>>Personally, I foresee a future where we will all have some form of compulsory >>collision avoidance system. I think that it is unavoidable (pardon the joke).
All this is true. There is an interesting article about UAVs in the current issue of Flight Safety. It has a fairly strong promotional tone and prefers to talk about them as something like remotely piloted vehicles rather than unmanned (if you can call a pimply teenager a remote pilot). I don't think that there is any doubt that these things are going to be very popular and reading between the lines, the it seems likely that bush operations for mining, surveying, bush fires, stock control etc. will be very early adopters of UAVs because they are not over populated areas. So the things will be operating on our turf. In all the discussions in Flight Safety etc, there is barely a mention of anything other than needing to have systems to see and avoid anything other than RPT or full GA aircraft. There's no discussion of recreational aircraft, let alone things like hang gliders, paragliders, parachutists and model fliers who all together probably outnumber GA aircraft by a significant margin. Like Flarm, any of these electronic anti-collision systems are fine if everyone has them but while a large percentage of airspace users are not fitted with any form of radio, let alone something more sophisticated, it's a bit pointless. In any case, if the Flight Safety article is correct, it won't be GA air traffic which is forcing the issue, it will be UAVs. D _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
