The New Pace of Gliding ..... or the past two years, me it's a joy to see that there's This document allowed the a group of technically gliding activity even in less development of hardware skilled glider pilots have gorgeous days. devices which proved to be Fstarted to use traffic compatible with the Swiss traffic• awareness data messages, sent THE ENCRYPTION awareness system. by "anti-collision" devices, as received by ground stations. The Flarm data transmission By the way, let me declare Initially it was all about safety protocol is encrypted, but in 2008 my admiration for the simple in and around traffic areas of it was cracked by a mysterious concept and the effectiveness of airports whilst allowing for hacker who published a the Flarm device. automated logbook keeping. comprehensive document (a link Their success encouraged a in the Flarm Wikipedia leads I have no doubt that it has group of the developers to take to the text) and signed it with greatly helped reduce the their program to an even higher the serial numbers of his own number of in-flight collisions level by relaying the decrypted wristwatch and of a GPS, so if between gliders and against position data over the Internet. someday he reveals himself, we ground obstacles in the Alps My club in Varese, Italy, uses a can be sure it's really him. (wires, antennas). regular Flarm unit "I:IUI::II connected to a PC, o .. : :Aircraft:: .. NLirnberg Am~erg in order to keep o CN: BL Ansbach Neumarkl Ch Regist: D·KMBL track of all aircraft o o o c Flarm Id: 3E7BC5 Roth movements, as Regensburg Type: Tow Plane required by the local Treuchthnqen o Owner: FLG Blaubeuren o Straub Airfield: EDMC law. This is one of Ingolstadt 00 Model: HK36 Super Dimona o the reasons why Freq.: 130.600 Landshul Last time: 18:59:01 Flarm is compulsory o Latitude: 48.455200 equipment at our Longitude: 10.048200 club. By the way, the club's website shows a map of the airport traffic area where anyone can see all detected aircraft (and you can even listen to the radio chat, live). Nice, or harsh, if you're sitting at work or in bed with flu, depending on your mood! For 4 in Germany, the sky is grey and foggy, but on http://live. glidernet.org I can see a Super Dimona spiralling up the Engelberg mountain at 2.900metres in Switzerland. Its signal is being received by a ground station in Interlaken, some 50 kmaway. At the same time, a Twin Astir is lazily maintaining altitude in Scotland in a weak fI one• knotter". As I clickon Collisions are rare, but the station, thanks to the decryption the aircraft's own icon, a small human implications are always document and using a good window opens with all the dramatic to say the least, as antenna, a USBbroadcast details the owner has indicated they involve responsibilities television receiver, a small and authorised when setting the towards other individuals, and processing module like a preferences of his Flarm device. their families as well. While Raspberry Pi or similar (Banana They range from a maximum I'm deeply grateful for this Pi, Cubieboard 2, Odroid U3, or of indetermination, to specific addition to the safety of gliding, simply a partition on a PC). details such as registration marks, I would have firmly preferred In the best conditions, a make and model, even the name an fI open" system as was the reception range of Flarm devices of the pilot. original declaration by the Swiss is 100km which has been Lacking basic info, the development group back in 2003. achieved. Impressive! The data website assigns a casual set But more on this later. can then be sent to a server on of characters. More and more the Internet, which makes it aircraft have a Flarm onboard in BEST RANGE visible for anyone as it is super• Europe, especially in Germany Off-the-shelf hardware can imposed over a world map. with the whole Alpine territory, be used to set up a receiver As I'm writing, I'm in a house including helicopters and C i! live.glidernet.org (.48012;' 'Ono]1 _ 8 'C/ @ :: II\¥h.t H.pperled to ." : ~~Pertecip. L', Mondo ~ Vod.fC'lne· ControlL .). Offri 0 trove on pus,., " D AltrtPrefentl 15m X I i2~m lit' I i"Om X I 11~tn"" I 99-m'( I 1.5111X I 79S111'" I 6m X I 136m+• I ~8~m X 39-:-m ..... Above: What you see in a generic map, while the menu shows the list of all received aircraft. (Youcan arrange those by name, altitude, contest number etc.). 