I guess this may be old news to many, but today I flew for the first time in a C172 equipped with TIS-B traffic alerts on the MFD. Wow, what an eye opener. There were between 2 to 5 other planes in the area most of the time, and even with them shown on the moving map, it was not easy to spot them always with my eyes. It's nice because it gives you audible warnings when something is a threat, so you don't normally have to keep looking at unit inside the cockpit.
Twice it annunciated "Traffic!" and both times almost gave me a heart attack. One of them was a plane climbing pretty much right underneath us from behind. The display was showing -05 (500 feet below) and it kept decreasing to -01 as we turned to try see the traffic. We turned and he passed behind us climbing, maybe 1500 feet or so behind. I wonder if he saw us?
I really wonder how much traffic is out there that I normally am completely unaware of. I got the feeling that I don't want to fly without one of these anymore
Joe
Twice it annunciated "Traffic!" and both times almost gave me a heart attack. One of them was a plane climbing pretty much right underneath us from behind. The display was showing -05 (500 feet below) and it kept decreasing to -01 as we turned to try see the traffic. We turned and he passed behind us climbing, maybe 1500 feet or so behind. I wonder if he saw us?
I really wonder how much traffic is out there that I normally am completely unaware of. I got the feeling that I don't want to fly without one of these anymore
Joe