Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841841
The longest trip thus far was Gloucester to Great Massingham and back. Skyecho up on the right hand side of the windscreen. Connection to Skydemon all good.

I saw a small number of contacts all of no interest but I'm not sure whether the FLARM configuration is set up correctly so I need to have another look at set up and fly on a glider day. The other pilot ran up FR 24 and Skyecho saw far far less.

I probably need to fiddle with settings and positioning a bit and I suspect that most traffic was below (certainly the few we saw were) and that might have an effect.

I'd be interested in other users settings for receive including FLARM I'm using it in receive only mode as we have GTX 330 ES.

Incidentally the Dabbling Duck was closed but the cafe by the post office was doing a roaring trade and is very good.
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By GrahamB
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841856
As a long time Mode S-ES and PilotAware user, I bought a subsidised SkyEcho2 purely for Flarm detection in anticipation of flying again in Europe.

I’ve not bought the FLARM subscription yet, but doing some testing by running the two side by side with two tablets running SD, one connected to each, has shown pretty consistent detection of ADSB targets between both units - they are both placed in front centre of the coaming of the AA5.

However, using the PAW Vector site has shown that ground station detection of the SE2 in ADS-B transmit mode is poor compared to the PAW. I’ve played around with mounting it in different places in the cockpit and it seems impossible to get consistent all-round detection by ground stations, and when detected, maximum range is much less than the PAW.

This leads me to believe that very careful positioning of the SE2 is going to be required for possible future situations which require ground station interaction, e.g. TIS-B or Met info, or entry into segregated airspace.

Enclosing the antennae and GPS receiver in a single box results in a small, tidy package, but without being able to attach an external GPS source or antennae severely limits the positioning for both airborne and consistent ground visibility. In many airframes getting good performance without significant airframe/occupant blanking may just not be possible.

(Edited for typo)
Last edited by GrahamB on Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841858
I had a look out of interest and sure enough our GTX 330ES makes us visible in all directions out to about 60 KM :D :thumleft:

Spotting others thus far is rather more unpredictable and I will take a look at settings and positioning and try again next week.
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By leemoore1966
#1841862
johnm wrote:I had a look out of interest and sure enough our GTX 330ES makes us visible in all directions out to about 60 KM :D :thumleft:

It is probably much better than this using the (ground station high gain receive antenna) but we cap the data at 60km, otherwise the datasets are too large to keep
BTW, The same antenna is used for both ADSB and CAP1391 detection, so the comparison is valid, although much better than would be seen air to air using a standard 2-3db antenna

Thx
Lee
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By Miscellaneous
#1841864
johnm wrote:...I need to have another look at set up and fly on a glider day.

I don't know it was intended to be used to hunt aircraft, as a fish finder is, John. :wink:

I must get out fishing flying too and see if I can detect my first ever aircraft.
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By leemoore1966
#1841866
GrahamB wrote:...using the PAW Vector site has shown that ground station detection of the SE2 in ADS-B transmit mode is poor compared to the PAW. I’ve played around with mounting it in different places in the cockpit and it seems impossible to get consistent all-round detection

We are hearing this same story many times, BTW you can filter the VECTOR site for performance on specific flying days, in order to compare and contrast

Its the new post-flight EC/VECTOR(link) game

CAP1391 Whack-A-Mole !

Thx
Lee
Last edited by leemoore1966 on Wed Apr 21, 2021 9:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
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By Rob P
#1841868
Yesterday post-flight I was playing with my SD tablet and was highly gratified to watch the same winch launch in reality and on screen (PAw)

Operating from a glider site, being kept aware of where the sneaky beggars are is quite a safety bonus.

Rob P
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By Shoestring Flyer
#1841870
Really impressed with my PowerFlarmFusion. Expensive but definitely the right decision for me!
Coverage also looks very good on PAW Vector both for Flarm and ADSB!

*Tried to upload vector image without success.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841888
My interest is understanding how reliable FLARM and ADS-B detection is as that's all I need from the little Skyecho box.

Basic functionality is there as I've seen aircraft details on the Skydemon map, I now need to understand what I can rely on and what I can't. Clearly I won't see any PAW or Mode S aircraft and so I'll still use a traffic service, but they typically don't see gliders so FLARM performance is the primary interest.
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By Miscellaneous
#1841892
johnm wrote:My interest is understanding how reliable FLARM and ADS-B detection is...
Basic functionality is there as I've seen aircraft details on the Skydemon map, I now need to understand what I can rely on and what I can't.

I'm intrigued, John. :?

My understanding is consistent reliability cannot be determined to any meaningful measure and therefore it should be used to supplement the primary method of lookout. In fact I consider your approach to it one of the potential negative consequences of EC. That pilots will defer lookout in the misplaced belief their ass is covered by EC.

Am I wrong in my understanding EC should be used to supplement lookout? :?

FTAOD none of the above is a suggestion it is not advisable to optimise position through trial. :thumright:
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By malcolmfrost
#1841902
Out of interest, FR24 isn't necessarily the best way to view ADSB data! I flew down to Sandown from Popham a few days ago running SE2 and the tracks were very different!
FR24
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Flightaware
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By PaulisHome
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841905
Miscellaneous wrote:
johnm wrote:My interest is understanding how reliable FLARM and ADS-B detection is...
Basic functionality is there as I've seen aircraft details on the Skydemon map, I now need to understand what I can rely on and what I can't.

I'm intrigued, John. :?

My understanding is consistent reliability cannot be determined to any meaningful measure and therefore it should be used to supplement the primary method of lookout. In fact I consider your approach to it one of the potential negative consequences of EC. That pilots will defer lookout in the misplaced belief their ass is covered by EC.

Am I wrong in my understanding EC should be used to supplement lookout? :?

FTAOD none of the above is a suggestion it is not advisable to optimise position through trial. :thumright:


I think there's an interesting philosophical point here. Given how bad we know lookout to be, I'd say that EC and lookout complement each other. You don't want to downgrade your lookout because you have EC, but neither do you want to disregard the usefulness of EC because you lookout.

In particular the problem with lookout is that the targets which you are most likely to hit (the ones not moving relative to you) are most difficult to see.

Paul
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841927
My understanding is consistent reliability cannot be determined to any meaningful measure and therefore it should be used to supplement the primary method of lookout. In fact I consider your approach to it one of the potential negative consequences of EC. That pilots will defer lookout in the misplaced belief their ass is covered by EC.


Lookout in IMC and poor VMC is not that great which is why I generally take a traffic service whenever I can. However radar doesn't see gliders reliably so FLARM is a key point of interest.

Lookout, EC and traffic service is the best combination we've got at the moment. We know that none of them is ideal and understanding EC better is my current focus because I have reasonable idea how traffic service works and I know look out is carp.
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By ls8pilot
#1841943
Quite a bit of gliding activity in the past 10 days, so flying between, say 12:00 and 16:00 (BST) in the central southern UK there should have been quite a few contacts. A majority of the gliders at our club which fly XC now have both SE2 and Flarm.

With about 15 hrs & 1000km of XC over 8 days (6 days for SE2) I now have a larger vector sample from quite a few different stations. SE2 on mine shows pretty good performance, with maybe some attenuation in one quadrant caused by the 85Kg of water and fat sat in the cockpit! Flarm still has better performance with the ground stations - although they typically have higher gain antenna for Flarm. So both Flarm and SE2 ought to be good air:air out to 10-20km or so I think. I cant practically use SE2 for reception unfortunately, so cant comment on the receive performance. Hopefully this should give a significant improvement to visibility of gliders, certainly better than Mk1 eyeball alone ........

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