Reduced sensivity makes sense to me, but I’m not sure I’d be happy with the muted warnings. So if someone got really close I’d still want the warning, but would be expecting traffic to be closer than normal in the circuit.
But is there a 25% flap setting, so that you’d only use 50% on short final? Then it might make more sense.
The pilot survived in the Cirris becuase of the BRS. Are there any civilian helis with BRS? I imagine that a BRS in a Heli is going to be very difficult without some way of stopping (or dumping) the rotar.
The SR22 has flap settings of 0%, 50%, and 100%. You’d typically select 50% for GS intercept and either land with it or select 100% on short final. You can also fly the GS with 100% flaps, and that helps prevent temperatures dropping too fast. A standard visual circuit would normally use 100% flaps on final.
The Honeywell TAS system mutes when gear down and has 600ft sensitivity instead of 800ft when in that configuration.
The SR22 has flap settings of 0%, 50%, and 100%. You’d typically select 50% for GS intercept
That suggests that you have basically no protection all the way down from the platform (say 2000ft) to the runway. Or, in terms of conflicting traffic which might be there legally, all the way from the cloudbase to the runway.
That isn’t so good for IAPs in Class G, where traffic is often found flying through the “glideslope”, but outside the ATZ and thus “technically not illegal”.
The Honeywell TAS system mutes when gear down
That’s even worse! One might use the gear from early on, as a speed brake, in certain visual (wholly VFR) scenarios e.g. to achieve a steep descent without the speed running away (Albenga or Calvi come to mind).
Or just to lose height quickly because you could not get a word in edgeways to get cleared into the circuit, because somebody was reading out War and Peace on the radio, and that (a busy circuit) would correlate with the very scenario where you might hit somebody.
When approaching a busy airfield, I stay well above the circuit height / well above 2000ft if possible, until close in, to minimise the risk. But that can mean a steep descent.
On the SR22, it depends which traffic system you have installed. The one on mine (Garmin GTS 800) has two sensitivity levels, A and B. Under 120kts or with flaps deployed, you get a lower sensitivity A. I’m not going to type in all the differences between A and B, but it essentially boils down to 20 seconds worth of warning instead of 30 seconds. It depends also on whether Mode A or C is being received from the enemy.
I think it is impossible to answer without knowing what actually happened. The ATC said three helicopters in pattern, the Cirrus only had visual on two… Not necessarily a dangerous situation, but clearly it was this time. The BRS obviously saves lifes, and maybe a simple FLARM would do the same.
Everybody assumes heli nr 3 had the xpdr on. I wonder if the Cirrus was flying the same circuit as the helicopters. I mean, with higher speed comes a wider circuit, no ? Except in EU of course, where noise abatement procedures are almighty…
The audio will be muted in all of them, afaik.
I fly the GS with flaps 50 and always land with flaps 100. No flap landings result in many expensive tail strikes in Cirrus landings, and i don’t see one reason to land with less than full flaps.
I wonder if the Cirrus was flying the same circuit as the helicopters. I mean, with higher speed comes a wider circuit, no ?
I haven’t listened to the link and don’t think I will, and I’m not familiar with this airport, but for what its worth US airports with ATC typically don’t mix rotary wing aircraft into the round-and-round traffic pattern. Helicopters do their own thing, typically directly to/from the point of touchdown, sometimes in alignment with a runway to get there.
Maybe factory fitted systems mute it but mine doesn’t. There is a button I can press which mutes it for something like 30 secs if it gets annoying but I never use it.
The sound track is nothing as scary IMHO as watching half the stuff on TV these days…
Some years ago I had a close encounter with a heli, which was hovering on the approach path. It was at night and I just saw a light which looked something was parked at the start of the runway. I went around, passing just above him. After I landed, he landed too and I started walking towards him to speak to him, but he ran off. He was a local heli instructor… Normally helis here fly a lower circuit, if they fly one at all.
