MyFlyDream AAT with FlyTogether

[iPeel]

Those with an MFD AAT who have read through the AAT Driver manual will be aware of the FlyTogether feature. This feature gets even less coverage in the manual than normal, you get teased with a picture and then just a single paragraph explaining the graphic. Instructions on how to set it up are vague and certainly made me ask a few questions like why it needs a lead rather than bluetooth and why if it's a single lead between two trackers do you need to set up an ID on each tracker, of which there are 8 possible IDs. Anyway, the feature seemed cool and as we do a lot of formation / proximity flying I wanted to try it out.

Basically the feature states that if you link two MFD AAT trackers together then they share the two pilot's position and attitude between them. Each AAT Driver then uses the OSD local to the AAT (different to the OSD on the AutoPilot) to overlay the position of the other pilot on your screen, you are meant to see this as a graphic that rotates about the centre of the screen. Along with the plane icon are two numbers, one shows the other pilot's distance from you and the other shows their relative altitude to yours.

Rob decided to sell himself a tracker and today he brought it round so we could try out the feature. In order to link the trackers you make up a crossover cable that links into the DF13 port on the AAT Driver. Ground is common and then pins 2 and 6 are crossed over (transmit to receive and receive to transmit). The cable introduces a new trip hazard to the equation so it'd better be worth it.


click for fullsize image

We tested first on the lower field by powering up both trackers then winced as I plugged in the hand made lead fashioned from a single line of instructions in a Chinglish user manual. Amazingly not only was there an absence of blue smoke but we both instantly saw a new graphic in the middle of our screens. We then pranced around the field like a pair of pillocks to test it out, sadly no video.

We then went for a fly. The feature is amazing, it's very accurate and lets you easily find the other pilot. The other pilot appears on your screen rotated around the centre, so if they are ahead of you they appear above the centre, if they are behind the are below, left is left, you get the picture... The distance and altitude are pretty accurate and using all the information I could generally find Rob pretty quickly. Also the icon of the other plane rotates so as well as knowing where they are in relation to you it's also obvious which direction they are flying in.

Here's a video of our flight, as my field is a bit penned in we had a couple of reception issues but it was good enough to prove out the feature; what it does show though is kind of obvious but if the other guy goes down and they lose telemetry then they instantly disappear from your screen.

Having this enabled is going to be a lot of fun, especially on longer flights where you may get separated en-route, this will let you meet up again without much fuss or delay. It would be good to get this working with bluetooth but there's a bit of a snag that bluetooth is a master / slave protocol and the only adapter I can find that supports master mode currently doesn't support the 1200bps data rate coming out of the MFD. I will continue to look for something better than a long cable.

I also have an unverified hunch about the pilot IDs which can be from one to 8. I'm not sure how far they got but my thought is that if you connect receives and transmits in a ring then all pilots are shared across all AAT Drivers, so with transmits going clockwise and receives going anti-clockwise you create a ring of data, but that needs to be proven or dis-proven.


Neil.

[Cockney Boy]

So if you wanted to link 3 or 4 AAT's together im guessing you need to use that small Hub that comes with teh AAT?

[iPeel]

So if you wanted to link 3 or 4 AAT's together im guessing you need to use that small Hub that comes with teh AAT?

I don't think so as that would cause collisions, if it works in any way at all it'd need something like a transmission ring. I did mail MFD support but got nothing whatsoever back from them.

[Cockney Boy]

Looking at the video on their web site, it shows 4 AAT's linked together, why i assumed it was the hub. i made the cable up but did as a stright through  :(

[Brucey]

Cool feature, could of saved us a lot of time in the past!

[Cockney Boy]

Cool feature, could of saved us a lot of time in the past!

I have a 12Ch AAT going cheap :)

[AdamG]

Great feature  :D Looking forward to trying it in the future!

[Brucey]

I have a 12Ch AAT going cheap :)

Going to need a long lead to reach Kenya!

[Coyote]

It works very well, takes the guesswork out, some of the comical moments too :) But no, impressive none the less.

[Brucey]

Do you think this would work with just the telemetry module on the plane and not the full AP?

[iPeel]

Do you think this would work with just the telemetry module on the plane and not the full AP?

Yes mate, it'll work with the TeleFly too but your own OSD will look different, the TeleFly doesn't have an AHI. If you're thinking of using it with the Ruby OSD then the Telefly OSD can be switched off to just give telemetry and the buddy info will be superimposed over your Ruby.

[iPeel]

It works very well, takes the guesswork out, some of the comical moments too :) But no, impressive none the less.

Yeah I was buzzing after that flight because it worked so well. I can imagine some real fun being had, like seeing how close you can get with full speed head on passes!

[BigT]

Link to video please



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[AdamG]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZR-8p0lpUw

[iPeel]

Link to video please



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZR-8p0lpUw

I don't think the Youtube links work on Tapatalk, but the URL links on the website require Flash, and I have no intention of installing that piece of crap.