Zaon XRX Now in My Carbon Cub

[seastar]

Bob
I doubt there are any patents. The technology is old.

It may be liability insurance.
When I first started my current company (www.Ritron.com) I designed an inexpensive aircraft com handheld for use by airport ground crews.
The third year we sold it the liability insurance because it was for "aircraft" cost almost as much as our net sales of the product for the year.
I killed the product rather than double the price.
Aviation wasn't our primary market so we didn't need the hassle.
I am sure that part of the high price of a Carbon Cub is liability insurance.

Another factor is the very high cost of development and very small market numbers.
I was considering developing a remote mount transponder for small aircraft panels like our Cub's but the market is too small to justify the development cost with all the competition already in place.

Keep us up to date on the performance of the Zaon.

BTW, I have the Garmin traffic system in my Cub and it works as long as you are high enough to be interrogated by the ground equipment.
I think it was worth the cost.
Bill

[turbopilot]

Bob

BTW, I have the Garmin traffic system in my Cub and it works as long as you are high enough to be interrogated by the ground equipment.
I think it was worth the cost.
Bill

Which Garmin traffic system did you install? I thought the only traffic systems made by Garmin were the GTS series which is an active TAS.

[glickle]

Hi guys happy to chime in here since I think I may have started this whole discussion a while ago. Great to hear from the guy who actually invented this, Thanks Bill, Thats great info. My first S2 had the Garmin TIS option and for me it was a total waste as 90% of the time I was not either high enough or within radar coverage for it to work. In fact the first few months I thought it was inop and took it to an avionics shop who asked me to climb to 3000 ft near PBI to first test it and sure nuf it worked. But almost never after that and that included 2 trips to Oshkosh from Florida and only saw it report traffic a few times. Sooooooo on round 2 when I bought my Carbon Cub I opted for the ZAON and noticed the following
1) Half the price of TIS and full time traffic reporting regardless of altitude and or radar environment
2) While the ZAON does get confused as to direction reporting its does exactly what you say ie gives a heads up so you are looking for tarffic when you otherwise might not. I have gotten pretty good at interpolating when it is directionally reversed so better to be alerted and looking than with my old TIS never being alerted. Agreed maybe they will come out with a remote antenna mount which might be more directionally accurate or maybe you might be able to figure one out and since we are experimental no TSO stuff required? I would be interested in the remote antenna even if to test it. Best Gary.

[randylervold]

2) While the ZAON does get confused as to direction reporting its does exactly what you say ie gives a heads up so you are looking for tarffic when you otherwise might not. I have gotten pretty good at interpolating when it is directionally reversed so better to be alerted and looking than with my old TIS never being alerted. Agreed maybe they will come out with a remote antenna mount which might be more directionally accurate or maybe you might be able to figure one out and since we are experimental no TSO stuff required? I would be interested in the remote antenna even if to test it. Best Gary.

Gary, you're far more accomodating than I am. Back when several customers asked for Zaons (yep, you were the first!) and we started selling them we had one installed in our old Bonanza so we could speak personally to its efficacy. To me the Bonanza was a better test bed because we fly it higher and over longer distances, and we had it way out on the glareshield where there was no airframe interference as there is with the tubes in the Cub airframe.

After several long trips I had it removed, here's why: the data it presents is so unreliable that it impairs the pilot's ability to make a decision based on it. I've been on flight following quite a bit with it and had it completely miss targets that center called out to me, had it flip/flop targets directionally as you mention, and had spontaneous targets (ghosts) appear that weren't really there. Bottom line: as PIC can you make a decision based on the data presented? I could not so I took it out.

All that said let me confess a bit of a personal bias: to me an instrument in an aircraft has one sole purpose -- to present data to the pilot. As such it should be as ACCURATE as possible. To me close isn't good enough, I want/need accurate data so I can make decisions accordingly. So, when selecting instruments accuracy and reliablity are the single most important attributes to me, followed then by ergonomics or the intuitiveness of the presentation. That's why I don't like old fashioned mechanical airspeed indicators and such, they are simply an order of magnitude less accurate than any of the newer generation electronic instruments, I have proven this to myself countless times with real life actual examples. A traffic system that gives me data that is correct maybe 60% of the time just won't cut it for me -- when a target is presented and I should break right immediately to avoid a collision should I do it or not? Sorry, any ambiguity regarding a pending collision is not acceptable to me, I'd rather just rely on my eyes. Eventually ADS-B will take care of this anyway, we all just need to wait a few years.

Ok, off soapbox now, just one pilot's opinion, fwiw.

[turbopilot]

I'd rather just rely on my eyes. Eventually ADS-B will take care of this anyway, we all just need to wait a few years.

Ok, off soapbox now, just one pilot's opinion, fwiw.

The Zaon is an imperfect solution at best. The false alerts are annoying but they do remind me to be eyeballs up. I find the false alerts low level to be most annoying. Seems to be detection of my aircraft transponder being reflected off the ground.

