Originally Posted by
piperboy84
We could ban gliding completely, confiscate the gliders and send the glider pilots to Powered Flight re-education camps. That’ll teach the uppity, thermal seeking, aerodynamic know-it-all’s .
I know, lycra wearing louts of the air.
*admission, to my mothers eternal shame, I do have a license to operate spamcans.*
But someone has to take a stand against the insufferable oiks who believe boring holes in the sky with spamcans to get yet another £100 bacon roll/coffee makes them superior to those artistically soaring the skies in tune with the energy around them.
I have _extremely_ limited panel space in which to get gizmos into, I have managed to get Flarm and a Trig transponder (which I do switch on these days, usually)
Mode S seems very gentle on batteries, with all the kit running I get about 9 hours per (22AH) battery.
I have absolutely _no_ space for another gizmo, I can fit the Trig ADSB out doofer when it gets certified as it'll be behind the panel, but that's it.
I've even had to move the sound system to behind me, now it's so close to the Mic that I've had complaints about the music playing when transmitting
The CAA said, ADS B is the way forward.
So, I'm taking them at their word and going for it. I'll continue to use Flarm as it is in common use and despite the ancient hardware works reasonably, it also takes up zero panel space as the display is fed through to my primary nav computer (and to the secondary)
There is a doofer which feeds ADS B through to both nav computers, gives ADS B traffic and has a decent stab at guessing Mode C.
Running all that kit on a standard lead acid battery would give me 2 and a bit hours of use . . it is a complete pain in the hoop to change battery systems out but, given the way things are going, it's got to be done.
Mk1 eyeball, almost entirely useless for glider traffic in the cruise, you will _never_ see me if I'm not turning and close to your alt.
Electronic conspicuity is the way forward, which version you use is up to you.
Flarm is well established but our lords and masters have said ADS B.
Gliders will always have a higher collision risk through the way we fly in competitions, gaggle flying has upwards of 20 gliders in very very close proximity, mistakes happen, as do collisions.
It's a risk we understand when flying in comps.
Bringing in yet more systems to this mix is going to worsen the compatibility issue (at least in the short term) relying on systems which rely on ground based repeaters is, I feel, a mistake on another mistake.