Now that I have had a chance to see the system in action now for several days, I figured I would post my experience with the system.
Overall, I am really impressed with how well ADS-B works here in the US. One of the areas I fly at is near the top of a hill. This means I do not have a clear view of what is on the other side of the hill with regards to manned aircraft coming my way. There have been a few times now where I had a plane coming in from behind the hill and the ADS-B system gave me a warning of where the plane was located on the map, the direction the plane was heading and even the level of severity as the plane approached. Here's how the system works.
As a manned aircraft approaches the system starts giving a warning by saying there is a manned aircraft approaching. The warning is a text warning like the one you would receive if you battery was starting to run low. The first warning is orange in color and if you are in FPV when it comes on the map in the bottom left corner gets an orange border that starts to flash. If you bring up the map, you will see the manned aircraft icon and that icon will move in the direction the plane is moving. This is really nice since you will also see where the Mavic is located to make sure you are nowhere in the path of the approaching plane.
If the manned aircraft is not close to the Mavic's location the warning stays in orange and then goes away once the plane gets out of range. However, if the manned aircraft continues getting closer, the warning will switch to red and a verbal warning will be heard as well. Yesterday, I had just taken off and had the Mavic hovering at 10 feet off the ground. The system saw an approaching plane from behind the hill I was on so I left the Mavic hovering at 10 feet right in front of me. The system went from orange to red and I could see the icon on the screen approaching my location directly. As the plane kept approaching, I continued to get the verbal warnings and then the remote actually started vibrating just before the plane got to my location. As it turned out, not only did the plane fly right overhead of my location, but it was a smaller aircraft that was flying really close to the top of the hill I was on. Since the system does not show the altitude of the manned aircraft, I assume that the system somehow knew the manned aircraft was somewhat close to the Mavic's altitude since I have had commercial aircraft fly overhead over 10,000 feet and did not see any warning at all.
Like I said, overall I am really impressed with the system. The only improvement I could see is the ability to see the altitude of the approaching plane, but overall I think it is a very useful tool to make sure you are nowhere near the path of an approaching manned aircraft.
Overall, I am really impressed with how well ADS-B works here in the US. One of the areas I fly at is near the top of a hill. This means I do not have a clear view of what is on the other side of the hill with regards to manned aircraft coming my way. There have been a few times now where I had a plane coming in from behind the hill and the ADS-B system gave me a warning of where the plane was located on the map, the direction the plane was heading and even the level of severity as the plane approached. Here's how the system works.
As a manned aircraft approaches the system starts giving a warning by saying there is a manned aircraft approaching. The warning is a text warning like the one you would receive if you battery was starting to run low. The first warning is orange in color and if you are in FPV when it comes on the map in the bottom left corner gets an orange border that starts to flash. If you bring up the map, you will see the manned aircraft icon and that icon will move in the direction the plane is moving. This is really nice since you will also see where the Mavic is located to make sure you are nowhere in the path of the approaching plane.
If the manned aircraft is not close to the Mavic's location the warning stays in orange and then goes away once the plane gets out of range. However, if the manned aircraft continues getting closer, the warning will switch to red and a verbal warning will be heard as well. Yesterday, I had just taken off and had the Mavic hovering at 10 feet off the ground. The system saw an approaching plane from behind the hill I was on so I left the Mavic hovering at 10 feet right in front of me. The system went from orange to red and I could see the icon on the screen approaching my location directly. As the plane kept approaching, I continued to get the verbal warnings and then the remote actually started vibrating just before the plane got to my location. As it turned out, not only did the plane fly right overhead of my location, but it was a smaller aircraft that was flying really close to the top of the hill I was on. Since the system does not show the altitude of the manned aircraft, I assume that the system somehow knew the manned aircraft was somewhat close to the Mavic's altitude since I have had commercial aircraft fly overhead over 10,000 feet and did not see any warning at all.
Like I said, overall I am really impressed with the system. The only improvement I could see is the ability to see the altitude of the approaching plane, but overall I think it is a very useful tool to make sure you are nowhere near the path of an approaching manned aircraft.