PowerFlarm Portable in Diamond DA40 TDI?
 

Hello everyone!

I fly a Diamond DA40TDI and would like to buy a Power Flarm Portable (which detects and displays FLARM, transponders and ADS-B traffic).
I am wondering if the device can, in any way, interfere with the FADEC or any other system on the aircraft; in the user's manual it only says caution with FADECs.
Does anyone have experimented with this?

Cheers,
Lea

I would say very unlikely if everything connected up in a sensible way.

A word of caution
 

First, let me say that I don't have any experience with the portable PowerFlarm, but most of the gliders and towplanes in my club have permanently installed PowerFlarms, and my experience with them, mostly in a towplane, has been disappointing.

Gliders often come and go on the display, depending on the relative orientation of the two aircraft. On the other hand, ADS-B traffic always shows up, which is not very useful, since it is all commercial traffic in controlled airspace!

I have found that the PowerFlarm display is actually detrimental to in-flight safety, since it is very easy to spend too much time looking at the display, instead of looking out of the window. Also, you have to remember, that not all traffic will show up on the display.

My current SOP is to ignore the PowerFlarm display and keep up a good visual scan. I will only pay attention to the display, if I hear an alarm in my headphones.

An important point is to make sure you set it up properly, including activating the Mode C functionality.

Where in the portable manual did you find about fadec? I can't find it anywhere...

I fly a DA40 in Germany with fadec, and never had any issues with my powerflarm, even though I have the powerflarm core. I have one top and one bottom antenna (the AV-75 flarm antennas) and receive other aircraft with flarm well over 10 km away. If you have problems, it's most probably with your antenna installation.

Flarm has saved me twice in the last three years, last time this summer when I was seconds from colliding with a helicopter. Luckily he also had flarm (in Germany, almost all helicopters have flarm).

I'd go with a PowerFLARM Core. You can hook it up to a much better display than the Portable has.

In my glider my flight computer shows Flarm targets on the map. There's similar functionality in GA equipment. Have a look at the Air Avionics website.