- ADS-B is not an Australian technology, it is an international technology.
- ADS-B is not a new technology. It is currently in use.
- ADS-B in each aircraft is a transponder, a Mode S - Extended Squitter.
There are a number of different debates in this thread that are merging and being confused with each other. ADS-B is simply the installation of a Mode S - Extended Squitter in each aircraft in Australia (subsidised by AsA), some training and a CASA approval for use with TAAATS. The plan, budget, training and installation commenced last year in Australia. If it had been continued, the end result would have seen the replacement of MSSR coverage and service with more accurate ADS-B surveillance and a vast improvement in the provision of service to the industry, including General Aviation. In fact, the Low-Level phase of the ADS-B project would have provided surveillance services to General Aviation across a vast area of Australia that will never see a surveillance service using RADAR... why? Because RADAR is too expensive, on a scale that some pilots may never understand.
ADS-B would have provided Australia something that it will never have with RADAR.... continental surveillance coverage.
And one more thing... RADAR is not, and has never been, an accurate technology throughout the coverage. RADAR is a WWII technology. RADAR is only accurate close to the RADAR site. RADAR accuracy diminishes significantly with range (ie. the further the aircraft or object is from the RADAR site, the less accurate the information displayed to the controller is).
- ADS-B is accurate, regardless of the distance of the aircraft from the ADS-B antenna.
- ADS-B is more accurate than RADAR.
- ADS-B has no moving parts.
- ADS-B in Australia is one letter-from-Dick Smith-to-the-Minister away from reality.