I’m not just very familiar but have flown with TCAS II. TCAS, just like FLARM, is a collision-avoidance system. It will give you an RA (Resolution Advisory) and tell you e.g to climb or descend. It will also show you the aircraft on the TCAS display (usually combined with the vertical speed indicator), but this is a bonus and not really used (except to try to see the other aircraft when you get a TA, but you are not allowed to do anything about that anyway).
Note that TCAS shows you transponder-equipped aircraft, not ADS-B! Some modern TCAS will also receive certified ADS-B Out, which excludes all cheap ADS-B Out installations and ADS-B “dongles” that you can buy.
No; read again. Read the detail. Also see the “threads possibly related to this one” below.
You are also mixing up TAS/TCAS1 with TCAS2.
It doesn’t matter if you have TAS/TCAS I/TCAS II. It’s certified and won’t show any cheap ADS-B Out. Certainly not SkyEcho2. The “we have SIL=1” is only a questionable way of misleading customers to buy it. You still need SDA=1, for many use cases even higher SDA. And a bunch of other quality indicators at a certain level. Not one single certified ADS-B In-system will see SkyEcho2.
If SkyEcho2 when configured for SIL=1 doesn’t show up on certified systems (should be easy enough to test – the silence on this topic from “the industry” is quite interesting, I would say) then we are looking at an even bigger con job being pushed in the UK and elsewhere.
mooney75 wrote:
TCAS, just like FLARM, is a collision-avoidance system.
FLARM is traffic awareness system but not a collision-avoidance system in the same sense as TCAS. It doesn’t issue any RAs.
mooney75 wrote:
Note that TCAS shows you transponder-equipped aircraft, not ADS-B! Some modern TCAS will also receive certified ADS-B Out, which excludes all cheap ADS-B Out installations and ADS-B “dongles” that you can buy.
Aren’t all ADS-B Out installations in Europe also mode S transponder installations, given that ADS-B uses extended squitter?
but not a collision-avoidance system in the same sense as TCAS
but not a collision-avoidance system in the same sense as TCAS 2
The whole RA business is a total redherring (irrelevance) in all this.
Aren’t all ADS-B Out installations in Europe also mode S transponder installations, given that ADS-B uses extended squitter?
All certified ADS-B OUT devices (SIL=3) historically used a Mode S transponder, but isn’t that changing with some US products? They might be UAT which is no good here but that may be changing… We have had a variety of threads on these in the past. @NCyankee will know more. I know only of the Uavionix Tailbeacon and Skybeacon (discussed here multiple times) but they are UAT only.
As regards uncertified, there is a variety of portable boxes which emit ADS-B OUT.
And there are the combination of COTS GPS linked to certified transponders per CS-STAN giving you SIL/SDSA=0
SkyEcho SDA setting is just a paperwork exercise.
From UAvionix : Following a conversation with the CAA last week, about the development of CAP 1391, you can expect the SDA issue to be addressed in line with the policy adopted in Australia meaning SkyEcho can indeed be set to SDA 1 in the U.K. A timescale for the CAP 1391 amendment was not discussed given that team are quite busy administrating the rebate scheme but should be relatively quick.
SDA is not a paperwork exercise. SDA stands for System Design Assurance, i.e. to what level it is ensured that the design of the part will not fail (more or less). Even if the UK CAA allows Sky Echo to set SDA=1 by bending the rules, you still need SDA 2 or even 3 in most cases, depending on the application in the certified ADS-B In aircraft.
