kgwilson

The battery technology is as sophisticated as EVs so the charging management system will ensure it all works no matter what people try to do. It is cheap scooter, bike & skateboard lithium batteries that do not have good management systems so some of these have exploded or caught fire while charging often with the wrong charger type. Just for the record there have been 6 EV fires in Australia since 2014. 1 was arson, 3 were in buildings that caught fire, 1 was from a collision & 1 was from debris being picked up from the road & damaging the battery of a Tesla. None have happened while charging. There are about 180,000 EVs on the road in Australia now. If I had a spare 250k I'd buy an X2 just for the fun of it.

There are 2 things that may not be communicating. One is that the ADSB unit is no longer detecting traffic (& possibly not broadcasting either) and the other is that the WiFi between the ADSB unit and your EFIS system has failed. If it is the latter you are likely to get a message saying so. In En Route Flight Planning it will say "Traffic receiver not connected" & there is a red aircraft symbol at the bottom left of the screen & pressing that gives various options to connect, reconnect or configure data connections. If the ADSB unit is not receiving or transmitting data but still connected via WiFi your EFIS screen will just be devoid of any traffic data.

ADSB aircraft to aircraft is as close as you can get to real time. Latency depends upon the transmitter, receiver & display device processing times. The maximum calculated latency is 0.6 seconds according to information I have read. Latency when relying on ground systems has multiple paths and delays so it is impossible to calculate but can be much longer. A good example of this is a friend of mine was flying his Mooney M20 in the Outback Air race last year. He had a Mode S transponder & ADSB Out but not In & was relying on traffic information from Avplan. He noticed an aircraft on a converging path & made a call to Brisbane Centre. Their response was don't worry he's already gone past you.

ADSB data is transmitted from your ADSB Out device at 1090 MHz and is picked up by other aircraft with ADSB In as well as ground stations which range from government run organisations or contractors like Air Services to Joe Blogs with a Raspberry Pi 1090 MHz receiver & uploaded to the WWW & picked up by 3rd party organisations like FlightAware, Flight radar 24 & ADSB Exchange. The data captured by these businesses is broadcast on the Web in almost real time overlaid on a map providing the precise location of the aircraft at 1 second intervals. The SE2 also has a secondary receiver at 978MHz (ADSB In) which includes traffic information and weather information (if available). Not in Australia though. Transponders have nothing to do with it unless they are Mode S transponders with extended squitter and are ADSB enabled so have to include the ADSB hardware, a GPS & external antenna. These have much greater range due to their higher transmitter power but it comes at a 5-6k cost.

Mode S Transponder is not ADSB even if it does have Extended Squitter capability. This requires an additional ADSB piece of hardware, certified GPS and an external antenna professionally installed. Pretty expensive at around 5-6k. SE2 will work fine with your transponder. You only disable ADSB out if the Mode S transponder is ADSB out enabled & without the rest of the bits it isn't.

The only reason I can think of is that there was a network outage with Flightaware or there were no ground receiving stations withing range which is highly unlikely. Also if the unit was shielded preventing transmission, again highly unlikely. If the SE2 battery was low is also another possibility but then the battery light would be yellow (under 66%) or red when under 33% charge. I presume you were seeing other ADSB Out equipped aircraft at the time and that you know the difference between ADSB in data and OZ runways in data.

It is all in the software of the system you are using to interface to the SE2. The SE2 broadcasts (and receives) GPS location, barometric altitude AMSL, Aircraft Rego and some other codes. The receiving software calculates speed and direction of travel as it receives this data constantly.

Most GA ADSB equipped aircraft have ADSB Out only as that is the only mandatory requirement and the cost to install ADSB IN is very high. Plenty of GA jockeys around our aerodrome have installed a SE2 with ADSB Out disabled. Again this is required to prevent ghosting but it is the simplest and least expensive way of getting ADSB information in the cockpit via a linked EFIS like Oz Runways, Avplan, Enroute FP etc running on a phone or tablet & connected via WiFi.

All you need is a tablet or even a phone running Ozrunways or Avplan and there are free Nav systems as well plus a Skyecho 2 at a rebated cost of $500.00 and you have ADSB In and Out. Range varies from 20NM to 40 NM so you can see every other aircraft with ADSB out at least in your general direction of travel. There is no requirement to spend thousands just to get a TSOed system integrated with your transponder.

In Class G there are no mandatory calls other than to avoid a collision. I always make a 10 mile inbound or a 10 mile overflying call but if you are not on the right frequency you are talking to nobody and nobody will respond.

In the circuit ADSB In is virtually useless given the close proximity of aircraft. The bigger the screen the better though. If both had ADSB In they would have seen one another from about 20 NM even if they were just SE2s. It is possible that the C182 had ADSB Out only as this is the most common and mandatory setup in GA aircraft. Adding ADSB Out is voluntary and it is also expensive. It is possible given this was a training flight that a circuit entry and missed approach was being practiced. In this scenario, and if the Jab did not have ADSB In, and the C182 was on Camden frequency the holes in the swiss cheese line right up.

