I have not yet tested safesky, but will. It seems like having my SE2 traffic info flow though the safesky, I’m not losing anything, and if I have GSM connection, then I might see traffic that my SE2 didn’t pick up. Seems like an obvious win.
What I think would be great is to have multiple little devices like the SE2 or this one below sprinkled around your aircraft, and have a tool like safesky aggregate the traffic onto one display. This would help with antenna diversity on aircraft (like mine) that don’t have good places to put antennae.
https://www.airtrafficobserver.com/the-receiver/
I have seen many cases where traffic appears and disappears with my SE2 due to blanking by parts of the aircraft.
Well @Peter you don’t have to buy into it. It is free unless you buy the Premium service at about €35 p.a.
If you look at whatever method you use to navigate and put a circle at a radius of 50Nm around LFFK you will see quite a number of public airfields. At least one LFBH being for CAT traffic. On top of that we have 2 air parks several non CAP fields and several private fields. Also there are a number of UL fields. Even one on water.
At LFFK every year we hold a national gliding championship which goes on for a week in August. The gliders all use Flarm.
Fortunately there are many SafeSky antennas in this area, including in the next few weeks, one here. In this area we are getting information, often up to 5000 ft.AGL. Which for the type of traffic we get here is excellent. The major area for traffic gliders/ulm/annexe1 and Annexe 2 is in the vicinity of these airfields and below 5000’. For all else we have a very comprehensive ATS service which warns us of conflicting or possible conflicting traffic.
The cost for the airfield users of erecting a SafeSky antenna here is around €650. Split between the 3 clubs and 2 maintenance outfits it doesn’t hurt anybody’s budget.
It also doesn’t stop anyone fitting ADSB, TAS, TCAS, Flarm, Power Flarm or whatever they are most comfortable with. Most aircraft in France have either Category C or S transponders. All IFR have “S” as do the majority of ULMs ( due to the growth in the ULM market here corresponding to the availability of cheaper mode S transponders.)
As I have written before. In France we like to think that flying is a leisure activity open to all. To be able to attract the student, the waitress as well as a Michelin starred chef we need to keep the cost of training, landing fees and hourly rates as low as we can. The ability to increase safety without adding massively to our costs is something SafeSky offers us and other parts of France.
I am sure the Golze ADL is the best Wx equipment for Europe. But the majority of us are happy with Aeroweb (meteo de France) and nowadays SDVFR or Skydemon. For our missions we find them good enough. (No disrespect to Sebastian intended or inferred. He provides a great service for many missions) .
Until yesterday I was unaware that the Safesky premium service offered any Wx.
I don’t know if or what the SafeSky weather service adds to what we already have, which is why I posed the question on here:)
Peter wrote:
BS sales talk is sad because some people will buy into it and think it really is working.
Some people may do as you say @Peter. BUT, then there´s the rest of us that are using it, while well aware of the pitfalls, and it is a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Having used the combo of SkyDemon, Sky Echo and SafeSky while flying in Portugal and Spain, I can testify to SafeSky´s outstanding traffic awareness contribution. Multiple time´s I´ve had paragliders (in groups) all displayed as targets on my SkyDemon map, and the source for that was not ADS-B but SafeSky.
I´ve said it before, it´s in ground proximity at lower levels of flight, eg. approach, overflying, landing at congested BOTH controlled AND uncontrolled airfields that you really want to see the traffic, not all that important while cruising on an IFR flight plan at FL100.
Now what I am really interested in is having a dedicated Traffic Display (in an appropriate/optimum) glare shield location, receiving Sky Echo (ADS-B in/PowerFlarm) AND SafeSky data for display via wifi. I believe the AV-30 with a wifi device is capable, but it comes at a cost of about 2.5K euro (not unreasonable if I needed the other data it provides) and I only really need the Traffic Display part (via wifi from Sky Echo and SafeSky).
Any recommendations on a suitable Traffic Display are welcomed, thx.? ;-)
From the Safesky website
my bold
This will work only at low level – typically 2000-3000ft, more in the Alps, generally not in some countries e.g. Belgium and France. This kind of BS sales talk is sad because some people will buy into it and think it really is working.
For wx data the best product is the Golze ADL.
I pay for SafeSky premium but haven’t checked out the weather information. In flight I don’t open to application but rather rely on Garmin Pilot or Skydemon to provide the relevant information. It is a valuable tool for traffic awareness, especially so when one flies at lower altitudes.
I do have an older PowerFlarm, but lately it has been unreliable in providing continuous connection. (don’t know how to resolve that)
It´s an amazing application, with s huge attribution to aviation safety. While not perfect, like any other aviation product isn´t, it´s amazing for what it is. SafeSky ALL the way!
As part of a promotional offer I have just been given SafeSky Premium for free for a couple of weeks.
What interested me was the updates including weather. Has anybody tried SafeSky weather updates?
The blurb of what comes with SafeSky premium:-
“These include: an advanced SmartRadar, weather updates, traffic integration with your navigation software, the ability to supplement your existing hardware installation, and much more.”
OK, thanks. Actually, when inputting my call sign in the app, it already loaded that code. And a pic.. Smooth onboarding..
@aart you have to input the hex code of your aircraft in safesky. So it will filter out your own aircraft.
I think that the skyecho works the same way.
I’m hearing some good things about Safesky and will give it a try. Question: I already radiate ADS-B so could the Safesky ‘system’ see me twice, once via GSM once via their ADS-B sourcing and could this potentially cause a problem? They must have thought of this, so I guess not but just making sure.
