Now jimmyboy, you quoted me, and then stated that the quote showed I have an ego. I made a statement of fact, and fact is without ego. Can you dispute that fact? You cannot. Wherein then is the ego, in your own self righteous
indignation?
No you said an aircraft has to equipped with a Mode S transponder to appear on TCAS. That is not true.
In that much, you are correct...Mode C as well as mode S. However, the thrust of my comment, which you missed entirely in your response, was that often traffic doesn't appear. I've met far too many pigheaded pilots who let their gagetry do their thinking for them, especially the TCAS. The idea that it will even pick up the majority of the traffic out there is flawed. A handy tool, but a limited one, and it should be treated and thought of in that way. Lots of non-talking, non-sqawking traffic out there, and even the traffic that is squawking frequently doesn't show up.
We tend to think of the TCAS as expanding our circle of awareness...after all, isn't it amazing how much traffic it helps us spot that we would have missed, otherwise? Of course it is. Lots of traffic. Conversely, however, often it leads to complacency when we think in these terms. While it's great that the box picks up traffic, perhaps we would be better served by thinking in terms of everything it
isn't seeing.
TCAS looks up/down something like 2500' when in "normal" Above/Below is 9900'.
Now that depends on the installation. Some are 2,000 up and down with 6,000 in above and below. Mine presently is two thousand up and down with eight thousand when assigned "above" and "below." Not that it really matters.
The hell you don't. Tell me, Mr. King$hit know-it-all, how many times when traffic has been called to you, and it DOES happen to show up on the TCAS, and you have YET to see it visually, that you relied on your eyeballs (that happen to be superior to any electronic device known to man) without once looking back down at the TCAS to help guide your visual scan to pick up that traffic? If you say never, then you are full of $hit. If you are honest and say "usually", then you have something to work with in assisting you in acquiring visual contact sooner than you would have otherwise. Oh yeah, what was it that alerted you to the traffic when it was 12 miles out to begin with? A radio? Say it isn't so. See and avoid is great. See and avoid with a little help from technology is even better. Rant complete.
Rant complete, and as always, entirely beside the point, and without significance. At least you're consistant.
At what time have I ever said I don't use the TCAS? Never. At what time have I ever said it's a useless device? Never.
What I did say is that attempting to respond to an ATC announcement of a traffic alert or traffic in general with "gottem' on TCAS" is pointless. ATC cannot base any action on weather or not you see traffic on TCAS, it doesn't help anybody out to tell them that...and you may not even be seeing the correct traffic. Therefore, keep your trap shut until you have visual contact...because for ATC purposes, and AIM purposes, and traffic avoidance in general, you haven't "got traffic" when it's on the fish finder. You've got a dot on the screen with a differential altitude readout (maybe). That's all.
Point of fact: I use TCAS all the time, and it's a regular part of my scan, inside and out. I don't spout out ignorant statements like "Got him on TCAS," however. If you'd bothered to read my comments previously, you'd understand that. Other posters did read my comments, and virtually all agreed...except you...you who spends much more time finding little ways to invent an in for a personal attack than contributing to any conversation. As I said, at least you're consistant. Not worth spit on a pig, but consistant. Play again.
