[USNBandit]

I fly in an area that has several fairly high traffic fields all on a common traffic frequency. On top of that there are a bunch of low traffic grass strips all over the place. The locals keep the tourists in line when they don't make the common reporting points. It is usually a pretty gentlemanly affair, but you don't want to tick off the old codgers. It is an area where I am very happy to have TCAS on the aircraft I fly.

Two weeks ago I saw three airplanes in 3/4 mile echelon on each other all racing to one airport. It gets even worse when you have a ceiling and everybody gets compressed down to two VFR altitudes.

[jwparkerjr]

re: very happy to have TCAS

I’ve not flown with the comfort of that! Does it require that both aircraft have the system for it to work?

I remember years ago a device that could sense the presence of a strobe from a mile or so away. It looked for the frequency of the light from a strobe. It’s apparently different enough from other lights to make it pretty selective. I saw them being marketed for ultralights. Talk about a bunch of aircraft all doing their own thing!

One company had a strobe that was designed to be more visible to the systems that looked for strobes.

I have not seen anything on this in years or even heard about it. Could be that it was one of those inventions that looked better on paper than in reality!