TAS Traffic system Bendix KMH880 vs Garmin GTS800.

I have no answer to any of your question, but wow, that’s one hell of a panel you have there! ;-)

The GTS800 does ADS-B IN as well as active TAS.

This is worth a read for the general background. It describes my Avidyne TAS605 and compares it with the other systems. That can be upgraded for ADS-B-IN but since that is certified it will show only certified ADS-B OUT targets, which is currently almost nobody in light GA.

We have many past threads on these topics. A search digs up loads of them and there is a huge amount of good info there.

I believe there is no way to merge FLARM and ADS-B IN and display it on your panel hardware. Also there is no way to display uncertified ADS-B IN on your (or any) panel hardware. Probably there is a tablet solution – if you can work out a way to get audio warnings from that via the aircraft intercom which is obviously necessary for traffic.

For a different TAS, look at the L3 Lynx. That’s probably the best TAS system around today.

@wigglyamp do you still work in avionics?

Peter wrote:

For a different TAS, look at the L3 Lynx. That’s probably the best TAS system around today

The Lynx certainly looks like a good choice with a simplified installation, but it has the same limitation as the older Skywatch and the Avidyne TAS6xx – it doesn’t provide full 360 coverage above and below the aircraft. The GTS800 (and similarly the Honeywell KTA870) when used with dual directional antennas offer the best cover with no loss of targets due to airframe screening. In the OPs case, fitting a GTS800 would give him the best solution and probably most of the existing wiring can be re-used with just connector changes.

@wigglyamp do you still work in avionics?
Dabbling a bit with installation support and certification to keep the brain alive and pay to fly the RV. I was working with your A&P recently fixing an autopilot. Not planning to get back to the former level of big installations or writing new STCs.

It is simply impossible to make an objective safety case for traffic awareness, because

• the Mk1 eyeball is almost completely useless, and
• the vast majority of GA has no traffic info, but
• mid-airs are extremely rare (c. 1-2 per year in the UK, which is one of Europe’s biggest GA communities, and with many choke points, and generally poor ATC services)

But, if you want the extra level of “warm feeling”, nothing gets anywhere near an active TAS like you have. Of all the EC (electronic conspicuity) devices, a plain old transponder is by far the most common one. Even with many non-transponding aircraft (always been such, and more these days) you still “see” some 50% of targets.

I am sure wigglyamp is 100% right about the above/below coverage (he is UK’s most clever avionics guy by a big margin) even though I had never heard of that angle before and neither anyone in the avionics business ever mentioned it. My TAS605 indeed goes “blind” directly above/below. However, it would be an extremely rare scenario where traffic will remain hidden in that way (e.g. somebody climbing up directly below you) for a long time. IME, having seen mine and other systems, what matters much more is basically correct placement of the antennae.

If I was doing this again I would go for the Lynx or the Garmin. The Lynx seems much cheaper.

I think emitting power (and range) of GTS800 and KTA870 are different.
Antenna will be different too.
Just for your information, my computer (KTA810 ie only TAS and no terrain) died last year. Honeywell applied a flat fee for a replacement unit (with return core) of 3300€ without VAT.
Not cheap, but it certainly would have not justified switching to GTS.

I fly one aircraft with Garmin and one with Avidyne TAS, so can make a reasonable comparison.

1. They are both very good and you will be happy with either.
2. The Avidyne does not distinguish between Transponder and ADS-B targets. I don’t know whether that matters, targets are targets, but you can rely on ADS-B more than you can on TAS, so you might want to know.
3. Garmin allows you to identify individual aircraft. Now I imagine that when some marketing wonder thought this up, they might have thought that it improves situational awareness, so you know that you are looking out for a BA 777 or whatever, but in reality its main use is as a toy to play with when bored on airways. Avidyne does not have this feature and I have it on G600, I don’t know whether it works on Aspen (if I had to put money on, I would guess not.)
4. When I bought the Avidyne was ⅔ the price of Garmin. I don’t know whether that is still the case.
5. I had a terrible time for several years with Avidyne support. YRMV.

Garmin allows you to identify individual aircraft.

Does it show G-reg callsigns?

It is possible but quite involved to do this for other than N-regs; see here. An an example you would need to scrape data off the G-INFO database with a script which grabs the Mode S IDs And what about D F and other regs? And then it would need to be regularly updated because it is a lookup database, not an algorithm like N-reg uses.