PAW in action - experiences

[ridders]

Flying this weekend again with PAW and I have to say, the Mode C / S works a treat. 
However the most valuable addition is the audio feed out of the pi.

Three Audio alerts this weekend:

aircraft 1 - +200 ft somewhere out there, looking about -  finally found it as it passed us above and to the left at about 200ft above.. (commenced a target attack on them with guns naturally  )
Aircraft 2 - -200 and then -100 as I was descending - eyes on stalks - eeek observed head on to us, avoiding action turn to right, no indication the other aircraft noticed us at all. This would have been a head on if we hadnt seen them.
Aircraft 3 another mode C -100 below us - traffic sighted

Last week another example of Mode S/ADSB out detection was an aircraft joining the circuit non radio to the airfield (defective TX) and being able to see its right base join ahead of us, PAW also highlighted the TX wasnt working as I called the aircraft with no response.

PAW certainly is invaluable, the addition of audio alerts allows normal scan with various alerts through the headphones, presentation on my Skydemon display provides in many circumstances valuable enhanced situational awareness.

Just some good news stories. 

I personally can not await the release of the FLARM integration, flying from an airfield close to a gliding site.

[Ian Melville]

FLARM is already intergrated, though you do need to buy a compatible FLARM device to connect to the PAW.

[Keithvinning]

PAW certainly is invaluable, the addition of audio alerts allows normal scan with various alerts through the headphones, presentation on my Skydemon display provides in many circumstances valuable enhanced situational awareness.

Thanks for this anecdotal evidence of the usefulness that PAW has been to you. Also it is a great lesson, in that it isn't until you made the critical visual scan that you were able to know what action to take. However as usual, properly used PilotAware will give you advanced warning. Then its visual scan as normal.

Also we must all remember the ones that are not transmitting anything yet and keep evangelising. It really does work

Thanks also for pointing out the Website changes.

 

[ridders]

FLARM is already intergrated, though you do need to buy a compatible FLARM device to connect to the PAW.

Hi Ian ,   I am reluctant to go ahead with it at this stage because on this thread on PAW forum which I have been watching for some time, the last statement made is along the lines of dont make any purchases.
 
"lee has since revised the software and the original problem hasn't so far recurred, so things might be fine, but perhaps worth waiting until I can do a bit more testing before putting all your eggs in one (expensive) basket"

Im incredibly keen to "FLARM up"as Im based  2.5 miles from a very active gliding field where Ive flown for over 6 years now.
This year I was head on with a motor glider whilst downwind in our circuit - I was unusually quite wide on downwind so certainly are to blame on this occasion, but it was a little surprise to see the aircaft where I simply wasnt expecting it to be.  We also had this summer a motorgliders heading backwards and forwards across our final approach. The local area has a very high density of gliding when conditions are right, so anything that can give that little bit of of advance notice of a glider/Motorglider, is worth having as they are incredibly difficult to spot. 

[exfirepro]

Hi Ridders,

Hi Ian ,   I am reluctant to go ahead with [Flarm Integration] at this stage because on this thread on PAW forum which I have been watching for some time, the last statement made is along the lines of dont make any purchases.
 
"lee has since revised the software and the original problem hasn't so far recurred, so things might be fine, but perhaps worth waiting until I can do a bit more testing before putting all your eggs in one (expensive) basket"

That was my post you quote from above. Just to clarify, I certainly wasn't saying not to integrate Flarm to PAW using FlarmMouse. The tests we did with FlarmMouse were extremely successful, with gliders visible at 2-3Km as expected (based on Flarm's relatively low power output) and on one occasion visible and with audio alerts received up to 7Km. We did however report experiencing some loss of GPS data from the FlarmMouse, which was probably due to the extremely small size of the inbuilt GPS antenna within the FlarmMouse, making it more susceptible to shielding by adjacent metalwork or other objects within my cockpit. As a result, Lee modified the software to allow me to revert to using PAW GPS with the FlarmMouse simply providing Flarm Data.

My caution to Ian F was not in regard to his intention to use a FlarmMouse, but his intention to use it to provide Flarm and GPS data to drive his PilotAware which I know he already uses to supply GPS data to his transponder to generate ADSB Out. In order to do both, you have to  remove the PAW GPS as we only have 4 USB ports available, which - in the event of any failure of the FlarmMouse GPS would crash all his systems in one go. In my own case, ADSB Out is driven by a completely separate GPS source and I can if necessary revert my Nav System to run on its own backup GPS, so I am perfectly happy to run PilotAware from my PAW GPS and use the 'spare' USB port for 'Flarm Data' Integration and have no hesitation in recommending this to others, but in light of my own experience, it would be inappropriate for me to advise others to adopt an 'all your eggs in one FlarmMouse GPS basket' approach until I have had time to carry out further reliability testing.

I hope this helps clarify the position.

Regards

Peter

p.s. Glad to hear you are finding PilotAware useful. It can certainly be a life saver!

[ridders]

Thanks Peter, for the explanation, its good to know that Flarm is good to go and the experiences you had were with the GPS performance of the flarm mouse.

I fly an aircraft with Mode S and ADSB, so no need for me to remove my GPS USB stick and feed. 

Yes - PAW has been incredibly helpful on quite a few occasions.
Heres the aircraft joining 06 non radio last weekend, there was also another aircraft ahead of me, Mode C not close enough to show.


Also - this was a little fun in the summer - in loose formation catching me up, handy to know your stalker is there



cheers

[Easy Cruising]

I've flown about 60hrs with paw. I'd add that the Mode C/S alert is much more useful than I thought it would be initially, and is imho generally more useful than adsb because so many aircraft dont have that yet. I have the paw connected to SkyDemon on a tablet mounted on the panel. I incorporate a brief glance at SkyDemon into my normal outside scan. If there's a circle around my aircraft it usually has an 'altitude difference' attached, so I then continue the scan outside but focusing more on the relative altitude I expect the other aircraft to be at. After I while you get used to how high or low above the horizon you should focus depending on the paw relative altitude, and you can find the targets more quickly. The colour of the circle is only  marginally useful in its own right because of different transponder signal strengths, but the transition between the colours helps. I dont have audio set up yet, which would be better, but I dont want an audio jack cable swinging around in the cockpit, so I'm not there yet. Generally good experience.

[exfirepro]

Well done guys,

It's great to get positive feedback - especially about the Mode C/S side (which was where I first came into the project development side). Lee would tell you himself that he was initially sceptical as to whether we could make Mode S work effectively - let alone Mode C, but thanks to his hard work with the software and a considerable amount of test flying, we got there. The results are definitely proving the effectiveness of the system.

Audio input is the icing on the cake, EC - it means you continue to get updates if the danger level increases while scanning outside for the contact, without having to keep looking back at your screen.

Keep the reports coming.

Regards

Peter

[Admin]

Peter is right I was skeptical but a complete convert
I have found this very useful myself when flying
although you may not always get a visual on the warnings!