Not sure even ADS-B will be a good solution for the CC even by 2020. As I understand ADS-B you need to get a terrestrial radio signal for traffic information. That is an issue for a CC operating close to the ground away from population centers. An active traffic system is really what is needed for our little corner of the world.

Have you given any consideration to the Garmin GTS800 for the Carbon Cub? Single antenna version are now being offered at $8,789 on the internet. The problem is that you have to exchange the Garmin GTX327 transponder for the GTX330 Mode S transponder which drives up the weight and cost.

I am thinking about doing this in my CC. Maybe putting the processor on the back shelf, antenna overhead on top of green house and of course the display would be on the existing GDU375. Any thoughts?

As to weight maybe I could shed about 12 lbs to break even.

[clipwingcub]

Not sure even ADS-B will be a good solution for the CC even by 2020. As I understand ADS-B you need to get a terrestrial radio signal for traffic information. That is an issue for a CC operating close to the ground away from population centers. An active traffic system is really what is needed for our little corner of the world.

Have you given any consideration to the Garmin GTS800 for the Carbon Cub? Single antenna version are now being offered at $8,789 on the internet. The problem is that you have to exchange the Garmin GTX327 transponder for the GTX330 Mode S transponder which drives up the weight and cost.

I am thinking about doing this in my CC. Maybe putting the processor on the back shelf, antenna overhead on top of green house and of course the display would be on the existing GDU375. Any thoughts?

As to weight maybe I could shed about 12 lbs to break even.

I am planning to put ads-b in my Carbon Cub EX that I am building. I have good coverage in my area (both TIS-B and FIS-B, and want to get away from the no customer service from XM, along with their increasing fees.

There are two ways to meet the compliance for 2020 - using 1090ES, or UAT. 1090ES is intended for fast and high aircraft, and does not include FIS-B. Your approach with the GTX330 is 1090, but you will need to upgrade it to ES (Extended Squitter), which Garmin claims they will do. We'll see. The biggest negative to us with 1090ES for us with smaller, trying to keep it light aircraft, is that you need a TSO compliant GPS along with that for your position transmitts, which means you need a Garmin 430 or equivalent. That just adds more weight, and not likely needed in our VFR birds. You do need to be in range of a ground station to get full benefit, however, until retired by the FAA, you can still get traffic in TIS-B areas, and whatever your GTX330 will pick up from other aircraft will display on the GDU375.

With UAT, you have to look at the Navworx, which is shipping, Freeflight, or Sandia which are not shipping yet. This is the direction I plan to go. These will have TSO GPS built in, and are lightweight. Unfortunately Garmin is hanging it's hat on profits from selling WX equipment, and won't interface with these for FIS-B. TIS-B will work on the Garmin from any of these. You don't need a mode-S transponder either. A mode-S can be combined if you are in a TIS-B area, but not an ADS-B area yet to combine the traffic targets. I'm hoping that Dynon Skyview soon adds the interface to these, as that seems to be the lowest cost and weight way to go.

Tony

[Pete D]

Have you given any consideration to the Garmin GTS800 for the Carbon Cub? Single antenna version are now being offered at $8,789 on the internet. The problem is that you have to exchange the Garmin GTX327 transponder for the GTX330 Mode S transponder which drives up the weight and cost.


As to weight maybe I could shed about 12 lbs to break even.

We are just finishing a GTS800 installation in a Top Cub. It is HEAVY, and expensive. The GTS800 reqiures the GTX327, whereas the GTS820 and 850 (very much more expensive yet) require the GTX330 mode S transponder.

Hopefully I'll know here by the end of today how well it works. I'm not sure it is practical for any type of Cub though...But, happy to do what the customer wants.

Pete D.

[clipwingcub]

Pete,
I believe to get the benefit of ADS-B (TIS-B) with the 800 or 820/850, you have to combine with the GTRX330ES (with extended squitter. The problem as I understand is that unless you are providing ADS-B out, the ground stations don't transmitt, so you would only get active, not passive targets. Which you could get anyway with just a mode-s transponder with any of the 37x GDU's.

Garmin's GDL90 (UAT with TSO GPS) would be a better option, except it only displays on the GMX200 MFD.

T

[Pete D]

In our installation, using a single GNS530W, we only had one ARINC 429, which both the GTS 800 and the GTX 330 needed. If you had multiple GNS 530 s or some other kind of GPS you were interfacing with it would be possible to use the 330 transpoder. Which is another issue you would have putting the GTS 800 in a Carbon Cub. Currently, I don't believe any of the GPSs we offer have ARINC 429 capability.

Pete D.

[clipwingcub]

Yep, big, "Heavy", takes up lots of panel space, and really doesn't solve the problem to get ADS-B in.

I'm pretty much convinced that a 1090 solution is not the way to go for the Sport or Carbon Cubs.