ACARS Unit for light aircraft

[geronimus]

Hello everybody,

Does anyone know of the existence of an ACARS unit for use in a light aircraft (PA-28 etc)?

If so, I would appreciate to hear about the manufacturer and type number.

Is there also a second hand market for these systems? I couldn't find any.

Thanks in advance.
Geronimus

[Genghis the Engineer]

ACARS relies upon automation of systems management and control within the aircraft. For all reasonable purposes, that doesn't yet exist within light aircraft - and probably won't for some years.

G

[BackPacker]

Surely you're not confusing ACARS with TCAS? 'Cause if you are, you might want to search this forum for Zaon PCAS systems. Or Flarm.

[geronimus]

No, I'm sure about ACARS. It's not TCAS that I want.

That's what I supposed. There are no simple ACARS units available for the GA. What I want to do is writing simple text messages while in flight. Like a SMS service for GA. Maybe a unit with a built-in COM3 and an external keyboard.

I'm not interested in sending fuel, maintenance, WOW data, digital clearances etc etc.

Anyone?

[mm_flynn]

Use a satphone. With a bit of moving around you can usually get a signal from inside the aircraft. For a more robust solution you can mount an external antenna. You can then use this for sending periodic text updates, or generating a dialup connection and pulling down basic METARs, queued emails, NOTAMs, etc. Apparently the GPRS functionality is not usable.
here (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/satcomms/index.html) is a link to a comprehensive discription of a light aircraft approach.

[flighttest-engineer]

look at the web for : Safetyplane

Maybe it is not exactly what you are looking for but can give you some idea...

[IO540]

It's pretty easy to knock up a satellite phone system and with any simple computer connected to it it can transmit your lat/long, plus any data which your avionics is capable of squirting out as RS232, in the form of an SMS message.

One gotcha is that satphone SMS is pretty unreliable. A lot of messages are simply never delivered. I have no idea why, or whether this is only on a specific satphone network.

Another one is that the avionics data is not generated in the first place. With modern avionics you could do a fair bit, especially if you have an air data computer (http://www.chiefaircraft.com/airsec/Avionics/MfgSZ/Shadin.html), which acts as a data concentrator, taking data from GPS, heading, airspeed, OAT, fuel flow, and emits a single data stream with all these parameters in it. If you can get an avionics shop to install a connector somewhere on which this data comes out, then the rest is not hard to do.

Other than SMS, you could do it using plain old dial-up internet access. But neither of these is going to be cheap on the phone billing - you need to bank on somewhere of the order of $1 per transmission.

I would wonder who is supposed to be receiving the data! It would be much simpler to just log it aboard the aircraft. Unless you plan to die enroute... but then you want to transmit pretty frequently :) to somebody who is sure to be monitoring it.

[Ultranomad]

Wouldn't the upcoming (hopefully, in a few years' time) mode S datalink provide a text-level solution somewhat similar to ACARS?

[TheGorrilla]

Sounds like a big distraction to have in a light aircraft. Can't see why it would be needed and would get the messages you send anyway??

[A and C]

Perhaps the weather info that is avalable via ACARS would be a good reason for having it fitted rather than the txt msg function?

[Ultranomad]

A&C, getting weather info is just one of the uses for these text services. Personally, I'd also be happier getting ATC clearances in text form instead of having to jot them down, especially in non-anglophone countries.

[IO540]

I don't know anything about ACARS (there is a wikipedia page on it) but I don't think it has any meaning outside the context of an ops department on the ground somewhere, and some non-cheap airborne kit, which is how airlines use it.

Also, the delivery mechanism can be one of several: satellite (Immarsat in most modern cases, made well known by the Air France crash off Brazil which managed to get 24 messages off before it went down), VHF or possibly even shortwave (HF). I recall one 757 pilot telling me their ACARS came over VHF, so occassionally they would be out of contact. None of these is going to work out cheaper to use or subscribe to than picking up an off the shelf satphone and dialling up the internet with it, and then the world of weather data is your oyster, so to speak :) Plus you can do email (if really desperate).

The usefulness of airborne weather data is on long flights, because it enables a diversion to be made many miles, or hours, before arriving at the planned destination, rather than dialling up the ATIS and having to divert at such a late stage, with minimum fuel. One would find that a 747 from NY is hardly likely to arrive at LHR only to find it fogged in when they call up the ATIS :) Having airborne data (even just metars and tafs) gives one a lot of assurance enroute, without having to pester often busy (or only marginally English speaking) ATC.

What one cannot get over the internet is info like an airport being closed due to some drama. I think this does come over ACARS but I haven't got a clue how that kind of info is collected and distributed.

I'd also be happier getting ATC clearances in text form

That's been talked about for about 20 years :)

[str12]

This might help:

THE AWARE AIRSPACE ALERTING TOOL | AWARE (http://www.airspaceaware.com/aboutaware/)


Article in The Register:

UK air-traffic offers flying-car-style safety gizmo ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/22/nats_aware_gizmo/)


Fly Safe!

[IO540]

I like this quote from the above

The navigation feature isn't compulsory, however - NATS is well aware that most private pilots who want to navigate using GPS are already doing so, and are hoping to reach out to the old-school diehards who commit most of the "busts".

:)

[englishal]

:}:} Nah, surely not? I reckon the stopwatch and Compass is far better....

Although Ernest K Gann did say in the 40's that DR was outdated then......

[TheGorrilla]

Isn't ACARS rather expensive? When I want to know if the weather ahead is suitable, volmet is the easiest method. Especially if you have two VHF boxes and can remember a frequency or two.

