Electronic Conspicuity in the UK
 

Can anybody help out with a bit of hopefully unclassified knowledge.

For a variety of reasons I'm taking an active interest in electronic conspicuity in the UK. There are multiple systems available, particularly in the GA community: FLARM, PilotAware, TPAS, and so-on and so forth. Recent UK Airprox Board reports have highlighted various proxes between UK light civil, and military aeroplanes - clearly stuff we'd all rather avoid.

Can anybody fill me in on what conspicuity systems (mode C, mode S, ADS-B, FLARM, etc.) are being carried on various military assets operating in UK airspace. Also - what traffic alerting systems is anybody carrying? I understand PowerFLARM on the G115 and Tucano fleets?, presumably TCAS on the Globemaster & Herc (but I'm assuming that, rather than know). Is anything else out there?

Or if nobody feels they can say on here - a steer as who I can ask officially would be great.

G

Typhoon will be Squawking 3C and using RADAR to clear its flightpath, no TCAS system fitted.

What would be great would be a £200 ModeS ADSB based system, which would give everyone the screen that the Hawk T2 rear seater has. A fully dynamic display of what the aircraft you around are doing.

That's not going to happen until we all transmit gps data all the time, and the big problem is that where it is needed most, which is <3,000 feet is normally not transponder mandatory territory.

Maybe someday.

My spamcan syndicate has just fitted PilotAware Classic, which is doing most of that for that price.

I think that the next generation, forecast late this year - Rosetta and Aircrew are looking to do the whole hog for around £400.

AirCrew.co.uk

Rosetta - Pilot Aware


The biggest problems, in my opinion, are that we now have five gusting 7 different systems in use globally that aren't universally intercompatible, and at least two of them are using uncertified hardware, that creates a massive problem in fitting them into certified aircraft: whether military or civil.

Of course any electronic conspicuity system, so long as crews don't assume they'll see everything out there, is better than no conspicuity system.

G

PliotAware will eventually become the conspicuity Betamax. It uses unlicensed frequencies so will never be certifiable.

FLARM is useful for sailplanes in close proximity with each other and with a few powered aircraft flying from the same site.

The CAA has already said that the preferred solution will be based on ADS-B. So the contender for the most likely future system is probably Sky Echo platform plus a display / audio warning system.

When I reviewed a number of conspicuity devices a year or so ago, the only one which was of any use was the Trig device which didn't need a display - and gave only genuine collision warnings. I was quite shocked at the 'panel gazing' of many of the GA pilots involved - VFR implies L00KOUT, not staring at some iToy!

This is the problem. The glider community tend to swear by FLARM and generally shout about it long and hard if you ever get into a discussion on such matters. An incomplete picture is more dangerous than none at all, particularly if used by low hours pilots without the experience to back it up. Understand Benson and Linton have FLARM displays in the Twr (but cannot use them for controlling), which raises some very interesting HF questions.

TCAS
 

So many options. To me some form standardisation is required in displaying the info or the total effect is lost.

PS: Lima Victor, please mow your grass!!!

I confess that I find it quite comforting when I'm bouncing around in cloud, there's an airliner somewhere above or below me, and they report "we have him on TCAS" - as at least one of us knows the relative position of each other from a threat perspective.

Regarding driving a head into the cockpit, I think we should in that context remember just how large the blind spots are in most civil and transport cockpits.

I'm afraid that I don't have any diagrams for modern combat aeroplanes, but here's a Hammer diagram (this presents a 360degx360deg view onto a flat image, like a wall map of the world) for the Jaguar front seat...
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...7fc72f1ac3.jpg


There are blind spots, primarily below - but not that many.

Now compare to a Boeing 737 from the Captain's seat...

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...ea88dfcfa5.jpg
There are a lot of blind spots - including even in the pillars which unless they are less than the distance between the pilots eyeballs (typically around 80-90mm) are also a significant obstruction. Plus that it's asymmetric - so if the Captain is the one doing the lookout, she has a lot of blind spots to her right that she can do nothing about whilst her F/O is busy heads in.

And most light GA are only marginally better - this is from the left hand seat of a PA28...

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmf...915b4f2a50.jpg
It's really not hard to see huge blind spots there, and equally there are coincident blind spots - a descending or climbing PA28 has plenty of areas in the direction of travel they can't see.

So, I'm afraid I don't buy the argument that a small and well managed period of "heads in", in virtually any cockpit, isn't entirely well spent, if that is spent for nearby traffic on a screen - whether that screen is providing pure alerts, or spacial awareness. Clearly excessive such time is not advantageous but when the aeroplane structure is obscuring perhaps 60-70% of the outside view, spending 5% of one's time (these are numbers plucked from the air with no science behind them, so likely to be the wrong numbers, but you get the idea - 5% however is 10 seconds every three minutes) checking an electronic device for external threads does not seem to me to be excessive.

G

From past experience, those claiming that TCAS/TAS is detrimental equipment which merely "drives the pilot's head inside the cockpit" are likely to be those who haven't flown with it on a regular basis. Used correctly, it naturally becomes part of an effective lookout scan. A brief glance inside is all that's needed, as the pilot looks from left to right during his lookout scan process. The shortcomings of the system are well known and due allowance has to be taken, but seeing a transponding "blip" at a range of up to 12 miles allows the user to take far more timely avoidance than relying on the much shorter range of even the best human eyesight alone.

The reason some pilots say "Got him on TCAS" is probably to reassure the ATC controller so he can perhaps concentrate his attention on another developing situation and make the necessary RT calls to other aircraft, at least for a while. So don't criticise, the pilot is actually trying to ease the controller's workload in order to help others!

Having flown a number of different TCAS/TAS equipped helicopters over the past twenty years, (and twenty more before that without it, military fixed wing and rotary plus some civilian stuff) I would now feel very vulnerable without it. It's shown me many times that most pilots don't look out effectively, or don't know the rules of the air. Seeing as we all take the air law exam, (and hopefully no-one actually wants to be involved in a mid-air) it's more likely to be the latter!

I have called "non-squawking" traffic to pilots and received the reply, "Got him on TCAS". So tempted on those occasions to say, "No you haven't, pay attention, I've just told you it's non-squawking therefore you can't have it on TCAS."

I say again 'non squawking raw return'

You might want to check what "180 degrees" means, as illustrated in the diagram, which is a flat representation of a full sphere. Your photograph is probably showing around 25 degrees left and 45 degrees right of forwards, and maybe 30 up and 20 down.

Also, collisions don't necessarily happen head on! That of course is why cockpit view diagrams use either the Hammer of Molinye graticules, that show the full sphere.

G
(163 hours in PA28s, but trying not to add any more, simply because just about anything else in my logbook is more interesting to fly.)

Re the Tucano, don't know what FLARM is but I was flying the machine when TCAS was fitted. TCAS was, and presumably still is, a great back up but not a replacement for proper lookout.

FLARM is basically low power TCAS for gliders, working on its own frequencies and encoding.

G

Why didn't you? In UK most controllers will advise "primary return only" if traffic isn't giving a secondary radar return.

Is it outside the realms of possibility that geometry / path length / attenuation mean that a transponder return isn't seen by a groundstation but is seen by a nearby aircraft?

G