Ghost images on adsb?

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Monpilot

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Monpilot
I was flying an ifr training flight yesterday and was wearing foggles when my cfi and I noticed on our ForeFlight iPads connected to a stratus 2 that a plane was heading towards us from our 11 o'clock and 300' above us. My cfi was looking but as we got closer to the approaching arrow and it's altitude relative to ours started decreasing, my cfi took the controls so I could help look for the plane. On the iPad it looked to cross immediately through us and descending yet we visually saw nothing.

So that raises my question of whether ghost images are possible. Could we have seen ourselves but heading in the opposite direction? Or a plane much farther away bouncing back with a closer distance? There was no tail number on the ForeFlight screen and our garmin did not issue a proximity warning. We were also not on flight following nor even on their frequency to know if it showed up on their radar.

Thoughts?
 
Yep. Reference the above link.

Your basically seeing yourself. Most of the time it's your TIS-B location fed back to you.
 
I get alerts (Traffic, Traffic) about my own plane all the time, but never as described. Ownship spurious has never been more than 100 feet off in my experience, and never opposite direction, as stated above. It's also typically right on top of the ownship symbol. This sounds like a glitch in the system somewhere.
 
I gotta call BS on on this thread. We are talking about Next Gen and TSO equipment No way.


An old instructor went flying out one dark and windy day,
At thirteen five he rested as he went along his way,
When all at once a mighty bunch of targets that he saw,
A ploughin' through the ragged skies
And up a cloudy draw.
Yippee-yi-ay, yippee-yi-o,
The ghost ehcos in the sky.
 
Sounds like an aerial version of the Flying Dutchman.

In this case I thought we were headed for the same fate!


Thanks all for the confirmation!
 
I had one that showed a plane coming towards me at a 45 degree angle. Same altitude as me but ground speed showing 600. It got my attention.
 
I know TIS (both the Mode S and TIS-B) can get phantoms. There's actually a spot that I regularly fly through that a "phantom" of myself shows up. I think it's got something to do with the ATC radar sites mosaic having a little irregularity there.
 
This seems like another reason to keep the FAA as a public entity.

I imagine an argument that advocates for privatization and per use fees will make is that there is a free version of aircraft separation in the form of adsb for those who don't want to pay the privatized FAA. Knowing there are ghost images that can scare the bejeezus out of me will keep me in with flight following.
 
I see them as well. Gdl 90 system, always thought because it's an old junk

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
I've gotten ghost targets on the G500H TAS before. They click around the screen and then disappear. Also had a few not show up at all that were well within the limits.

Majority of the time it's dead on but no system is perfect.
 
Opposite direction traffic is highly unlikely to be a ghost. It is more likely to be an ADS-B target or a TIS-B target provided for another aircraft, not yours. If you don't have ADS-B Out installed on your aircraft, then ForeFlight will use GPS altitude for ownship and the target is a pressure altitude, so relative altitude can be far off, maybe in some cases as much as a 1000 feet vertically, although it will normally be within a few hundred to five hundred feet off. The lateral position is accurate, but the vertical is an apples to oranges comparison.

If one does not have ADS-B Out installed, portable ADS-B traffic is mostly for entertainment and rarely helpful.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I gotta call BS on on this thread. We are talking about Next Gen and TSO equipment No way.


An old instructor went flying out one dark and windy day,
At thirteen five he rested as he went along his way,
When all at once a mighty bunch of targets that he saw,
A ploughin' through the ragged skies
And up a cloudy draw.
Yippee-yi-ay, yippee-yi-o,
The ghost ehcos in the sky.
Click to expand...
A Stratus is TSO equipment?

The real answer is to stop assuming reality from toys.
 
Wonder Woman.
Definitely Wonder Woman.

That or the latest Air Force top secret stealth aircraft.
It's a couple of years now since they announced the Rochester Cloak. I'll bet it's been vastly improved in a government lab, somewhere.
 
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