Mid-air collision near Moorabbin airport

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

Flyers holding off on safety equipment loan applications

 

Some For/against on the U.S. ADSB system

 

Via, Alaska Journal of Commerce, August 31, 2008, extracts -

 

When Gov. (Alaska) Sarah Palin signed the law creating a special loan program for equipping Alaska aircraft with NexGen avionics, the aviation industry heralded it as an historic event. Today that loan sits waiting for its first applicant.

 

Alaskans know what this equipment is capable of doing, and we don't want to invest in a package that is less than what it is capable of technically providing

 

Current Alaska cost estimates range from $14,000 to $18,500 per aircraft for installation and the hardware.

 

To date, no aircraft has the new technology, other than the roughly 400 commercial planes that already had the equipment.

 

http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/083108/hom_20080831035.shtml

 

 

[Mazda]

Good points Merv. One big problem at the moment is the audio alert on TCAS is patented to TCAS, and is not permitted to be used on ADS-B. There will need to be some legal negotiations to allow any ADS-B 'in' unit to talk like TCAS does.

 

At the moment, there is no real advantage at all. The airlines will still rely on TCAS for their Traffic and Resolution advisories.

 

For Airservices, once ADS-B is mandated it means controllers will know where everyone is. Those who believe in conspiracy theories say this could lead to a billing system, or more people being pinged for VCOs, but who knows. I don't know how it could work for controllers anyway. There will be a lot of VFR traffic showing, it could be more difficult for them.

 

I don't believe Airservices too much about the difficulty of maintaining SSR stations. In NZ they have just serviced their SSRs to last for a long time, and if the bl**dy kiwis can do it, I'm sure we could. (No offence to any kiwis on this forum).

 

Mike is correct about the standards. The problem is that at the moment we are looking at 1090ES, the US is using 1090ES for high level, and UAT for low level (GA). UAT gives extra benefits like real time weather displays, but we can't use UAT here because I think the frequency is not available. The disadvantage though is that UAT still requires an additional transponder, and 1090ES does not.

 

However the 1090ES is not the standard in Europe either. VDL-4 is another system being trialled somewhere over there.

 

Some people have been saying we shouldn't rush ahead because there is no real advantage yet. Maybe we should use TCAS, and wait to see what the world standard ends up being - sort of like Beta or VHS. Then hopefully all the problems will be ironed out, maybe there will be an audio alert, and maybe companies like Garmin will mass produce units for GA at a reasonable price.

 

Ken there is no transponder requirement at all for GAAP. There are aircraft flying there which do not have a transponder fitted at all. For those that do, the usual procedure (certainly here in Sydney) is to leave the transponder on STBY for circuits and turn it on if you plan to depart. The reason for this is that the tower controllers don't have secondary radar, so they cannot see transponder squawks anyway, but they can see out of the window. Transponder squawks do show on the radar controllers' screens, and they don't have any control over circuit traffic at distant airports (they are not on the same frequency as the traffic, and there are already controllers there who can see out). It just leads to extra clutter on the screen.

 

 

[Guest Ken deVos]

Ken there is no transponder requirement at all for GAAP. There are aircraft flying there which do not have a transponder fitted at all. For those that do, the usual procedure (certainly here in Sydney) is to leave the transponder on STBY for circuits and turn it on if you plan to depart. The reason for this is that the tower controllers don't have secondary radar, so they cannot see transponder squawks anyway, but they can see out of the window. Transponder squawks do show on the radar controllers' screens, and they don't have any control over circuit traffic at distant airports (they are not on the same frequency as the traffic, and there are already controllers there who can see out). It just leads to extra clutter on the screen.

Thanks for that Mazda

 

Cheers

 

Ken.

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

there is no transponder requirement at all for GAAP. There are aircraft flying there which do not have a transponder fitted at all. For those that do, the usual procedure (certainly here in Sydney) is to leave the transponder on STBY for circuits and turn it on if you plan to depart. The reason for this is that the tower controllers don't have secondary radar, so they cannot see transponder squawks anyway, but they can see out of the window. Transponder squawks do show on the radar controllers' screens, and they don't have any control over circuit traffic at distant airports (they are not on the same frequency as the traffic, and there are already controllers there who can see out). It just leads to extra clutter on the screen.

So thats the reason eh...

 

Imagine the 'clutter' on the TCAS, ADSB-in screen :)

 

 

[skybum]

Yep, agree on transponder to STBY unless entering or departing the GAAP.

 

WRT Capstone. That is a bit of a bunfight over not so much standards of equipment but comparable standards from ADS-B to radar. Not sure if it was a union or FAA or combined but ADS-B was pulled as a separation device in ATC. It was still available but ATC could not provide a separation service using ADS-B alone. Strange stuff! Over here our upper airspace ADS-B ATC provides the exact same separation standard with ADS-B as radar.

 

Haven't heard any more about Alaska and ADS-B. Was in contact with the local ATCOs but they must now refer me back to the FAA over the subject. So, if that is still going on I could well imagine the locals would be a little reticent to take up the loan offers until the FAA sorts itself out.

 

As for over here. The jury is still out on the subsidy for GA VFR, also includes RAA. Everything I have seen points to a basic ADS-B 1090ES transponder including a TSO145/146a GPS. The GPS may be included within the transponder for VFR. IFR get a few more goodies so AirServices can also look at shutting down certain navaids.

 

In this case though. NO electronic serveillance would have avoided the accident. Transponder, FLARM or ADS-B. Unless there is a re-write of the rules that mandate ADS-B ON AND a real time feed inside the control tower cab with allowances and licences for the tower staff to use the feed as a separation device if so needed. Especially if a built in alarm was to sound alerting tower staff to a close proximty within the circuit area with enough seconds to contact aircraft and give instructions to avoid each other. EN has a radar feed from ML CENTRE but they aren't allowed to use it as a separation device. Only to aid them in locating you visually. If there are any ATC on the thread I hope they can set me straight wrt radar use in the tower. EDIT- just to add, it has saved me heaps of times to get the call from the tower to ensure my parrot was squawking. Me started flying before transponders were common. Still have to remember Lights-ON Camera-Transponder to Mode C, Action-Cleared for Takeoff, Power and T & Ps all green.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

There's no point even having the transponder on in GAAP at Moorabbin as there is absolutely no radar, be it primary or secondary!

 

It's damn busy at Moorabbin. I've had probably 3 near misses since I've been operating out of there over the last 5 years or so. Several weeks back there was a total of 10 aircraft on final over 35l 35r and 31l and needless to say my passenger was a little concerned at the large number of aircraft there.

 

 

[vk3auu]

I can see a lot of recreational aircraft being flown illegally without ADSB if it becomes mandatory and nobody will know who they are or even where they are unless they talk on the radio.

 

It won't be any less safe than it is now if you stay away from busy airports.

 

David:juggle:

 

 

[skybum]

This is starting to get away from the thread at hand. How about we start a thread on ADS-B wrt RAA and see where it leads.