Add more intelligence to traffic alerts

Hook

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Official iFly Beta User
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I've been harping on this subject off and on, in the old forum. Here's the deal: we should not get alerts for traffic that won't pose a threat unless they're close enough that a change in that aircraft's speed or direction, or ours, could then pose a threat.

How close is "close"? The developer could enforce a setting here based on speeds, or allow the user to set it the distance. BTW, this setting is different than the current user-specified distance-threshold setting in Traffic Alerts. This is an "emergency traffic distance threshold".

The list below actually ended up being in order of probably-hardest-to-do to probably-easiest. Also in order of I'd-like-to-see-this to definitely-want-to-see-this. Here's where I think traffic alerts should be suppressed if the user selects that as an option:
  1. Traffic that is ahead of me, on a course that will intercept mine, but due to our relative speeds and/or distance that traffic will cross my course line way ahead of me getting there. That is, I will still be x miles (emergency traffic distance) or more short of that spot by the time that traffic crosses my course. Despite the intersecting course lines, there is no possible collision possibility if we hold to our respective courses & speeds.
  2. Traffic that is ahead of me, but descending (or climbing) and will be below (above) my set vertical clearance threshold for traffic alerts by the time I get within the x miles of that traffic. If we hold to our respective descent/climb rates.
  3. Traffic that is ahead of me, but on a diverging course (it will never intercept my course line if we hold to our courses).
  4. Traffic that is behind me, on an intercept course (or not far off intercept), but is slower than me.
  5. And the one that most certainly should not be alerted on: Traffic that is behind me on a divergent course -- the most extreme example being if it's heading 180 degrees away from me.
Further, as suggested in another post, once a traffic alert is no longer pertinent it should be taken down automatically. Don't keep clutter on the screen, potentially obscuring actual current problems.

It's easy for me to say, but I think items 3-5 should be do'able. I would especially like to see items 4 & 5 addressed. 99% of alerts for traffic behind me are just annoyances. But items 1 & 2... there I'm asking for the software to predict the future location of two aircraft. I can see in my mind how I'd do it by creating a hockey puck of possible positions for both aircraft in x minutes from now and looking to see if the two pucks are at least the x emergency-distance miles away from each other. If they are, then it's physically impossible that there's going to be an issue unless either or both aircraft speed up. Actually, I think that method solves all the items in the list. But I don't think the last two or three items should require any heavy-duty logic or hockey pucks.

Lastly, to emphasize this point: even if this feature request is implemented and logic is applied as a user-selected option to suppress some alerts, once traffic gets within the x miles then no suppression is done -- all traffic in that radius is definitely alerted on no matter the respective courses and speeds.

My list above is surely not exhaustive. Feel free to add to it. Or criticize it. Probably it'll get criticized. But can we agree that at the very least that traffic that's moving away behind us should not cause an alert?

State your views in a reply and "upvote" or "downvote" by using the arrows to the right of this post.
 
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Traffic behind and moving away is a non-threat. We like what Hook has posted.
 
Seems like most of this data is already available in the settings and traffic alerts pop-up/info button. I've used it several times in watch and see mode, and a couple of times used the info to call out the other aircraft and coordinate our paths/arrival sequence. And once to call out a guy who was about to cut me off, on an established downwind as #2 in sequence, and fly into me in a belly up mid-air! Scary!! He obviously wasn't paying attention, but thanks to iFly, I was. Thanks for saving my bacon, iFly team!
 
While I understand your viewpoint on this subject, I have a possible point that may be overlooked (and let it be known that this is me thinking and in no way posting on behalf of our developers): The biggest issue I can think of is using some sort of algorithm (time consuming) to track and predict other aircraft flight data. What I mean is this, having an alert threshold is much more simple and resource efficient for our devices whereas trying to track individual aircraft and attempt to calculate if there is a possible course overlap/collision in the near future is more consuming (if possible). The ADS-B information coming from an aircraft may not even be enough to create an algorithm for this. (I cannot say that it's impossible to do because I don't know).
Again, I do not, in any way, officially answer on behalf of our developers. This is just my thinking and approach to the subject.
 
Your thoughts are appreciated, and I agree that it may be hard to predict (but I don't really think so -- there is a finite radius of possible positions in the next x miles or x minutes for the two aircraft involved, and if there's no intersection then there's no possible conflict). But even given that, you'll notice that I ranked the suggested improvements in decreasing order of difficulty (and inverse order of desirability). Numbers 4 and 5 are the easiest to do, most logical to do, and most desired (at least by me and couple of other folks). Because traffic behind me, unless it's overtaking me, should not pop up an alert.

[Edit: ...unless the traffic behind me is very close.]
 
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I'm w Schell. Case in point, recent flight had a target pop-up that looked like it would intercept, then it didn't, then it did, etc etc. ((Helicopter in tight circles, as it turned out.)) Why add that burden to SW? We already get blue, yellow or red indicators as traffic closes, plus info and announcements as needed. Until AI comes on board...in which case they won't need pilots anymore... I'm really happy w what we have!
 
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