When May We Expect to Have Verbal Traffic Alerts?

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HomeHomeDiscussionsDiscussionsiFly General Di...iFly General Di...When May We Expect to Have Verbal Traffic Alerts?When May We Expect to Have Verbal Traffic Alerts?
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9/15/2020 8:06 PM
 
John Miller wrote:

...LATER: Just got this from a friend using ForeFlight.

Verbal traffic is given.....

"When traffic is within 1 nm and +/- 1200 GPS altitude of your aircraft's position while connected to and ADSB in system, such as a Scout, Sentry, etc AND your aircraft is equipped with ADSB out. Ownship must be able to be detected to work. 

Only trouble is ForeFlight is not available for Android. So I guess I'll have to buy an ipad.

John M

John, I'm hoping for spoken traffic alerts, too.  But I have to say that all those ForeFlight requirements aren't very comforting. I like the Big Sky idea better than a lot of techy gadgetry that amounts to uncertainty.  As long as the system is shooting us false negatives all the time, it's not worth much to me, whether it talks, or not.

 
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9/18/2020 9:49 AM
 

HOOK:

The app I am considering will not alert until "you are moving over 40 knots and traffic is within 1.8 NM and +/- 1200 feet vertically." A pop up AND a vocal warning are given as long as your aircraft is ADSB out equiped. I think many pilots would want to know this proximity without having to look at the screen.

Only works with Iphone and Ipad which is s drawback for an Android user.

This feature is high on my list of desired features and maybe not so much for others so I understand why some don't want to be bothered with vocal alerts.

IFLY has been my app for over 4 years and has many great features at a great price. For those who are Android based and are not obcessed with vocal traffic warnings I will still recommend it.

John M

 

 

 
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9/18/2020 11:10 AM
 

I think those limits are pretty reasonable as a start, and hopefully iFly (if they implement verbal warnings) will allow us to set similar ones.  However, there's still the problem of being warned about traffic that is close but "no factor". That is, traffic that is diverging from you, and vice versa, or where the possible convergence is more than 1.8 NM ahead of you.

Good luck with your new app.  Since you didn't mention that one of the limits was "don't warn if within x NM of an airport", hopefully it won't drive you crazy in a traffic pattern.


Powrachute PC 2000; Aventura II; Cherokee 180
 
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9/18/2020 11:34 AM
 

John, here's a suggestion for an iFly workaround that might help you until spoken traffic alerts show up:

I've found that iFly's Traffic instrument does a fair job of alerting me to ADSB traffic. I have it set to pop up as big as it gets--a hard, black square that occupies at least half the screen. Here it is on my iPhone. (As I recall, on the 740 it's slightly smaller, but I can't check just now.)


It's big enough and sudden enough to catch my eye if I happen to be looking outside in that general direction. (Usually.)

The black square can be located anywhere you want it on the screen and will cover other instruments and buttons to make it even more noticeable.

The big black popup is usually accompanied by a BONG noise if the Alerts are set right. I don't hear it in flight, myself; but piped into the headset or intercom it would probabaly get me to look at the screen even if I didn't notice the big black square.

iFly's minimum-distance alert threshold is 2500 ft vertically and 2 nm horizontally. That's not too different from what you quoted for ForeFlight. (You can SEE traffic much farther away if you want to.) 

It's true that in iFly (now) we have to look at the screen to see which direction to look outside for traffic.  But we don't have to constantly stare at the screen in order to be aware of nearby traffic.  Also, the Traffic instrument is pretty intuitive to grasp quickly, especially for the horizontal plane. The vertical location is given, too, but you do have to do a bit of mental arithmetic.

However, if you have the EFIS open also, traffic is displayed there in 3D, so you see at a glance what's ahead of you and how high or low it is in respect to you. (My only wish there is for the traffic colors to be brighter.) I don't have a great photo to illustrate that--just this screen from a Windows laptop:

My "ownship" is pointed the wrong direction in the Map view because the computer was sitting on my desk, but the GPS wander direction happened to be toward the ESE, so the EFIS depicts N404DP right about where it would be if I had been flying toward it. (You can see my projected track line on the Map.)

There's no black Traffic square in that picture because the traffic was 10300 ft higher than my desk, and therefore no alert was required. But if N404DP had been down at, say 500 feet, it would have been open (in the center of the screen, is where it's set).

So you might give the Traffic instrument a try--if you haven't already--and see if it will make you less uncomfortable about midairs.

 
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9/18/2020 7:11 PM
 

HOOK

I feel any aircraft in close proximity is a factor. If they are close enough to be an alert yet moving away...doesn't that mean they were even closer earlier on and an unnoticed threat?

Also aircraft moving away have been know to turn back quickly. Especially in a practice area where they are doing air work.

Lets agree to disagree for the sake of users tired of this debate.

John M

 
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