Don't shoot me down for what I am about to say, as I am still new to this game and I am discovering the sad truth about the endless stream of rules and regs in aviation.
Just playing devils advocate here but if you have the transponder selected "ON" you will still be spotted on TCAS/TAS but without height info, so LL safety is not an issue. The primary radar only returns position, and height can only be determined through the PA reading carried on the signal. If ALT or Mode C is not selected that PA reading cannot be beamed back to the SSR.
I cannot see how this can be practically enforced. I would have thought mode C is not effective below 500' anyway unless you are in line of sight of a radar or your flying over Norfolk, or one gets reported by an aircraft with TCAS fitted?
The only way around this would be to phase out non MODE C transponders, then the possibility to avoid detection would be to switch them off, which essentially is what the daft eurocrats would be encouraging by enforcing such a drakonian law. To make matters worse, I suspect most european pilots would treat it with the contempt it deserves and with little or no consequence, and we would be the only ones abiding through fear of CAA action.
My conclusion is that some Brussels ecohippy bureaucrat has come up with this idea and assumed that all GA have wings. A friend of mine who passed his test recently would have breached this rule on at least 4 occassions and that was just away from the airfield. How else can you demonstrate the ability to handle autos safely and effectively. Somebody should send these clever
elected people a picture of a helicopter, as a subtle reminder.
