There are already many users in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland
Thx
Lee
Your Chance to Win a PilotAware Classic at the LAA Rally 2nd -4th September
Apart from it being a fantastic show, there is another great reason for going to the UK LAA rally this year. Lee Moore who has designed and developed, PilotAware, the award winning electronic traffic awareness device will be giving a PilotAware Classic away on each day of the show. The opportunity to win one of these brilliant PilotAware Classic units is open to all. Just come along to the PilotAware Stand located in the Homebuilders tent, say hello to the team, and we will give you a PilotAware sticker to wear throughout the day. At a random time, an unbiased independent adjudicator will choose the winner, somewhere from the four corners of the rally and he or she will be announced at 4.00pm on each day and presented with a PilotAware Classic to take home. Although complete PilotAware Classic units will be available for sale, no purchase is required to enter the competition. Should you win and you have already bought one at the show then we will give a refund. See you at the stand and best of luck.
PilotAware Team
Any more advertising than this, guys, you will need to use the Classified section.
dublinpilot wrote:
What it does is two fold:
1. It detects ADS-B transmissions and mode S transmission (but not mode A / C only)
2. It sends out it’s own unique tranmission on a different frequency and can detect other units transmitting on this frequency.
The latest release apparently detects mode A and Mode C traffic….. However until I can find a place to mount it and it’s antenna securely, it rarely gets used…
Gents,
Is PilotAware an open system? I would see this as the main advantage against Flarm, which has the benefit of widespread (mandatory!) use in good portions of the gliding community.
Thanks
Bas
The answer to the above, from 2 years ago, would be interesting.
Basoutos wrote:
Gents,Is PilotAware an open system? I would see this as the main advantage against Flarm, which has the benefit of widespread (mandatory!) use in good portions of the gliding community.
Thanks
Bas
Is it open? Well, yes, in so far as that you pay an annual licence for using it but the transmissions themselves are not encrypted, unlike Flarm. Having said that, Pilotaware have now started coo-operating with OpenGliderNetwork to rebroadcast the transmissions from Gliders. I added a Flarm Eagle to my PilotAware such that I see all ADS-B, Flarm, PilotAware equipped aircraft with direction of travel / altitude and am warned about nearby Mode C / Mode S aircraft. It all works well, I now don’t fly without it.
Below is a picture of a flight with a glider circling 200 feet above me for lift. The benefit of me having fitted Flarm is that he would also have been aware of me, whereas had I just relied on OGN-R (had I been in the vicinity of a transmitter), I would have been aware of him but he not aware of me.
2 weeks ago I had a close call with a glider who came out of the sun and may not have seen me either. That evening, I ordered at PAW (Pilot aware).
Yesterday, my first flight in anger with PAW, I was aware of high traffic levels and glider competitions, though not Notam’ed across my track. After departure, I had some trouble getting PAW to display on my dedicated tablet due to some wifi issue. I was about to abandon it as a distraction when it burst into life. And lucky it did!
Across my direct track 10mi ahead was a crescent of glider traffic, numerous gliders painting an almost continuous arc. From my position I had time to switch to an alternative routing through controlled airspace and when the controller offered a compromise routing closer to my original track I declined, explaining I wanted to be far away from those gliders, which he apparently couldn’t see in detail as I could. I told him “the sky is full of gliders”, not an exaggeration at one point.
Now, following PAW’s prompt, I began to see the gliders at 2-3 mi. At least a dozen, my level, right on my original track. I’d have been far later seeing them without PAW. One or two came close to me, but again with PAW’s prompt and occasional traffic calls from ATC, I was able to identify them early. On the channel I heard another pilot go straight in the concentration that I’d been able to avoid.
PAW needs some work to overcome stupid difficulties like relying on wifi. It needs a dedicated usb wired display (modified cellphone) glued high on the panel and a no-delay startup. And the OGN system needs to become pervasive. Notams need more thought – yesterday’s gaggle was nowhere near the stated origin point and didn’t appear on SD’s mapping.
But for all that, yesterday was an ephiphany – the first time I’ve adjusted my flight routing in flight to avoid a hotspot outside of ATC direction or Notam warnings from information obtained on board.
Disclaimer: not a PAW participant till now, indeed up to now skeptical about more cockpit clutter.
What PilotAware did you get? How are you powering it?
It’s the new all in one Rosetta unit. It nestles in the front RH coaming with only the antennas in the pilots field of view. Needs some tape to stop it scratching the windscreen. It’s powered from the cig lighter (PA28-161) but is a little slow to come online, so I may use a battery pack for early startup. The gps acquisition seems slow, like early Garmin units. A lot depends on the OGN signal, which is strong around Bicester fortunately. It shows the occasional ADS-B. I’m planning to use a dedicated cellphone as a ‘radar’ so it’s a question of which instrument to Velcro it onto – the compass maybe?