5 airplanes on file. traced, especially if they haven't Network. A list of current taken any care about what can registered ground stations is SOFTWARE AND DATA be broadcast. For example, it available with technical details took me less than a minute to and pictures, at: http: / / wiki. You can easily find the identify the motorglider over the glidernet.org / list-of-receivers Open Glider Network group Engelberg as a Super Dimona, First, you have to get a of developers. Some of them and to find in Google the official Raspberry Pi (B)computer for are also working on a small base airport and the name of about $US3S.It's small and compatible transmitter as a the owner. So, if you care about features an ARM processor, side project, with the aim of privacy, select "no" to the "send Ethernet network port, up to producing an open-source Flarm ID menu" and registration 512 MB of RAM and a few USB "tracking system" for gliders. in your device settings. ports, including a 4GB SD card They explicitly declare that they Imagine if you made up an as mass and system storage. are not willing to provide an excuse with your boss to go The OS is a simple variant of alternative anti-collision device. gliding on a beautiful day, and Linux. For the initial setup, a A lot of opportunities may be he catches you having fun in the home computer will use a classic Terminal emulator, same as you would do for old routers and . ... I ... other vintage devices. All the software you need is ready to be •..•••••••.•••..•• /1-.•••.•.•....•• f···········.".>':"...........-e : ~".~.' .•••••••. ...'>":,"' copied as an image on receivers: the SD card. tier Second, you must select a DVB-t receiver based on the RTL2832Uchipset, which allows the software to set the , infr. correct listening pub/sub I r. Internet .--_fJ<JI>".t!!su:....~_~.....~ , eUb/sub frequencies. If the Raspberry has an ................."/' :::..r: . Internet connection ................... ~' r············ .~'':..:~:~ . through Ethernet or I the optional WiFi, all decrypted data will be sent to one of the APRS servers and they will appear on the map Schematic of the present system page. Third, the antenna. The small opening, though I wouldn't go Alps at 3,000 metres. Alleged standard DVB-t antenna will be as far as to say that the ATC airspace incursions might also good for the first ground tests, services might make use of be detected, but a lawyer would but will have a limited range. Flarm receiving stations, not demonstrate (at a cost!) that a There are two better alternatives: even unofficially, as they lack non-certified data source can't a Ground-plane antenna (a very any chance to enter a fully be proof enough for a guilty common type for amateur radio) certified working environ-ment. sentence. Nevertheless, please with a preamplifier, and the respect airspace rules, as from Collinear antenna design. The BIG BROTHER them comes the future of our latter looks like a long plastic All this spreading of inform• sport. Already too many lobbies tube, inside of which are a series ation comes with an impact. are working to segregate VFR of skilfully cut and soldered Anyone can observe Flarm flights in restricted areas. pieces of coaxial cable of precise traffics (or ADS-b traffics on dimensions. If you have an similar websites) where some LET'S BUILD interest about this antenna, ground stations have been please have a look at the ARRL connected to the Internet. You may want to make your Antenna Book, page 248 (online Flarmnet already offers a own experiments, or follow at: http://bit.do / TgXW ). database of devices, so the pilots the available set of instructions Flarm units, when operated in should be aware that they can be published by the Open Glider Europe, use the 868 MHz band, which is licence-free for small 6 petitions, while permitting also easy access to data for Search and Rescue operations. It's easy to understand that, in order to allow all this, the transmitted data will be encrypted with a new code. The small Atmel processor installed in Flarm devices can't support the very high calculation properties necessary for a very strong encryption, but nevertheless some experts have identified some tricks which, if adopted by Flarm, might make an independent decryption very time consuming, in the region of many weeks or months of New open tracking device as tested in Poland hard work. This is to say that all this nice power devices like remote of March 2015as the older Glidemet traffic service may controls and intruder alarms. v5 will stop working. This shortly fall into the control of TV accessories work at has happened in the past, as the Flarm factory. very similar frequencies, so programmed and clearly stated there's plenty to choose from Whether the firm will be in terms of amplifiers and by the factory "in the interest able to immediately provide receivers.