can see both UAT and 1090ES equipped aircraft. That approach is actually technically better than TIS-B in remote rural areas where aircraft are out of range of ADS-B ground stations.

Blaming me and other pilots who are trying to educate the glider community on what their options are for the disappointing sales of POWERFLARM is ridiculous. The reason a lot of people aren't buying POWERFLARM units is that they perceive this to be a half baked solution for areas near major metropolitan airports, where a significant collision threat is non-glider traffic.

I suspect that if POWERFLARM got their act together and fully supported the FAA's ADS-B architecture, pilots like me would have whole different attitude. With that kind of product the MN Soaring Club might even become a customer.


Thanks for the info.

TIS-B won't work without ADS-B Out, as you know. And in certified
aircraft, including any glider used for training you know that is a
multi-$k cost, and eventually TIS-B will go away, whether there are
affordable systems that could be usable in glider before then is an open
question. Meanwhile PCAS provides many PowerFLARM owners with useful
help for purely transponder equipped traffic, but with usual PCAS
limitations. And for compatibly with PCAS/TCAD/TCAS II then you need a
transponder anyhow. So I do not get why any club flying in what you keep
describing as such a high-risk environment would keep putting off
adopting transponders. Seems a bit of liability exposure, maybe one I'd
might have been careful about talking about publicly, but I appreciate
you being willing to publicly share your safety concerns about the
Minnesota Soaring Club operations. Especially since most of us just have
not been able to fathom the apparently unique situation, where other
clubs and owners have been willing/able to adopt PowerFLARM and/or
transponders as a best-available solution for their needs.

So the Minnesota Soaring Club is making what seems like (from your
description) critical safety decisions based on the hope that things
will change and an ADS-B solution will appear? Do they have a timeline
when they expect that to happen? Is there a time for when they will
revisit fitting currently available transponder technology to help
reduce the collision risk in this dangerous high-traffic area? Does the
FAA organizations in the local area and local GA pilots know of the
clubs mid-air collision risk concerns? And that most of the gliders are
not transponder equipped? Any joint-work on how to minimize those risks?

In high traffic areas (including GA) in the CA/NV area the local FAA
folks have been very encouraging/welcoming of adoption of transponders,
and have been really good at working together with the glider community.

Before PowerFlarm, I had two close encounters with airliner turboprops in
Class E airspace. At my old club I took a photo of a close encounter
between an airline turboprop and a towplane pulling a glider below 2000
AGL.

With PowerFlarm, I spot their ADS-B returns 10+ miles away. Very easy to
stay well out of their way.

Air Avionics has a project website ads-b.de with a European outlook (Google
translate recommended if your German is challenged).

A Dutch website discussed using PowerFlarm for GPS input to a transponder,
but non-GPS data has to be filtered out. Can't find that webpage any more,
but filtered PF GPS data looks like a good way to go.

On Monday, April 6, 2015 at 3:00:05 PM UTC-7, George Haeh wrote:
Before PowerFlarm, I had two close encounters with airliner turboprops in
Class E airspace. At my old club I took a photo of a close encounter
between an airline turboprop and a towplane pulling a glider below 2000
AGL.

With PowerFlarm, I spot their ADS-B returns 10+ miles away. Very easy to
stay well out of their way.

Air Avionics has a project website ads-b.de with a European outlook (Google
translate recommended if your German is challenged).

A Dutch website discussed using PowerFlarm for GPS input to a transponder,
but non-GPS data has to be filtered out. Can't find that webpage any more,
but filtered PF GPS data looks like a good way to go.

If you need to filter the NMEA data stream products like the nice K-6 Mux (http://www.k6-team.de/index.php?s=75) can do that. And it can obviously split the PowerFLARM NMEA out between a PDA or flight computer and a ADS-B Out device. I expect some ADS-B Out devices will just ignore FLARM NMEA extensions, something to carefully test/check with vendors on. Again only for experimental category aircraft in the USA, and only when properly configured to broadcast that they are not using a compliant GPS input.