iFly GPS Forum

I really ought to learn how to use ADS-B traffic in my iFlys. Recently I had a somewhat close encounter with a Seahawk helicopter that was operating in the ADS-B system and showed up in the two iFly devices--740 and iPhone--in my airplane. The only problem was that I didn't catch on that we were on convergent courses quickly enough to do anything useful about it. Fortunately, I was running wingtip strobes, and my LED landing lights were wig-wagging brightly. The Seahawk guys appeared to see me first and changed coursed--or at any rate they changed course abruptly, for whatever reason.

It was a test flight and I had two cockpit video cameras running at the time. Also I had a still camera in the right seat that got a few shots of the instrument panel, even though the focus was set to infinity.

Here's a quick video, just for fun (mine):  https://youtu.be/MUTTawB_oBE

(The video is "unlisted," meaning that anyone with the link can watch it, but it's not listed anywhere on YouTube.)

Mike, one of the iFly things I learned in that flight is that the best traffic alert--for me, at least--is that pre-EFIS black Traffic Radar instrument. I hadn't seen it in about a year and have no idea what caused it to pop up on the iPhone like that.  (I'll find out, though.) 

I don't like the normal traffic avoidance alerts because they're hard to read and respond to, especially when there's anything else going on at the time.  And the audio alerts are useless (to me) because I know of no easy way to feed them into the airplane's intercom. (I'll check on that, too, though.) But that big black square is a whole lot easier to notice, understand, and maybe react to. (I didn't notice it at first that time, but I really was preoccupied with the main purpose of the flight--making sure that the engine kept running.)

Most of us Searey (and other seaplane) pilots hate those alerts because we're typically flying low and landing in off-airport waterways. So many of us disable alerts--most or all of them. I've been experimenting with leaving some on lately, but I HATE the interruptions, so they're going off again soon. It's my one iFly aggravation: I like the idea, but not the reality. But I probably just haven't figured out how to use them properly.  Still working on that.