Bell 412 with Avidyne TAS 600 series
Bell 412 Avidyne TAS 600 series
Hi all. Been a while since I posted on Pprune. Something technical this time.
I am interested in operator’s experiences of the Avidyne TAS 600 series Traffic Avoidance System as fitted in the Bell 412 and maybe other helicopters for comparison. Avionic engineer’s inputs would be useful with regard to antennae locations and extra ground plane work.
The reason I am asking is that after fitting the TAS 615 with MFD 600 display we are struggling to meet customer’s expectations of reliable bearing accuracy.
Functioning system with IFR 6000 test set, bearing checks with local traffic and suppression checks with transponder test sets all show systems to be serviceable.
Compared to “clean”fixed wing aircraft it is difficult to obtain the optimum antennae installation that provides line of sight communications between host and target aircraft. Antennae ground planes provide an additional challenge especially when mounted on composite panels.
The pilot’s guide quotes bearing errors of +/- 30 degrees, worse behind aircraft due to antenna masking and loss of targets and targets fragmenting due to a whole host of other reasons.
So any goodor bad experiences out there?