View Full Version : Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) Fit?
Alexander
11-02-2008, 14:59
Although its mandatory for aircraft with more than 19 seats, a TCAS is obviously a very useful piece of kit as airspace gets more and more crowded. Do you have it fitted to your aircraft? Is it the commercial standard TCASII or even a next generation device with horizontal advisory....
Alex
They seem to work. From the Eurocontrol website:
"Results of European and international safety studies have shown that there is a significant safety benefit to be gained from the widespread carriage and operation of ACAS II; specifically, the risk of mid-air collision is reduced by at least a factor of three. "
That is if you take note of the TAs of course. Which tragically wasn´t the case for the Uberlingen disaster.
These devices obviously rely on secondary radar interogation, but the prices of equipment are dropping all the time. When the next generation with horizontal traffic avoidance become available, I suspect that there will prove to be an even more dramatic safety enhancement.
tornado
What form is the horizontal advisory going to take ? Has this been standardised and agreed by EASA?
TF
They seem to work. From the Eurocontrol website:
"Results of European and international safety studies have shown that there is a significant safety benefit to be gained from the widespread carriage and operation of ACAS II; specifically, the risk of mid-air collision is reduced by at least a factor of three. "
That is if you take note of the TAs of course. Which tragically wasn´t the case for the Uberlingen disaster.
These devices obviously rely on secondary radar interogation, but the prices of equipment are dropping all the time. When the next generation with horizontal traffic avoidance become available, I suspect that there will prove to be an even more dramatic safety enhancement.
tornado
Alexander
11-02-2008, 16:28
There is talk of transmitting GPS coordinates and altitude via Mode-S datalink. This information could be used to enhance the effectiveness and accuracy of TCAS and could also be transmitted to air traffic control by means other than conventional radar.
You should be able to incorporate this quickly and easily as the changes could be limited to a software upgrade for existing TCASII equipment...
Alex
It is worth noting that attempts to use the TCAS directional antenna to assign a bearing to other aircraft, and thus be able to generate horizontal manoeuvre are limited by the radar accurace and resolution in getting a bearing to the target aircraft.
It is planned in newer systems (to be designated TCAS-IV) will make use of the GPS positioning of the target aircraft which, as you say , will be sent to your aircraft in encoded form , so appropriate advisories can be generated.
tornado