All this talk of radios, transponders etc is grand, but what about the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of us more impecunious aviators?
Take the flying machine sat outside my abode at present. It has two seats, no electrical system, a "yachtie" disc-in-a-tube type air speed indicator, no fuselage, no instrument panel (so no instruments bar the above mentioned ASI). I paid the princely sum of £1,800 for the whole machine, including a road trailer and full set of covers.
The annual cost of maintaining and permitting the thing would be less than £150 all in, yet it has the capacity to provide endless hours of very cheap, fun flying, more or less just for the cost of the fuel.
Why should I be forced to pay far more than the aircraft's value just to fit a bit of kit that I will never have occasion to need? At present that's just what the rules say I will have to do, if compulsory Mode S comes about.................