Originally Posted by
WB627
Surely Mode S equipment is cheep enough for ALL aircraft to be equipped with it, especially if they are operating in crowded airspace such as the South East of England.
I regularly hear and sometimes see aircraft flying near me including those powered by Merlin engines and not showing up on FR24 or ADS B Exchange. The Merlin engined ones are almost certainly operating out of Biggin Hill and headed to Beach Head.
Why??? The Mk 1 Eyeball is not infallible.
Almost all aircraft nowadays are already equipped with Mode S (those Spitfires included).
But Mode S on its own isn't usually sufficient for an aircraft to be plotted on the flight trackers (unless they are capable of multilateration). I suspect you are really talking about ADS-B, which is a different issue.