Identification of type

[Smaragd]

I have noticed recently that on Playback quite a few traffic detected show Parachute as type, whereas the registration clearly shows this to be incorrect (eg an Ikarus and Pietenpol on my most recent flight). Is this a mis-setting on the aircraft concerned or is there another reason?

[Admin]

If you can provide a link to the track file we can take a look
Also what are you using to view the traffic ?

[Smaragd]

When you ask for a link to the track file, what do you mean by a link in this context? I show below an extract of the track file when two aircraft (BNRP and BOJW, both PA28s) are displaying on Playback as parachutes. They also displayed as such on my tablet running EasyVFR fed from my PAW Classic.

$PALOG,20241122,130032,RF,402AEE,PAW,UPL,51.26121,-1.47124,297,3333,51.22350,-1.56620,151,0
$GPGGA,130032,5115.672,N,00128.275,W,1,10,0.9,1016.1,M,47.2,M,,*65
$GPGSA,A,3,22,13,14,12,23,10,19,24,15,17,00,00,1.84,0.85,1.64*09
$GPRMC,130032,A,5115.672,N,00128.275,W,71.000,297,221124,,,A*4B
$PFLAA,0,4306,6474,-327,1,402A1D!G-BNRP,201,3.0,99,0.0,4E*6A
$PFLAA,0,-4188,-6612,-937,1,402AEE!G-BOJW,151,0.0,52,0.0,4E*0E
$PFLAA,0,-326,8623,-449,1,4080C8!-,47,0.0,101,-1.5,4E*66
$PFLAA,0,9344,1977,22,1,406552!GFELC,43,4.0,79,-1.5,8*03

[steveu]

When you ask for a link to the track file, what do you mean by a link in this context?

If you got to Aircrew and upload a track file to view, after the upload is successful and you are looking at the result, you need to copy the link for it in the browser address and paste it here.

[Smaragd]

Thank you steveu, link is below, aircraft BNRP and BOJW as noted on earlier post at around 13:00.

https://playback.pilotaware.com/playback/?track=fb9f0bd7

[steveu]

Thank you steveu, link is below, aircraft BNRP and BOJW as noted on earlier post at around 13:00.

https://playback.pilotaware.com/playback/?track=fb9f0bd7

So here we can see the aircraft G-BFSY wrongly identified in the attachment.

[Smaragd]

So back to my original query; is it a mis-setting on the target aircraft PAW (or other EC device) or is it something within the PAW system that provides the attribution. It not just on this one flight that I have noticed the problem.

[exfirepro]

Hi Trev,

I have been following this thread, but couldn't initially get what you were referring to - sorry.

I now see that you are referring to the 'Type' label on the pop-up box which appears when we hover over individual aircraft during replay via the PilotAware playback tool.

The information for each aircraft is obtained from various sources, depending on the type of EC system(s) fitted to the aircraft. If you look at the aircraft around Lasham at 12:47 for example, you will see that G-CGAF reports Type as a Glider, while G-DDNC (reporting as an 'Uplink', which IIRC indicates that the information has been received via iGRID) has NO 'Type' reported and does not report the type of EC transmission(s) at all. Following on from this I see an aircraft crossing your path from left to right at 12:55, reporting as - A D S B with Type Unknown, then two aircraft appearing - the first from behind your aircraft at Whitchurch, which reports as - A C S U M , so Mode S, Uplinked as MLAT via iGRID, but with NO REG showing and Reporting as a 'Parachute', then G-BNRP near Highclere - which also reports as  A C S U M, and also reports as a 'Parachute' (which I would expect to cover predominantly Flarm/Fanet equipped hang or paragliders, paramotors or similar) while G-INFO clearly reports this aircraft as a PA28.

Unfortunately, although PilotAware endeavours to transmit the correct aircraft type, this is entirely dependent on the user setting the aircraft type correctly in 'Configuration'. Even then, there seems to be no 'universal' protocol covering how different systems report their aircraft type, which makes it extremely difficult (if not impossible) to guarantee type reports.

Perhaps Lee (@Admin) would care to clarify or comment further ...

Best Regards

Peter

[Smaragd]

Thank you Peter, fully understood. I was alerted to this because I use EasyVFR rather than SkyDemon and it displays 'parachutes' as parachutes and I was surprised by the occasional 85kt parachute! Playback then confirmed the misidentity.