Who uses a radio to monitor air traffic while flying their quadcopter and why?

[sar104]

Flight Radar 24 only sees aircraft with ADS-B a relatively new technology that is included in most larger and commercial aircraft. ADS-B is not fitted to any of the training aircraft at our country flying school or local gliders or most ultralights etc. You are definitely not seeing the whole picture with flight radar. You will hear most aircraft before flight radar shows it near your location except maybe the gliders who will sneak up on you.

Actually in the US it also uses MLAT and radar data.

 

[Bob4131]

Flight Radar 24 only sees aircraft with ADS-B a relatively new technology that is included in most larger and commercial aircraft. ADS-B is not fitted to any of the training aircraft at our country flying school or local gliders or most ultralights etc. You are definitely not seeing the whole picture with flight radar. You will hear most aircraft before flight radar shows it near your location except maybe the gliders who will sneak up on you.

In NA and Europe, Flightradar24 supplements ADS-B with data from MLAT (NA & Europe) , radar (NA) and FLARM (Europe). A simplified statement is that in the US, most aircraft are required to broadcast ADS-B if they fly in controlled airspace as of Jan 2020.

 

[Russ Still]

Perhaps I am missing something obvious, but if a manned aircraft is announcing arrival or departure from non-towered airport, to whom are they talking?

This should have been covered in your training when you were prepping for the test. At non-towered airports, pilots self-announce on the CTAF. You can find the CTAF freq on the sectional chart and in the A/FD (as well as other places).

 

[DanMan32]

@JS1600 quoted my post
c. UAS PIC may be required to maintain direct two-way radio communication with ATC, and if required must comply. When necessary, the ATC frequency will be provided to operator during the ATC coordination prior to flight.

Mine was issued by DroneZone as the airport I got authorization to fly near is not LAANC

Strange since new rules specified not to contact ATC. They were trying to keep our noise down.

 

[sar104]

Strange since new rules specified not to contact ATC. They were trying to keep our noise down.

You are not permitted to get authorization through ATC, but that doesn't preclude the authorization that you get from the FAA requiring some level of coordination with ATC while operating.

 

[BigAl07]

Strange since new rules specified not to contact ATC. They were trying to keep our noise down.

Dan you're missing the point. The FAA didn't/doesn't want every UAS operator clogging ATC with simple airspace requests which completely makes sense. Many "authorizations" etc have had "Contact ATC" requirements for a few years now.

 

[Blakey01]

In NA and Europe, Flightradar24 supplements ADS-B with data from MLAT (NA & Europe) , radar (NA) and FLARM (Europe). A simplified statement is that in the US, most aircraft are required to broadcast ADS-B if they fly in controlled airspace as of Jan 2020.

It may also be worth mentioning for those interested, that radar is a line of sight only technology and its operation is obscured by terrain. At our country airport in Victoria we do not get a radar return "paint" on our transponders until around 1000 feet. Australia, unlike the US, has very limited radar coverage and outside controlled airspace and at low altitudes, it is almost non-existent. In this UAV forum, I think its most important to stress to those that are unclear that there is no single technology that will give you ALL the traffic.