Flying AdHoc Network

The first time I heard about FANET was at a gathering of some paragliding friends last year. They mentioned that they can display each others position on their flight computers. While that sounds cool, I don’t often get to fly cross country any more. Thus this feature was not of particular interest to me. Then some months ago I read an article about the Skytraxx 3.0 in a paragliding magazine. It was mainly focused on the builtin database of aerial obstacles, namely dangerous cables. But it also mentioned that weather stations could broadcast wind information on FANET, which the flight computer would then display in real time. Now that was more interesting to me. The part I like the most about the FANET technology is that it is an open LoRa mesh network. I watched a video where the developer explained that it is even possible to transmit landing procedures based on wind direction to be displayed on the flight computer. Further pilots can send messages to each other, and change the mode from “flying” to “retrieve car” or “need a ride”. All of this together was too much to ignore.
While FANET was developed by Skytraxx, it is an open protocol, and other companies started including support for it in their devices. The Skytraxx devices that come with FANET, also include FLARM. FLARM started as collision avoidance system for sailplanes. But in the meantime, most light aircraft are equipped. Devices for paragliders only transmit to FLARM. They are unlikely to crash into one another due to the slow speed. But by transmitting their position, faster aircraft can be warned soon enough about their presence. Like FlightRadar for big airplanes there is GliderNet based on FLARM and SkyNet based on FANET. These sites are fed by ground stations that decode the signals broadcast by the aircraft. All you have to do in order to appear on these sites, is register with the Open Glider Network. If you register in addition with LiveTrack24 and link your OGN registration (the FLARM id), then your flights are automatically archived. What I like most about this, is that I can give the URL to my beloved ones. If I’m not home in time, they can check if I am still airborne, and where my last recorded position was. So in the improbable case of an accident, they could send search and rescue in the right direction.