GPS and airspace alerting is a completely separate bit of kit and has nothing to do with ACARS. I don't think the same operational policy can be applied either. A good tool for backing up your VFR navigation is a GPS. A good back-up for a GPS, is a second GPS. The same rule certainly doesn't apply to ACARS.

It strikes me you'll end up wasting lots of money on gadgets. Which is something I approve of! :}

[IO540]

Yes, the matter under discussion got changed from ACARS to GPS, rather confusingly :)

The two are totally unrelated.

Perhaps someone thought the Airbox product has some kind of online connection. It doesn't. It is just a little box running the CAA VFR chart (as you would get with say Memory Map). But because the aforementioned chart is no more than an image (a picture), there is an additional database layer containing the airspace shapes, and there is software to check for lateral and vertical (using GPS altitude) busts against these.

VOLMET is a good point. It isn't something much known in GA and I have never used it. It probably gives a good general idea of weather, but it probably won't give you localised info like whether a certain (small GA) coastal airfield is getting fogged in.

Englishal - back to the GPS stuff; I often wondered whether the CAS busts data so often quoted by the anti GPS crowd (i.e. that busts are done more or less equally with and without GPS) is actually bogus. It looks like it was all along, because NATS would not be doing this if GPS made little or no difference.

[mm_flynn]

IO,

There are several very different types of 'bust' and I believe GPS use figures very differently for the different types.

There is the -

straight through a restricted area (or a TRA) - this is probably more about planning/notams and/or using a camping GPS that doesn't show your position on an aviation map.

A bust by 1/2 mile from someone creeping around the edge of the airspace (almost surely a GPS user and maybe not even a bust)

Flying through 'Heathrow's overhead' - ie. really quite far out of position - which is almost always DR based navigation.

[TheGorrilla]

Don't forget the vertical busts. Which GPS doesn't protect against very well.

[IO540]

It can do, depending on details.

But GPS (with a decent big moving map) gives you the situational awareness which is needed to stop a bust in the first place. Anybody who can get a PPL can read a chart, so if they do a bust it means something has gone wrong elsewhere.

[smitn05]

Avidyne's MLX770 2-way Datalink transceiver offers textmessaging via Iridium Satellite network as well as 'almost' live weather data. Coupled with a Avidyne EX500 MFD would give you a light GA solution.

I can put you in touch with some fantastic avionics installers if your interested ;-)

Brgds

N

[IO540]

At a helluva price :)

[SR20flyDoc]

75 cents for an sms :cool:

[Dan Winterland]

ACARS also requires a service provider as well as the equipment. I think you are looking at a lot of money to install the equipment and pay for the service. For the use you would get out of it in a GA aircraft, I would not be convinced it would be worth it.

[huv]

I cannot help thinking that the technology required to recieve a D-ATIS would fit in a smartphone, or at least in a box the size of a Garmin 296. I would give up the other ACARS features as probably more demanding technologically, but I think just the D-ATIS would have several advantages: no missing ATC calls (or interrupting intercom chat), no misunderstanding of ATIS contents and not having to write it down. But does such a box exist?

[Jan Olieslagers]

@huv: what is the status of this D-ATIS technology? I should think most aerodromes visited by private pilots don't do "traditional" ATIS, let alone a digital version. So I am afraid it is not very relevant, not today at least. What the future brings remains to be seen. Que sera, sera...

[huv]

Jan O: Here in little Denmark we have 4 official ATISes and at least 2 "secret" one's (not published in AIP) - 6 in all. That gives a fairly dense coverage. I know that my home airport, EKRK, provides D-ATIS, and Copenhagen Kastrup EKCH also, but actually I do not know about the others. But I suspect that more and more D-ATISes will become available, ultimately to eliminate VHF ATISes and save precious frequencies.

[SNS3Guppy]

One would find that a 747 from NY is hardly likely to arrive at LHR only to find it fogged in when they call up the ATIS

Really?

Most of the time we have the weather in hand when we leave KJFK or KEWR, and when we arrive in Europe, we pick up the weather with ATIS. That's it.

Some of our aircraft have ACARS, some don't. We don't use it.

I do call up VOLMET when enroute if there's a question about weather, but usually we know what we need to know from the forecasts. We can also call on the satphone. In VHF contact, sometimes we'll request weather through ATC.

For use in general aviation aircraft, the idea of ACARS is bordering on the ridiculous...right up there with INS. What's next? Night vision and infrared?

No doubt, datalink capability will be just around the corner with cellular technology, but it's bad enough to have people texting in cars. We really don't need people texting in airplanes, too. Especially single pilot without autopilot, flying at lower altitudes with plenty of air traffic to look after.

I know a crew which managed to stall a 744 on departure, and which didn't realize that the company knew all about it, thanks to ACARS and an airplane which told the tail. They tried to hide it, didn't say a word, and got busted. ACARS isn't always one's friend.

[Dan Winterland]

''I do call up VOLMET when enroute if there's a question about weather, but usually we know what we need to know from the forecasts.''

Well I'm glad that forecasts is acccurate enough for you to feel confident, but in my part of the world weather can chage very quickly and 3 Hr TAFs and ammendments are issued regularly. Of course, it's not going to help if you have already departed with planned fuel, but often forewarned is forearmed and you can start planning suitable options.

For modern operations, ACARS is a useful tool. In ours, we get TAFs, METARs, SPECIs, SIGMETS, NOTAMS, get our loadsheets, get our clearances, do our take off performance, get new flight plans and do the voyage report all through ACARS.

Also, certain aircraft maintenance functions will be notified through ACARS by the maintenance computers.

Getting information to GA pilots through a text system is not a bad thing. Yachts have had it for a while.




''What volmet can you get whilst transatlantic?''

HF VOLMET.