Very sad. Condolences to families and friends of the deceased. The flight path and altitude data of the C182 (if available) should reveal the situation and of course weather data as well.

I used to fly in all sorts of weather and sometimes to deadlines. I don't do this any more & should never have done it. I was just lucky. Now I fly when conditions are good. After all I fly for fun. Building my own aircraft was an achievement I thought I'd never get to. You have to make things happen. I have lots a personal minimums like my reserve is an hours fuel. I always do a personal IMSAFE before deciding to fly. Sometimes the day looks fantastic but for some reason I don't don't feel enthusiastic enough so I do something else. Flying means you have to be on top of your game at all times. I got Shingles in August & haven't flown since. It is nearly gone but not quite so I don't pass IMSAFE though most of the rest of my life is back to pretty much normal. I've seen people come unstuck because they thought they were better than they actually were. I detest show offs. When I have a passenger I fly conservatively. I have never had a passenger who did not want to fly with me again but I have flown with others who wanted to impress me & I have never flown with them again. I have always liked the statement attributed to Captain Alfred Gilmer Lamplugh, C.B.E., F.R.Ae.S, M.I.Ae.S., M.C.A.I., F.R.G.S. a WW1 pilot & Principle Surveyor for The British Aviation Insurance Co., Ltd back in the 1920s “Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”

Original radio pro words from the old FRTO licence seem to have evolved somewhat. "Roger" has been replaced with "Copy", "Say Again" with "Repeat" etc with some pilots. Even contacting ATC seems to have relaxed its formality other than ensuring you read back correctly. So long as the message is clear and unambiguous it doesn't matter so long as you know the other party has received & understood the message & vice versa. I am a bit of a traditionalist & always use Say Again (your last message) or (all after......). With all of the foreign students we have around here a lot of the calls are almost impossible to understand. Sometimes the instructor would respond but now the instructor is also foreign with English as their second language and some accents are pretty heavy. My other pet hate is smart arses who use machine gun calls. I never get all of the message when this happens.

I have only approached other pilots on the ground when I heard nothing from them to find out why they didn't make a radio call. In 2 incidents their radios were not transmitting but they thought they were and in one it was not transmitting or receiving. The discussion was useful for all 3 as they agreed to get their radios checked, well that's what they said anyway.

I don't give a rats which aerodrome I am visiting or my own local, I never just give one call, EVER. First there is my 10 mile call, next there is my overhead & joining call, then there is my established circuit call. If nothing is heard or seen that may be the last call. These are the minimums. If I have not been further than 10 miles (never happens but it could) I'd give a 3 mile joining call & the rest follows. If there are other aircraft seen or broadcasting, then it is establishing radio communication & visual. If that can't be done & it has happened then I'll stay at 1500 & watch till visual is established. My SE2 is useful but at circuit distances virtually useless. Once on the ground after any situation I'll always approach the other pilot to get their comments. Once I was cut off by a C172 & after the later discussion we found his radio was not working. Initially I wanted to yell and chastise him but that never gets any resolution.

Tuning the aerial to the frequency band you most use will improve performance quite a lot. As I fly mostly in CTAF & uncontrolled airspace. I tuned the aerial to 126.7. I monitor area but as they have a powerful transmitter reception is no problem.

We have all 3 heights flown at our aerodrome, twins & turbos 1500, singles 1000 & gyros/trikes 500. Faster heavier aircraft fly wider circuits but lighter aircraft flying the same or similar speeds can fly much tighter circuits. This is where good visual contact and clear concise radio calls are essential as the one flying a tighter circuit could end up in conflict with the one flying the wider circuit.

Of course he will, this is the Airforce after all.

it will be interesting to find out the cause of the engine failure. A Sling went down on the Beach North of Coffs about a year ago. It suffered a catastrophic engine failure & like this one suffered no airframe damage. It had to be airlifted by helicopter off the beach

and it's your money.

$500.00 freight for a few small items IS outrageous. There is little justification for such an amount. This happens all the time especially with US freight companies like Fedex, UPS & DHL. There are always cheaper alternatives, you just have to wait a bit longer. I inadvertently selected Fedex purchasing from Aircraft Spruce when building my aircraft back in 2014. It arrived in 3 days. A $6.00 snap fitting for my air riveter cost $59.00 in freight. If I'd selected the slower option the cost was $9.00.

As I recall there was a lengthy discussion on the spin characteristics of the Bristell when an instructor & student died when they got in to a flat spin a few years ago. The location of the horizontal stabiliser apparently may create a shadow making the rudder ineffective once the flat spin commences making it impossible to get out of.

The wings being torn off would have absorbed a lot of the energy. Given the condition of the fuselage and the type of aircraft the actual impact speed is likely to have been much lower than it would have been with a higher performance aircraft. I have no idea of it's performance envelope but I imagine it would cruise at between 70 & 80 knots Max.

Glad the pilot is not seriously hurt. Any large tree seems to be a magnet for crash landing aircraft. Even if there is only 1 tree in a paddock the aircraft will hit it.