ADS-B, Stuff that I have found.
...you will get fair treatment here...provided you actual further your argument rather than espouse...the terrorists the terrorists!!!
They can buy off the shelf software now for flight following
.
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100% coverage at FL290
Is ecovictim a reject from the chronically challenged global warming proponents thread? Does he fly also above FL290 punching holes in the "aerozone" layer?
Remember now, you are judged by the company you keep. (I can't leave without giving some credit though, for perseverence by the little Aussie aviation expert still blaming past events to justify his position. I thought he would have fallen on his sword by now).
Do them's operating above FL 290 pay anything to King Billy, by the way?
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Ummm frank, yes I do fly above FL290. I'm sorry I forgot your PPrune post count is directly related to the performance of your aircraft... 
I dont know what my company pays, but they pay and being ADS-B identified has helped me out more than once.
To please the average owner I cant see it helping with typical private flying situations. I have no idea on the on going costs but I'm assuming its not cheap. Until it does become affordable and every bug smasher is fitted its kind of pointless. A basic TCAS unit would be better value.
I dont know what my company pays, but they pay and being ADS-B identified has helped me out more than once.
To please the average owner I cant see it helping with typical private flying situations. I have no idea on the on going costs but I'm assuming its not cheap. Until it does become affordable and every bug smasher is fitted its kind of pointless. A basic TCAS unit would be better value.
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Until it does become affordable and every bug smasher is fitted its kind of pointless. A basic TCAS unit would be better value.
Last edited by le Pingouin; 18th Jan 2010 at 13:50. Reason: Adding URL
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Roll out the barrel, the gang's all here.
Oowen. You won't get an arguement out of me regarding the future generation of radar replacement. Thing is nobody wants to talk to me if I'm not in "the system" now where there is radar, so why would they suddenly put me into the "system" while I'm flying B050 100 miles west of Oodnadatta. Unless of course Airservices can make money out of it by mandating us poor bloody aircraft owners fit it at our expense and put us "in the system"? Yes King Billy will make money some how, even if he gets his minions to call people names on public forums.
People like myself had a right to be skeptical of freebies and said so. Proved we were right and the whole "subsidy" thing was a big confidence trick. I am on record, as are many others, in saying we actually supported the ADSB concept as an evolutionary and technological advance on existing radar.
Who killed it? (if anybody actually did something to something that never existed in the first place). Well, it was people putting the cart before the horse in calling for it to be mandated before the subsidy was actually in hand. Ring any bells?
BTW, I'm writing an ATCO's dictionary to help people when they fly into CTR, and I'm confused about a few words that all seem to mean the same thing. Perhaps you can help me?
Luddites:
Tightarses:
Fools:
Tools- this one is very popular.
They all seem to mean "I don't agree with your right to an opinion and I hope you all get the mange" because I'm an important ATCO with a monastical agenda and I get paid to yell at people.
ecovictim;
Crikey. That would be an expensive fit for my 258 kt Pissner super super Cub super zot!
Oowen. You won't get an arguement out of me regarding the future generation of radar replacement. Thing is nobody wants to talk to me if I'm not in "the system" now where there is radar, so why would they suddenly put me into the "system" while I'm flying B050 100 miles west of Oodnadatta. Unless of course Airservices can make money out of it by mandating us poor bloody aircraft owners fit it at our expense and put us "in the system"? Yes King Billy will make money some how, even if he gets his minions to call people names on public forums.
Could have been subsidised but killed off by luddites, tightarses and fools
Who killed it? (if anybody actually did something to something that never existed in the first place). Well, it was people putting the cart before the horse in calling for it to be mandated before the subsidy was actually in hand. Ring any bells?
BTW, I'm writing an ATCO's dictionary to help people when they fly into CTR, and I'm confused about a few words that all seem to mean the same thing. Perhaps you can help me?
Luddites:
Tightarses:
Fools:
Tools- this one is very popular.
They all seem to mean "I don't agree with your right to an opinion and I hope you all get the mange" because I'm an important ATCO with a monastical agenda and I get paid to yell at people.
ecovictim;
A basic TCAS unit would be better value
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Ya'all can whinge and bitch an' moan all ya like about the cost, but it is the future and will one day be mandated for AALLLLLLL aircraft.
