Originally Posted by
SCPL_1988
DaveReidUK,
I get tired of all the uneducated illinformed responses that promote conclusions opposite the facts
that literally come out of the woodwork with one or two lines.
MLAT can be determined using a minimum of 3 receivers but generally requires more than 3.
Ive watched my ADSB receiver join a large number of other receivers in providing enhanced accuracy.
While old transponders are going out of use, 3 or 4 receivers can turn that standard generic transponder code
into an aircraft symbol on a map with altitude speed and direction displayed accurately.
MLAT can show surprising results, you can see A-DSB show weird information and the MLAT shows the correct
information. This is important when you see something at 85,000 feet moving along at fast or slow speed.
From my location, I've seen what is obviously classified military flights and or, other low altitude flights
that cannot be seen on Flight Aware.
There needs to be a collaborative approach to A-DSB data and I'm not convinced that Flight Aware is the
most appropriate company to be giving this data when they literally sell what you give them for free.
Before you comment, please search google for A-DSB MLAT and read how it improves accuracy.
Hmmm. Thanks, but I've been familiar with airborne multilateration since I first did trials with it more than 10 years ago.
MLAT is based on Mode S, by the way, not on ADS-B, though it sounds like you don't understand the difference. While it has some value for deriving an
approximate position for a non-ADS-B-equipped aircraft, that's not really relevant here as the Coulson C-130s have ADS-B. If an aircraft is broadcasting ADS-B, then using multilateration to try to derive its position is pointless.
As for accuracy, MLAT - in the the crowd-sourced implementations used by the enthusiast flight trackers - is a relatively crude technique, roughly analogous to triangulation (though the technology is different, and more tricky, being based on TDOA). To suggest that multilateration can somehow give more accurate positional information than ADS-B - which nowadays is almost universally based on GPS - is just plain ridiculous.