Can any more details shown about other aircraft

[DavidC]

Skydemon currently shows other detected aircraft with a little box showing the relative altitude in 1000s of feet.
If you click on one, it shows the actual altitude, speed and track.

Is it possible (or considered) to show any other information?

Specifically, I would think Call Sign would be very useful - eg. a tower controller could look at the screen and see where each aircraft they are talking with is positioned. Similarly useful for non-manned airfields when self-announced with call signs.

Perhaps this can be derived from the ICAO code for aircraft, either by users manually specifying the mapping for the few they might be specifically interested in, or by incorporating a full lookup database table somewhere. A full database lookup would probably be best done on the iPad rather than in the device because it could be maintained - a factor that would probably take time/money to keep up to date.

Alternatively, the callsign could be added into one of the optional/extension fields in the protocol. It's not specified there at the moment in the PPT presentation.

And if it were available, is it something that SkyDemon could/would display? I'm unclear if SkyDemon displays that for other ADS-B inputs.

Oh, and do Pilotaware aircraft display any differently to ADS-B ones? I'm guessing not.

[ianfallon]

Fundamentally I don't think the reg is important from a safety point of view but I agree it would be cool to be able to see and/or some indication of the type of traffic it is (heli, fast jet etc).
One for Skydemon's forum I think rather than here though.

[Admin]

Internally to PilotAware a lot of info is held including the ICAO number.
This is passed to the NAV tool, but it is upto the NAV tool whether to display

Additional information is also available to be passed over the RF (for PilotAware)
Again, I can supply to the NAV tool, but it must decide to display

For SD in particular, I can pass the data to be annotated, what would you like to see ?


Tjx
Lee

[ianfallon]

Type and reg ?

[trapdoor]

Agree on type - Reg would be handy and perhaps along with the ICAO code setup in the web interface, the aircraft tail number could also be input - I only fly one aircraft and that will be where my PilotAware box will be fitted so it's not an issue for me to just set this.

Only 'danger' I can see is if someone moves the box between club aircraft and they forget to change the info. Perhaps a setting to say whether the reg and type is persistent or defaulted back to an internal identifier after boot up.

[Admin]

OK, my 2 cents,
I think the type should have a different icon on the display, rather than annotated text
the Reg/ICAO could be annotated text, but need to be careful this does not start to clutter the display,
In fact I would say, if the Reg is present annotate that, else annotate the ICAO

P3I can send the Reg, ADS-B does not have this field available

[T67M]

Hi all,

I'm just starting to look at this, and great kudos to those involved getting it this far.

One question springs to mind - the P3I protocol has position, altitude, speed and track, but doesn't include vertical speed. Is this a conscious design decision, and if so, what is the rationale? Given I regularly fly aeros, there are times when my forward speed is zero, but my vertical speed (at least for a while!) is in excess of 3,000fpm!

Cheers,

T67M

[Admin]

Hi all,
I'm just starting to look at this, and great kudos to those involved getting it this far.

One question springs to mind - the P3I protocol has position, altitude, speed and track, but doesn't include vertical speed. Is this a conscious design decision, and if so, what is the rationale? Given I regularly fly aeros, there are times when my forward speed is zero, but my vertical speed (at least for a while!) is in excess of 3,000fpm!

Cheers,

T67M

When I first read this I thought, what are aero's? then the penny dropped - aerobatics
You are right it was a conscious decision, simply to reduce the data packet size.
The thought process was the following, data is sent/received at specific intervals, this data
contains the height information, and therefore vertical speed can be calculated from the rate of change
between samples.
I know this is not hugely accurate, but to be honest the latency in the total system from
calculate -> Transmit -> Receive -> display
means that massively dynamic data is always going to be somewhat stale anyway.
I have a TODO to add the calculated VSI information into the data sent to the NAV systems

[the_top_pilot]

As a safety aid a clear uncluttered display is important (other data is great for spotters). Could an audio warning be given if a contact comes into an agreed range?

[Admin]

As a safety aid a clear uncluttered display is important (other data is great for spotters). Could an audio warning be given if a contact comes into an agreed range?

Regarding the clutter, I would think most people (for testing purposes) have the vertical filters set at +/- 40000ft or thereabouts.
In a real life situation I would probably reduce this to +/-1000ft, this would remove a massive amount of clutter.

regarding audio, this is simple to add, but the question is how to make it audible, I looked around for a low cost mixer to get the audio out from the PI into the headsets, but could not really find anything suitable

[T67M]

As a safety aid a clear uncluttered display is important (other data is great for spotters).

I'd tend to agree with this - TCAS symbology is a good example giving position, relative altitude, track and altitude trend (climb/decent/level), plus a change of shape and aural alert for high risk targets. Everything else should be "on request" only.

[brinzlee]

Hi Lee
regarding the Audio out....this would be a nice facility especially as some of the higher end ANR headsets have an audio in facility with adjustable priority (Bose) so would just be a question of linking with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack cable from the Pi to the Headset module

[the_top_pilot]

I am fortunate to have a set of Bose with audio in, I will do a bit of work on a simple mixer to add the audio into a standard headset for you.

[Admin]

I am fortunate to have a set of Bose with audio in, I will do a bit of work on a simple mixer to add the audio into a standard headset for you.

If you think you could create a mixer to do that from the audio out of the PI, that would be excellent!
Thx
Lee

[Pete]

Sounds a good idea.
I've been using the standard audio out from my mini iPad ( the SD audio warnings etc) to my headset and it's good at getting your attention if your not watching the screen as I'm sure you are keeping the Mk1 eyeball working out of the cockpit for most of the time?
Look forward to seeing the finished product.