Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By foxmoth
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870458
You can easily throw an SE2 in the back of a tiger moth.


You can throw one in the back of a Tiger Moth but that does not mean it will work, I tried it in the back of our Ma5 (similar setup to a dH82a) in a number of locations including top pocket of my flying suit and it was only picked up by Bartons ADSB as we touched down!
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By leiafee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870459
PaulisHome wrote:* what's the business model? - who will pay for the network of transmitters? (and it will need a network)


I feel like the answer is in who’s done this initial trial isn’t it?

It’s going to be drone operators who benefit most. Benefit to GA will be merely a happy side effect if it comes off!
#1870464
Remember, that’s not what they want. They have one true god, and it’s not EC.


What an immature and small-minded comment. The Pilot Aware people have been actively trying to stop people smashing into each other for ages and making it as cheap as possible for us to do so and all you do is come up with a pathetic and snide remark :roll:

If you are so dedicated to EC why haven't you subscribed to the SkyDemon/SE2 Flarm licence? Given the paltry amount it costs I wouldn't put you high on the list of EC supporters.

If you were flying to Sandown and had PAW you would have received the same Flarm traffic, as there is already an extensive ATOM station presence.

Previous 'flavour of the month' is that ground-based rebroadcast is bad and it can only be air-to-air that is any good. Now a different rebroadcast provider gives you free Flarm and you're all over it, conveniently forgetting (a)the previous mantra and (b)the fact that PAW will have direct detection, ground rebroadcast and air-to-air rebroadcast.

I am definitely on the 'fan' side of PAW but I'm not some shiny-eyed believer. If I thought this system was going to provide anything better than the ATOM system I would sit up and take notice but it is a one-trick pony; it rebroadcasts. It doesn't 'do' direct aircraft to aircraft detection and it doesn't 'do' air-to-air rebroadcast. It may well provide weather which can be overlaid on SKyDemon (or whatever) but that is just something that looks great when spread over Texas but just a complete waste of time when flying a C172 from Blackbushe to Shobdon......and it has nothing to do with EC.
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#1870473
foxmoth wrote:
You can easily throw an SE2 in the back of a tiger moth.


You can throw one in the back of a Tiger Moth but that does not mean it will work, I tried it in the back of our Ma5 (similar setup to a dH82a) in a number of locations including top pocket of my flying suit and it was only picked up by Bartons ADSB as we touched down!


That’s odd, if ours works in the back of a PA28, you’d think you’d be able to use one in the back of a Tiger Moth wouldn’t you?

I think putting it in your pocket is just about the worst thing you could possibly have done.

Your body is a bag of water that stops any radio waves stone dead. You want it as far away from that as you can!

Tbh, the best “how to position a small transceiver in an aircraft” documents are those written by PAW. You’d not put the PAW antenna in your top pocket. You’d not want it anywhere near your body.
The research is quite clear about that.

That SE2 really would have worked better lodged upright anywhere else!

If I’m completely honest, I forgot you don’t have a window to stick it on! I’ll stop saying “throw it in the back”. Not quite true is it! Needs more consideration than that.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870479
@leiafee has a good point as usual. We do well to remember that there's a LOT of money behind drone development and these experiments are all about trying to create an environment where drones can coexist with other traffic across across class D and Class G airspace. Imagine drone deliveries to Staines or Maidenhead for example.

We will do well to engage with this stuff so that when we are forced to become a reliable part of it, we also get some benefit.
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#1870485
@johnm I remain hopeful drone development will prove to be a solution to a problem that does not exist and numbers will be limited, by market demand, to operations where they can genuinely make a difference. I get a little irked by the apparent acceptance that they are the future for almost everything. As I see it the developers are doing a great job of marketing the concept.

They'll exist, they'll be useful however I don't see the skies full of them. Meanwhile if we can benefit I'll consider it a silver lining.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870498
flyinfox wrote:If aircraft are only transmitting 0.5W and there isnt a network of ground stations to receive their transmissions how will it work?


Cessna571 wrote:Transponders don’t transmit that low.


I believe the 0.5W thing is to do with Flarm if Flarm is to be retransmitted. I also believe 0.5W is for PowerFlarm and that traditional Flarm is lower than that.

gaznav wrote:Hundreds of stations? I doubt it. The range in the link shows a 40nm radius of coverage from Lasham and Goodwood.


Is that the transmit range on 978MHz though? If you're receiving Flarm then there will need to be a couple of orders of magnitude more than you've worked out for complete coverage.
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By PaulisHome
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870502
gaznav wrote:Hundreds of stations? I doubt it. The range in the link shows a 40nm radius of coverage from Lasham and Goodwood. I have cut an pasted that from the link that @Cub posted at the start of this thread, then roughly transposed that on a map of the UK (I would say it’s about +/- 5nm in accuracy):

Image

Looking at that, then you would need maybe 15-20 stations to give broad coverage of the UK and Northern Ireland. Let’s say they are £20,000 each (which isn’t unreasonable) and we need 20 then we are looking at £400k. If it means that NATS can make a more flexible use of airspace through the use of this kit, then that £400k, spread over maybe a 10 year lifecycle, can be very cost effective indeed. Maybe also DfT will chip in as it increases the safety of all flying and may be more cost effective in having one less mid-air collision to investigate?

As you might have guessed, I am also excited by this and what results it achieves. :thumright:


I think you could need a lot more than that, depending on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to get good coverage down to 500 feet (as I think was mentioned), you need to deal with:
    * high ground near a station blanking the signal (you can see that with lots of the OGN receivers, for example. Line of sight is one of the limiting factors here).
    * the location of the receiver in the aircraft, and any shielding (it's going to be much easier with a decent, bottom mounted, external antenna). The consequence of that is that you need to be in sight of more than one station to get a good signal, and that generates other problems
    * the tradeoff between channel bandwidth and available link budget - ADSB is higher power than some of the other EC solutions, but the channel bandwidth is also higher, negating quite a lot of the power advantage. I'm not sure about the bandwidth on this channel

Bottom line - I don't think you can plan on the minimum number of transmitters if you want good coverage.

Paul
Last edited by PaulisHome on Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
#1870515
PaulisHome wrote:.. (it's going to be much easier with a decent, bottom mounted, external antenna). ..


you can never have enough external antennae :)

https://d1a2ot8agkqe8w.cloudfront.net/w ... _51491.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 554801.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RC-1 ... 159813.jpg
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By Sir Morley Steven
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870516
En route weather would have been handy yesterday on my flight to Cannes. The SE2 performed well and both the iPhone in VFR mode and iPad in IFR mode connected to it.
I now fully charge the SE2 before flight after misguidedly assuming that it would charge during the flight from the existing USB slot.
By PaulisHome
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870538
johnm wrote:If this is about enabling drones £400k is a mere bagatelle. £40,000,000 would just see shrugged shoulders.....


That's a good point - though you've still got to figure out how the money gets from the people who would benefit to the people who need to provide the service.

Paul
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