"Ghost Targets" on TCAS!?

[Challenger Andy]

My event last Thursday: Maintaining 3000', 200 KIAS on a radar vector for a PAR Approach into Wittmund Airbase (ETNT), 10 NM South of the airfield on downwind leg.
Suddenly one Target popped up on TCAS display in my seven o' clock position, 1200' lower than me. TRAFFIC-TRAFFIC was announced. The one target thereafter split into two, then into four targets, CLIMB-CLIMB was issued. Reaching 4000' in the TCAS climb gave CLEAR OF CONFLICT and targets were gone. Never had visual contact to anybody.
Asking ATC what was going on, they said, they had no traffic that close, only two VFR targets, but far enough away.
Later on the ground I talked to a guy who regulary flies out of Wittmund. He said that they built a large wind-power-plant park south of the airfield and that this park already had distracted GCA and airborne radars.
I never heard of distracted TCAS-computers. Did anybody else hear anything similar to that?

Thanks for your inputs!!

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Can't conceive how a wind turbine could confuse TCAS, especially if you were getting altitude signals. As I understand it, TCAS derives altitude data cooperatively, from the target's transponder. It's not a radar in the traditional, military sense. So you shouldn't be getting false returns off the turbine blades (or anything else, for that matter).

The only thing that even vaguely works is that the blades are somehow reflecting valid TCAS responses from other traffic, so that you get a valid altitude but an invalid direction. Sounds a bit unlikely though.

[Challenger Andy]

Yes, you are right about the TCAS technique. It uses only mode S data and not any primary radar.
The only explanation I have so far is the same as you have, that signals were somehow reflected by the rotating blades of the wind power plants. But I never heard about it.
The military guys said to me, that the power plant had already masked a light-type completely, so maybe there could also be some disturbences with the TCAS signals, but I don't know.

[mupepe]

this morning near Munich, a LH was reporting TCAS alert and enquired to ATC information about this traffic....
ATC answer was ...there is no other traffic
at all :confused::confused::confused:
strange ins't it ? I would wonder too !!!

[hvogt]

Recently a taxiing Lufthansa crew reported a TCAS target at the position of the follow-me car in Hamburg. They asked if the car was equipped with XPDR. The tower controller even checked via phone but then reported it was not.

[BitMoreRightRudder]

Had a mysterious TCAS return on departure from BCN the other night, indicating 2000 below us and climbing. The return then made several rapid movements from left to right and then sodded off south bound. ATC reported no traffic below us.

:confused:

I'm telling ya - they are out there..........:suspect:

(and they clearly have mode S)

[john_tullamarine]

If the bandit is showing more or less stationary above a maintenance outfit, it is entirely likely that the boys are running some checks on the ground and putting out spurious height data ... common and well known problem in Oz.

[CaptainProp]

Is it not true that in some countries they have put out transponders on high terrain around certain airports, ie no GPWS - still get a "traffic, traffic" warning to alert you?

/CP

[MrBernoulli]

When the RAF VC10s were fitted with TCAS I seem to recall one of them giving RAs against itself! A problem with the wiring looms or something ..... they are rather old.

[DaveO'Leary]

BitMoreRightRudder

Ufo? Of the billions of stars in the universe x worlds in orbit around them, do you think were the only ones? Some of the buggers have been buzzing us since pre-history.

Dave

[BitMoreRightRudder]

Who knows Dave. Could well have been.

And if confronted by one I know what I'd say - borrowing the words of Homer Simpson - "Please don't eat me, I have a wife and children! Eat them instead!"

[DaveO'Leary]

Ha-ha good reply, seriously, one never knows?
Dave

[Dan Winterland]

Quote: Recently a taxiing Lufthansa crew reported a TCAS target at the position of the follow-me car in Hamburg. They asked if the car was equipped with XPDR. The tower controller even checked via phone but then reported it was not.

Some airports use a new Airfield Surface Movement Indicator system that uses Mode S rather than primary radar. Some vehicles at these airports have a special Mode S transponder fitted to keep the system updated. So the answer could be yes.

Ghost returns are common from some missile systems. Pilots flying up the East coast of China may be familiar with a TCAS diamond with no height readout just to the East if Xiamen. This is a Patriot missile battery which Taiwan has positioned on Kinmen Island. The Patriot system has an IFF interrogater which some systems display as a No Mode Charlie TCAS contact, whic is why the Chinese won't let you do a weather deviation to the East on thay airway.