Portable Collision Avoidance Systems

[englishal]

but just barely

You shoudl check your installation then because I have the XRX interfaced to my G496 and in my experience it is very accurate, and often shows me traffic I haven't seen, as part of my normal instrumentation/GPS scan.

[Fuji Abound]

and it's hardwired into the aircraft power.

In which case it is probably an illegal installation. I wouldnt just accept what is in the aircraft either, it is your responsibility as commander to "accept" the aircraft or otherwise. I wouldnt "accept" an aircraft with a "TAS" installation that is giving as many erroneous readings as you suggest - I would want the unit placarded u/s.

However in the event I would have the operator replace the unit as it is clealry faulty and not representative.

[SNS3Guppy]

In which case it is probably an illegal installation.

No, it really isn't.

I wouldnt just accept what is in the aircraft either, it is your responsibility as commander to "accept" the aircraft or otherwise.

There are probably a lot of things you would or wouldn't do, and you have the luxury of doing that.

Here in a combat zone, it's a little different.

[englishal]

WOW, do they use the Zaon in combat zones? I can't really see the Eurofighter with a Zaon sat on top of the dash I'm sure we have IFF transponders in our military. Must be Obama's defence spending cuts

[SNS3Guppy]

It's not in a eurofighter, and it's an easily procurable, replacable supplementary device...with which I'm not impressed.

[Pugilistic Animus]

In my view anyone who believes in see and avoid should go fly with someone who has TAS

I hope you mean as an adjuct to see and avoid it even applies in 'VFR' conditions with TCAS I or II on TA mode

Here in a combat zone, it's a little different

You Stay Safe over there y'hear SNS3Guppy

PA

[Rod1]

When I did the 3500 words for flyer on this I did some research. Of the people I spoke to a very small number had had trouble with spurious alerts, and about ½ of these had traced it to power. I know from my own experience that this can case the problem, but I have had no issues with mine, which were not attributable to poor power. Having said this the device was intended to be used in GA aircraft, so if you put it in something with a lot of EM interference who knows what would happen.

My local flying club had just bulk purchased some units (at considerable discount) and the comments received back indicate a great deal of surprise at the number of aircraft which were getting close to them which were not spotted until after the unit had detected them. If any of your local flying clubs are interested in a talk on collisions avoidance, I would be happy to oblige as we lose far too many people to collisions and see and avoid needs all the help it can get.

Rod1

[Fuji Abound]

I hope you mean as an adjuct to see and avoid it even applies in 'VFR' conditions with TCAS I or II on TA mode

That I do mainly because I like the scenery. Having flown a fair amount of aeros I reckon my look out is as good as most but I know to my cost it is vey poor at spotting the one that is going to hit you, but not too bad at the rest. The trouble is that doesnt help much.

The great thing about TAS and including a large MDF in your scan which also produces an audible warning is that the combination of old fashion technology (the mark 1 eyeball) and modern technology produce, IMHO, is a far more reliable means of detecting the enemy.

Here in a combat zone, it's a little different.

Hmm cant imagine that much traffic around in a combat zone, I guess you lot arent doing your job very well if you havent managed to supress most of it.

[IO540]

Great idea that... I'd like all traffic below 3000ft "suppressed" except under the LTMA where I would like all traffic below 2400ft "suppressed".

That would deal with at least 99% of GA.

[SNS3Guppy]

Hmm cant imagine that much traffic around in a combat zone, I guess you lot arent doing your job very well if you havent managed to supress most of it.

Air superiority isn't an issue with respect to suppressing traditional threats. The real threat are unmanned aerial vehicles, and thus far every incident I've had has been a UAV. The air is thick with them. It's worse in other locations. Unfortunately, radar is sporadic, as is traffic that reports or talks. The way airspace is assigned is very different, too.

In the case of PCAS, it won't detect another transponder unless it's being actively interrogated by either a TCAS unit, or radar. This means that targets can suddenly pop up inside the range settings of the PCAS unit without warning, and disappear, quickly as well. The update rate on them isn't good, which probably isn't a problem if one isn't doing much maneuvering or turning. The unit also delivers only very rough approimation as to azimuth or bearing from the user, and even with the screen displaying a dot for the position of the intruder...the refresh rate is slow enough that traffic is often not where the unit says it is because the angular difference has changed in a turn.

A frequent error I see is traffic appearing to change altitudes. Sometimes it's obvous and rapid, but sometimes not. A change of five hundred feet or so instantaneously can be identified as an instrumentation error, but when watching the traffic being monitored descending a few hundred feet and going back up again...one can't really be sure. In some cases I wasn't sure if the warnings I received were real or not..but a few times now I've verified it visually...in the dark.

Point being...these devices are probably better than nothing, but in my opinion, not much more so. Certainly installing TCAS is prohibitive in most cases, but I think knowing the limitations of the equipment is every bit as important as knowing what it *may* be able to dofor you.

[englishal]

The unit also delivers only very rough approximation as to azimuth or bearing from the user, and even with the screen displaying a dot for the position of the intruder...the refresh rate is slow enough that traffic is often not where the unit says it is because the angular difference has changed in a turn.

I still reckon that the errors you see are either because of your location or the location of the PCAS.

I use mine in the southern UK where there is pretty much 100% radar coverage, and in my experience in straight and level flight the azimuth info in a 270 degree forward arc is very accurate. Update is as per the radar sweep, as per the other day I was flying parallel to the air ambulance chopper and it's position was exactly as indicated on the 496 screen, when they started to descend into their landing site, altitude changed immediately as they went down.

I was taking to a military controller with a traffic service and he warned me of some military aircraft performing instrument training. It was 2000' over cast and the PCAS picked up the two recovering aircraft before they broke through the base of the cloud. The PCAS had told me exactly where they were, I'd been following they yellow spots on the gps screen, and low and behold they appeared as expected.

The only inaccuracies I have experienced tend to occur when the traffic is right behind, and I guess this is due to the "blind spot" of the rear fuselage. The Zaon can determine azimuth to 45 degrees, I guess based upon received signal strength on two of the 4 quadrants of the antenna. It would be better with a hull mounted antenna of course, but what would be even better is if we all fitted FLARM and started squirting our GPS coordinates out.

[2high2fastagain]

Yes, it is useful

Matt, I have the XRX and I always use it when I'm flying. It does seems to give the odd spurious reading and the voice alert system seems to have a habit of cutting in just when I'm talking to ATC. However, I do think it is invaluable and it has picked up a number of close flying aircraft that frankly I was not in danger of hitting, but I was really grateful to know were there.
If you are vigilant and scan with the Mk 1 eyeball obsessively, then the Zaon gives you the odd helpful cue which I think makes you safer. If you rely on the Zaon and don't keep your head outside the aircraft, then it's probably less safe than not having one.

[liam548]

is the XRM a lot poorer than the XRX?