+xJust resurrecting this post again. Lee Moore from PilotAware has now followed the flarm protocol for bearingless targets and this is now represented by the red, amber and green circles around your aircraft in SkyDemon (Much better in my opinion)...the only slight problem is the depiction of altitude above or below your aircraft is presented at the top of the coloured circle and is very difficult to read. Apparently he can't adjust this font size. Is there anything that can be adjusted within SkyDemon to make this text a little larger or is this a programming implementation.
There are other users within the PilotAware forum community that would like this bigger too.
Kind regards
Brinsley
Tim,
I just want to echo the spirit and detail of Brinzlee's post.
Since early this year, I have been heavily involved in the development and testing of
PilotAware's Mode S detection and am pretty much responsible for the range of Mode S alert triggers now incorporated, though not for the way this data is presented to the various Nav Systems. As you know, Lee initially presented 'bearingless' targets to Sky Demon as a small colour-changing aircraft which appeared on top of your own rather than using the standard FLARM circles. This was a deliberate attempt to address a worry held by the team that these circles can give a false impression that the area within the circle is a 'safe zone',when due to the vagaries of Mode S detection, this is clearly not the case.
I was quite happy with this decision, as were other early development testers, and the system worked well in practice with early test versions, with the colour changes quickly and automatically indicating increasing risk if the threat continued to rise. As other aspects of the system developed, however, it became apparent that this 'non-standard' bearingless target presentation caused conflict within SkyDemon, resulting in loss of the colour changes. When PilotAware Mode S was officially released to the public, we also became aware that the now 'simple white aircraft' - similar to those used for ADSB and P3i were causing confusion to new PilotAware users, as many misinterpreted the piggybacked Mode S aircraft as a threat suddenly appearing right on top of them, to their obvious consternation.
To address these issues, Lee has reverted to the standard FLARM protocol for bearingless targets, which we are now all getting used to. Unfortunately, however, I and many others find the relative altitude information - which is essential to direct the pilot's scan in the right general direction to find and avoid the 'bearingless' threat or help decide whether to climb or descend to maintain / increase separation - is far too small to find and read quickly against the moving map background - especially in an open cockpit, leading to time wasted peering inwards when the pilot needs to be looking OUTSIDE for the approaching danger. OK I know nothing is simple, but a relatively minor increase in text size and or the provision of a clearly contrasting background would address this issue and be an improvement for all your system users - not merely those using PilotAware.
Please consider this request in the spirit in which it has been made, namely to help improve all our safety.
Best Regards
Peter Robertson