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)
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.
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.? ;-)
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:)
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.
The only question I have towards Safe Sky is the inherent latency in the system. The data is sent from my phone, via the mobile network, to a server, which then retransmits that elsewhere. Vice versa, it does the same with other traffic. There will be some latency there, surely? Worse if there is only one server located somewhere which has issues with connectivity, meaning the aircraft is potentially not where you believe it is; additionally, what if the network / server is overloaded – how will you know?
I tried Safe Sky in addition to Flarm / ADSB in / Out which I have fitted and saw no benefits, in Germany above 3000feet over Lower Saxony heading to the Islands meant you basically had no signal…. YMMV but for me, I’d prefer to have traffic information first hand, not via a system which seems more like chinese whispers, if you get my drift. Nice if you’re low, but I’m typically not….
@steve6443 as I have said to Peter a few times,
Where do you see the most traffic and threats from other traffic? Cruising on and IFR flight (plan) at FL180 or on landing at an uncontrolled airfield? Where do u normally concern urself the most?
My guess to the answer would be while a low level flight 10 NM out from your destination at 3000 pft AGL or below. ADS-B in, PowerFlarm AND SafeSky provides a “heads up” opportunity. Any low level VFR flying outside controlled airspace and there are some paragliders etc with a mobile phone with SafeSky in their pocket, and you’ll likely see them!. So what’s there too lose?
None of the traffic in, in any VFR plan, is a substitute for VFR, it’s an enhancement. BTW full blown TCAS is not a substitute for any airplane under IFR (plan) either. It simply enhancement tools. Mandated or not, and trusted or not.
I do agree with the potential pitfalls of SafeSky, obviously they are there and real.
Hi Yeager, I see you refuse to answer my question with regards latency – is this because you know but don’t want to answer or is it because you don’t understand the impact poor latency can have? My concern is that the system doesn’t seem to advise you of any latency – or at least it didn’t appear to when I tested it; so to clarify this, let’s assume two aircraft are heading towards each other at 120Knots true, closing speed is 240knots or 4 nautical miles (7,5km) per minute. Let’s introduce a latency of 10 seconds into the system. The indicated position of each aircraft would be more than 1km than where they are claimed to be.
For me, a system which can have that sort of error is unacceptable, doubly so if the system cannot even tell you of the latency it is experiencing. It will only be beneficial if you quickly spot the traffic and even then, there’s no guarantee that the traffic you spot is one with SafeSky. The idea is great BUT – and that’s a big but – the system should be advising of any latency, which I didn’t see when I trialed it.
If it doesn’t do this, it should be easily enough to implement by simply looking at the time stamp of the packet arriving at the server and sending the response such that the individual unit can see the overall time required to send and receive a response which would then be displayed in terms of red, yellow or green latency.
Traffic information is good but erroneous reporting of traffic from a position in the past is unhelpful, I’m afraid – just my 2c….
aart wrote:
Found this on the latency of safesky
Which sort of confirms my understanding of the limitations of the system; if you’re wanting traffic information, it’s better to have it first hand from (eg) Flarm, ADSB in / out etc rather than going through multiple third parties – the mobile phone provider, internet, safesky server, back again via internet and mobile phone provider….. however it’s cheap but remember, you get what you pay for…..
