Why are you jumping on Blastoid for questioning your faith in TCAS? TCAS a great idea, and having it is certainly better than not having it, but I got the impression that this thread was started as a warning about using it for primary seperation (which appears to be the intention of a lot of the classE nonsense going on right now)?
Some of you seem to show an amazing lack of logic when you claim that you'll be safe as long as you follow the RA.
How do you know what the intruder is doing? Is he following his RA or ATC, or something else? Search pprune and find the threads where lots of different pilots give lots of different opinions about following RAs over ATC. One of the dissenters was a
Speedbird pilot. You certainly don't need to be in the Calcutta FIR to come unstuck!
Blastoid, there is obviously no point in arguing with you on this subject as you will not concede that your opinion is faulty
Hmmm. Wonder how many that could apply to?
I just hope that I’m not flying in the same airspace as you
That's right, all you can do is hope. You will never
know what the intruder will do with version 7 kit.
transponders chat to each other
That depends on the transponders.
my TCAS will compare our Altitudes
That's if the intruder is squawking alt (note- see DJ737 vs C421).
If you don’t have a TCAS, please squawk Mode C and that will allow me to see you
Two assumptions there. 1. The transponder works and 2. The info it provides is accurate. Under NAS, a VFR in classE with an inaccurate transponder could get cleaned up because you did respond to an RA.
TCAS is not cut and dried. Your own words say so...
the majority of operators will rely on and follow TCAS
the
majority is not good enough. Ueberlingen proved that. Using TCAS as the major seperation tool in NAS class E is dangerous. TCAS is good, yet fallible, especially when GA transponders are involved. It is good as a backup, but it's implied use under NAS is a disgrace.