Peter wrote:
Uavionix Skyecho2 is SIL 1 and I suspect this is the market leader at the moment.Yes that’s a good thing.
Am I right to assume that is a solution for an existing install? Otherwise I see no reason not to go for a 1090ES ADS-B out transponder vs non-1090ES.
I bought a Uavionix SkyEcho2 about a month ago (the UK CAA paid half of the £500 cost) and have used it on every flight since, perhaps 8-10 in total.
It shows a LOT of traffic, most of which one would never spot visually. So much so that, while I’d hesitate to say I wouldn’t be without it, I see no reason to ever fly without it now that I have it.
It is as simple and as elegant as any portable solution is going to be. The battery lasts 10+ hours so one simply charges it at home and thus no in-cockpit cables. It’s small and robust, with an easy RAM suction cup mount and has a neat carrying case (about half the size of a headset case) that the unit and the mount live in.
It connects via WiFi to either my tablet (in the TB10) or my phone (in the PA17) and actually to multiple devices if you want. SkyDemon have fully integrated things so that as soon as you connect a device you can deal with all aspects of the SE2 configuration via SkyDemon – for me this generally means flipping the aircraft reg and ID according to which one I’m flying. Furthermore, you get the option to use the SE2’s GPS receiver for SkyDemon itself – which I take because it means you can turn GPS off on the device and save quite a lot of battery.
If I had a criticism it would be that it could benefit from the option of a native ‘radar display’ app so that you aren’t dependent on e.g. SkyDemon (it works with others too). The traffic can seem a little cluttered on the SkyDemon map at times, and on a longer trip with my girlfriend we might want to connect two devices with one of them showing nothing but traffic.
That said, if traffic gets really close and becomes a potential conflict then SkyDemon does a good job of letting you know. It gets very red, flashy and noisy (if you have audio alerts turned on). I had a scary moment last week when returning into White Waltham in the TB10 – I’d just slotted in under the 2,500ft base of the LTMA and was at about 2,350ft when traffic nearby suddenly changed course and came straight at me, same level. It was coming at my right hand side and I couldn’t see it at all – but the system told me it was at less than half a mile, the symbol turned red and flashed and the aircraft plots basically started to merge. As I couldn’t see it I hit full power and zoom-climbed to 2,499ft – and really would have preferred to have been able to continue the climb. Anyway obviously I didn’t hit it, and the display showed it tracking away to the north, but I never saw it. I looked up the registration later – it’s an RV-6 and it’s bright orange!
The regulatory environment that leads to TAS units filtering out SIL=0 signals is absurd and a perfect example of how more regulation reduces safety. The rule is forcing your traffic system to basically say to you “there is something there, but because the signal does not meet our standards I am going to pretend there is nothing there”. So you can collide with what’s out there, safe in the knowledge that at no point were you fed duff information by an uncertified GPS source.
The must-do experiment is to fly with SE2 and a TAS6xx – as discussed above previously – and see how many “Mode A” contacts are showing up on the SE2.
Any that are showing up in the UK are going to be people who don’t understand what ADS-B is 
Although currently they are probably invisible to ATC because ATC has no access to ADS-B, and the CAA is probably not (currently) using ADS-B as a source of leads for examining radar data for the purpose of busting infringers.
The answer to that is easy – NONE. SE2 does not display Mode A/C targets or Mode S without ADSB
Wires crossed… I meant how many contacts showing as Mode A on TAS are also showing on the SE2 (ADS-B).
Anyone thus showing is being “slightly dumb” because Mode A is nowadays a deliberate selection to avoid getting busted for busting CAS which does not go all the way down to SFC – because real Mode A boxes would be too old now.
This discussion really belongs here.
Peter wrote:
The must-do experiment is to fly with SE2 and a TAS6xx – as discussed above previously – and see how many “Mode A” contacts are showing up on the SE2.Any that are showing up in the UK are going to be people who don’t understand what ADS-B is Although currently they are probably invisible to ATC because ATC has no access to ADS-B, and the CAA is probably not (currently) using ADS-B as a source of leads for examining radar data for the purpose of busting infringers.
I don’t know if it’s definitive because of the various setups that are possible? A contact might show as a Mode A on your TAS and also appear on the SE2 because the pilot has an SE2 themselves alongside the Mode A or ‘Mode C broken’ transponder in the aeroplane – a setup which might be reasonably common in the rental sector?
Or have I got that wrong?
I think you got it right. All I was getting at is that, in the UK, Mode A is a deliberate setting due to the CAA policy, which is then “ruined” by radiating ADS-B OUT
IOW, I would not expect to see more stuff on ADS-B than I currently see (transponder radiation) on the TAS. Well, except for non-TXP aircraft, but they are not all that common once you get up to some reasonable height.
Just heard that SE2 transmits the aircraft reg, and displays it on the receivers. That will for sure make a lot of people enter a bogus reg in the config.
I cannot believe that a pilot would be so dumb as to squawk mode A and use a SE2 to transit on ADSB. Even the thickest of thick pilots must realise this will give him away.
Peter_Mundy wrote:
I cannot believe that a pilot would be so dumb as to squawk mode A and use a SE2 to transit on ADSB. Even the thickest of thick pilots must realise this will give him away.
Don’t underestimate the lack of systems knowledge among many pilots…
I would have to check the manual, but I believe the SE2 can be set to receive ADS-B but not transmit anything.
