I have seen several microlights on FR24, I can’t imagine anyone of those have ADS-B emitters? or maybe they do?
They will have Mode S if they want good airspace access around Europe. Could be ADS-B though – I am not familiar with ultralight avionics options. AFAIK, however, anything transmitting needs to be certified so they would be in the same ADS-B boat as everybody else.
Flightradar24 can display FLARM aircraft too. The Open Glider Network feeds FLARM targets to FR24.
Some of you will know about the PilotAware device. I had a fantastic opportunity to test it out last Sunday, and report my findings here for anyone who’s interested.
But first a little background. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s basically a Raspberry Pi with some bits and pieces added and running PilotAware software. You can buy all the bits you need as a kit for £160stg and put it together yourself, or pay a bit more to receive a fully assembled unit. Or you can buy all the parts yourself and build it for a little cheaper.
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.
It then can relay that data via wifi to some navigation software.
Someone kindly made one for me recently, as I lack the electronics skills to do it myself. I’ve linked it up to EasyVFR so that I can see the traffic overlaid on the map.
This weekend, Peter took me flying to Oban, and I got to try it out. What was uniquely interesting here was that Peter has TCAS installed in his aircraft, so I had something to really compare it with!
Here is what I found:
1. As expected, the ADS-B traffic was largely useless. It displayed perfectly on the map with it’s locations, relative altitude, speed and projected track. But it was all high up or in controlled airspace, so wasn’t really valuable. In most cases if you are going to be in the same area as this traffic, you will be under positive control by ATC.
2. Mode S traffic (without ADSB) does not transmit it’s location. So all that is known is the relative strength of the signal. How this is displayed depends on the software. EasyVFR uses a traffic light system, where traffic is dislayed in a list, with with a week signal being coloured green (with callsign and relative altitude), middle strength signal being coloured orange and a really strong signal coloured red.
The range at which traffic turned red was interesting. PilotAware doesn’t know how close the traffic is, so just has the strength of the signal to go on. But that is subject to many factors beyond distance, such as transponder health, signal output at the transponder (airlines put out stronger signals than GA as I understand it) and terrain masking. Terrain masking could be a real issue on this flight, as were had a lot of terrain around, and were flying relatively low level. What I found was that generally when traffic turned red, when it was within 3 miles (as shown by TCAS). Some turned red at about 1nm, others about 3nm. I even saw one or two turn red at 6nm, but that was unusual. Items which were green, were too far away to be seen visually (usually 6nm+).
So if it’s red, then get looking, but don’t be too paniced if you can’t see it! It might be up to 6nm away, but likely closer.
The other thing which I noticed and was surprised about, was that fact that almost all traffic detected on the TCAS was reflected on the PilotAware/EasyVFR system. That means that there was little traffic with just mode A/C. This of course could be location dependent or could be to do with the weather. Perhaps those flying in less than good weather may be more likely to have mode S.
Anyway, if anyone else here is using PilotAware and EasyVFR (or other systems), I hope this information is useful to you. It was a fantastic opportunity to try it out with a TCAS for reference, for which I’ve very grateful to Peter!
Colm
Interesting!
Does the PilotAware also show Flarm/PowerFlarm participants? If it does, I would consider adding it.
They want to make money from it 
I’m pretty sure there are some precedents that show that one can make money with open technologies too ;-) (yes, I know, off topic, not relevant, just wanted to be on the record that while I’m all for them making money, I don’t necessarily approve of their way; at any rate – eot)
There was a comment earlier in the thread regarding FLARM, I thought it worthwhile mentioning the following
The next release of PilotAware will include a Flarm-IN capability. Now although flarm is pretty expensive (PowerFlarm Portable £1992), you can purchasea Flarm Mouse for around £590 excluding VAT (nearly three times the price of PilotAware !)
With this connected to a PilotAware, in the next software release you will be able to see
Displayed on
Heard on
Come and see it at the LAA Rally Sept 2-4
Thx
Lee
Thanks for info!
Any opportunity to see this stuff on the continent, sooner or later?
