Folks,
We have now established at least four things:
(1) James Michael has no idea whether the alleged AUD $10,000 device that so carefully matched the
"not yet agreed by the airlines who have to finally fund it proposed subsidy" has no idea whether the $10,000 device meets the published standards for an ATS-B.
If it's the same "draft" brochure I have ( a bit of "brochuremanship" here**), the answers are;
YES, when you buy the add-on GPS box from FreeFlight Inc., and;
NO.
(2) James Michael (and his alterego and mates plugging for the mandate) have no idea whether the subsidy will meet the cost of the mandate, or half the cost of the mandate, or 10%.
In fact, they have no idea of the real world installed cost of minimum equipment to satisfy the mandate.
We do know approximately the cost in QF Dash 8s, about fifteen times (15) the proposed $25,000 Regional subsidy -- 'TIS all on the ASA web site (or was, last time I looked).
The best guesstimated price so far, from GARMIN (but the DO 260A certification is not complete) is about AUD$35,000 - $40,000 installed, with AUD$1=US$0.86
(3) James Michael has no understanding of the difference between the C-145 and C-146 GPS TSOs.
(4) James Michael is a serial obfuscater, YES and NO are insurmountable obstacles.
I love this bit about me being an "ADS-B naysayer", as I was involved in the development and demonstration of a locally developed (the Au first? we think so) ADS-B "technology demonstrator", both ADS-B IN and OUT, and including a analogue panel display of proximate traffic, more than 10 years ago.
That bit is actually quite easy, as we proved!
It's the cost of meeting the required TSOs, GPS wise, and more particularly the DO 260A transponder requirement, all for a very small market ( and even the US market for UAT based equipment is small, compared to production runs big enough to get any real economies of scale) that make the end product VERY expensive.
James, old chap,
YOU KNOW exactly what I oppose, and that is the imposition by mandate of a system that, by every competent and fair analysis, has no COST/BENEFIT justified advantage for most of GA, and precious little for Regional airlines. Indeed, very little, if any, demonstrated benefit at all, beyond a useful datalink. A $100M-$200M subsidy, ultimately paid by the (major) airline traveling public (reduced ASA charges) or the public at large ( reduced ASA dividend) --- this is economic waste, and the aviation sector and the country cannot afford to waste money, and certainly not on this grand scale.
In the future, ADS-B will be a very useful tool for ATC,
where traffic density warrants radar/radar like services --- and that is what FAA/Eurocontrol are planning to use it for ---- not trying to justify it by claiming all sorts of almost mythical benefits.
ADS-B is NOT a substitute for ACAS/TCAS II or GPWS ---- just a very useful datalink ---- but in the Transponder Mode S implementation a very limited datalink.
Very limited, because of the very, very limited bandwidth, compared with UAT or VDL-4. And, as it has transpired in the real world,
a very expensive datalink ---
quite embarrassingly the opposite to the claims of the original promoters of "1090ES" as the "cheap and easy way" ---
Particularly for "promoters" who didn't hold the patent rights underlaying either UAT (CDMA) or VDL (TDMA), and for broke airlines that swallowed the "cheap and easy" bait.
Remember the ASA presentations --- just a wire and a 1.44 floppy - "TIS" all "airlines" would required, said they. You do remember what a 1.44 floppy is, things that came before CDs, that came before DVDs. Seeing that most FMCS run on Motorola 68000 series CPU, I guess that the 1.44 is "appropriate contemporary technology".
Sadly, another small part of the reason why "1090ES" was such a dumb idea, and ICAO had it right in the first place, airlines in the future are going to need a broadband transceiver for multiple uses --- Let's call it a Universal Access Transceiver, or UAT for short --- and VDL does the same job, but no catchy name.
See the FAA/Eurocontrol timetable (mandate) to require (almost) all routine ATC communications to be transferred from voice to datalink. So, the poor sodding broke airliner sector is going to wind up carrying the initial and ongoing expense of both UAT/VDL and of 1090ES. Smart, or what ??
Should I regard my copy of that ASA presentation as a collectors item, or evidence for the Senate inquiry.
Remember that the $$$$many tens of millions ---- nice big impressive numbers, serious Ooooh!! Aaaah! factor numbers --- of savings claimed by ASA --- actually translated to something like 3% on the bottom line. An insignificant amount in the big picture, and that was the estimate ---- anybody want to wager that any real savings to ASA would have been realized, at all. All these numbers are in public documents.
Remember --- the claimed cost of maintaining/replacing the remote SSR heads is also hotly disputed, a core cost saving factor in the JCP, with local cost claims some ten times the demonstrated NZ replacement costs of identical SSR heads.
Even all the much touted "four dimensional" approaches, and other time/cost saving for the big end of town, RNP etc, are NOT dependent on ADS-B --- that can and is being done now!
As soon as massive subsidies are involved, it is axiomatic that there is NO BUSINESS CASE, (and that includes the cost of accidents and incidents ) for the imposition on GA.
As we have seen, time and again, with GRAS just the latest example, we have never been short of boffins, who may have great pet ideas, technologically, demanding subsidies for their pet ideas ---- because there is no business case for them to stand on their own two feet.
Don't anybody forget --- The first CASA ADS-B "cost/benefit" study showed all sorts of cost/benefit justified benefits for airlines,
and NONE for GA, so the CASA airspace people's (not CASA senior management, I hasten to add) attitude was ---
CASA priority is the paying passenger, so GA will just have to lump it.
Then the seriously gross errors in the CASA calculations were pointed out, and, low and behold, the airline benefits evaporated.
Surprise, surprise, CASA cost/benefit study Mk.II suddenly finds all sorts of "GA safety benefits" ---- is this double incompetence that these were not discovered in the first place, or "creative" thinking to justify the unjustifiable ??
Very much the latter. The conduct of these studies, by (now) former CASA employees, was a travesty of how a cost/benefit study should be conducted.
The fact remains:
For the bulk of GA and Sports and Recreational Aviation, ADS-B is a technological answer looking for a problem.
However --- Widespread adoption of C-145/146 based GPS devices --- with terrain warnings, virtual terrain displays and all sorts of other possible add-ons ( and making the cost savings of obsolete and/or remote navaid removal possible) are all proceeding apace ---
without subsidy.
The really sad thing is that --
ASA kiboshing WAAS --- in the vain hope that would make
the now aborted GRAS attractive ----
has robbed us of the ability to have CAT 1 precision approaches nationwide, almost anywhere you wanted to do an adequate obstacle survey, and
precision vertical guidance (boffin-speak for a glideslope) for any approach.
With due recognition of Norman Lindsay; "ADS-B ain't no Magic Pudding" --- And that goes double for what is left of the GA pudding.
Tootle pip!!
** With aplogies to Rollo Freelunch, Head of
PR for Sir Charles Boost, late of Straight and Level, c/- Flight International.
PS: James the Oracle, pray tell how the (if and when it ever happens) ADS-B coverage down to 10,000ft helps the majority of the Australian fleet, the ones the target of the mandate, which are unpressurized, with very few even oxygen equipped to operate above 10,000.
Why didn't you put up the diagram for 5000'coverage?? Perhaps because it would illustrate how unlikely it was that ADS-B coverage in the GA altitudes would ever eventuate, except as might be incidental to a mast sighted for high level coverage ??
I suppose you do know that ASA have given no undertaking to provide any low level service, just because "it's there". Indeed, quite the opposite, unless you are a "client", ie; they can send you the invoice.