TCAS reliability
TCAS Reliability
I was recently on a flight from a regional airport back home when on departure from the airport and climbing through the E Class the centre controller was nice enough to pass us traffic (we were vfr) on a Jet * flight that was inbound to our departure point. I quickly located the Jet * flight that was on a heading roughly parallel and opposite to us around the same level and about 5 – 8 miles (by my poor estimate) away. The pilot of the jet * aircraft queried us as to if we were transponder equipped and squrking mode charley, Which we were. The centre controller also indicated that she had us on primary and secondary radar and we had also verified the accuracy of our encoders output. It seemed obvious that the RPT’s TCAS had not detected us yet I clearly had it in sight. I thought these things were to be better then our eyes. But I guess not. Could it have been as we were on climb and the other aircraft on decent they were above us for most of the flight and the transponder antenna being on the bottom of our aircraft it was shielded from the apposing TCAS. Is it usual to not detect aircraft on TCAS ? Any input from anyone more experienced than I would be great.
Thanks.