Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
Just so I understand, during all of that flying were the ADSB IN/OUT systems you used configured to provide alerts when your and other (suitably equipped) aircraft were below e.g. 400'?
It’s hard to be very specific about the altitude.
There is no configuration in my setup (Garmin) for excluding alerts based on any arbitrary altitude.
Im experimental so I can turn them off entirely if I like. I choose to leave them on.
What I can say from experience is the following things do alert:
If I’m on base and there’s someone on base on the parallel runway, that’ll alert. I couldn’t be precise about altitude in that case. That’s unlikely to be sub 400’ tho.
If there’s a crossing chopper low at mid field - which is very common and has had more than one near miss - that’ll alert. I dont know what altitude they are at, but I’m on the ground at flying speed or close too it airborne and climbing at 500-1000fpm.
A common one is me just after rotation with a trainer in the southern circuit on upwind. I’m definitely sub 400’ there - but with a high closure rate.
What doesn’t alert is me on short final with a stationary aircraft at the holding point. though they are painted brown for ground.
likewise - final for center with a plane on each side. That is rare though.
All of the ADSB OUT equipped aircraft are most definitely painted on the MFD (and PFD in synthetic vision if in front) regardless of whether the system determines they are worthy of auraly alerting or not.
A general observation is that it’s a pretty conservative setup. In jurisdiction(s) where installation rates are somewhat higher there are complaints about this.
Slight off topic but relevant. TCAS direct interrogation of mode C is obviously very outdated technology with lots of limitations. This is where all of the altitude based muting and the like comes from. In helicopters it’s particularly acute as they can change heading rapidly while potentially not changing course. This has made latency and extra sensors and as a worst case suppression important variables.
ADSB alleviates the vast majority of these concerns. it’s trivial for the boxes to determine the probability of aircraft being in proximity in the future.
To bring this back to the original thread conjecture.
The sad reality of ATC in this country is a bloated ineffective infrastructure that is literally decades behind the state of the art in many ways. The mangalore accident is an absolute tragedy. Most can read through the obfuscation and weasel words to get to the underlying human error.
The regulator clearly knows this but will never explicitly state it.
Regardless of what the controller told me (or didn’t) if I had repeated STCA equivalent on my ADSB IN (noise in my headset and a big tennis ball on my PFD - CDTI in bureaucratic gobbledygook) I sure as **** would be unilaterally arranging my own separation pronto regardless of airspace classification.
Which is your point…