Could have been subsidised but killed off by luddites, tightarses and fools
Could have been subsidised but killed off by luddites, tightarses and fools
Back to you Mr Stanley
What about getting the thousands of pilots wanting to be Captains and willing to pay for work for years to get expirence to head toward ATC? They can pay for training (How hard can it be, they let wimmin do it?). Then when they do quailifiey they can start on reduced wages, say only $1500 week and only about 2 months paid holiday. ATC is a lot more secure and you would earn more than regional or even cut price airline captains. Admittedly you would'nt have a uniform, that's a big drawback but you'll be able to order captains around so that would nearly make up for that. I'm on a winner here folks, think about it. Plenty of ATC willing to work for less and less people wanting to become captains, win win situation.
Last edited by Super Cecil; 18th Jan 2010 at 22:13. Reason: Clarity
Thread Starter
Subsidy? forget about it!
The manufacturers are meeting the market a lot cheaper than when the subsidy was discussed. I believe the subsidy was meant more for manufacturers to have a critical mass of orders to warrent a production run...remembering at the time, we would have been the first outfit to have 1090ES up and running anywhere in the world as a means of en-route surveillence. AirServices was talking of an order of a couple of thousand basic units to kick start manufacture.
Now that a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Hypothesis has turned into either garbage or fact...the hypothesis put forward by those against has turned into garbage. Cost, Availablity, Australia Only, UAT/VDL instaed of ES, No TSO, "The Spoof"....and the binghi bomb thingo The last two..if there ever was a risk that could not be mitigated then this rollout would stop in its tracks.
Fact? The equipment I have linked on this thread. Real and available for TSOd fitment...more joining the list every month. If there wasn't a need then this stuff would not be built.....Hold back the tide Francis Methusela...you are about to be drowned out
The manufacturers are meeting the market a lot cheaper than when the subsidy was discussed. I believe the subsidy was meant more for manufacturers to have a critical mass of orders to warrent a production run...remembering at the time, we would have been the first outfit to have 1090ES up and running anywhere in the world as a means of en-route surveillence. AirServices was talking of an order of a couple of thousand basic units to kick start manufacture.
Now that a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Hypothesis has turned into either garbage or fact...the hypothesis put forward by those against has turned into garbage. Cost, Availablity, Australia Only, UAT/VDL instaed of ES, No TSO, "The Spoof"....and the binghi bomb thingo
The last two..if there ever was a risk that could not be mitigated then this rollout would stop in its tracks.Fact? The equipment I have linked on this thread. Real and available for TSOd fitment...more joining the list every month. If there wasn't a need then this stuff would not be built.....Hold back the tide Francis Methusela...you are about to be drowned out
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OZBUSDRIVINGMECRAZY;
You obviously haven't taken anything on board concerning my "SUPPORT" for ADSB "WHERE" it is needed. It is "THE" evolutionary next step for ATC surveillance "WHERE" surveillance is needed.
Get it? I "SUPPORT" it!
However if I choose to fly OCTA /class G where there is no current need for ATC surveillance, in my own little aeroplane, and never set foot in CTA, exactly, what will it do that my mode C transponder viz the TCAS in the RPT doesn't already do to keep the poor bloody travelling public feeling safe from nasty people in little aeroplanes who dare to fly on the same day they want to.
When (if), you finally get to own an aeroplane with ADSB IN/OUT don't expect me and everyone else to fit in with your perceived concerns about MAC's and force me to install something to make you feel warm and fuzzy.
Look out the bloody window if you are VFR.
If it's IFR I won't be flying anyway.
You obviously haven't taken anything on board concerning my "SUPPORT" for ADSB "WHERE" it is needed. It is "THE" evolutionary next step for ATC surveillance "WHERE" surveillance is needed.
Get it? I "SUPPORT" it!
However if I choose to fly OCTA /class G where there is no current need for ATC surveillance, in my own little aeroplane, and never set foot in CTA, exactly, what will it do that my mode C transponder viz the TCAS in the RPT doesn't already do to keep the poor bloody travelling public feeling safe from nasty people in little aeroplanes who dare to fly on the same day they want to.
When (if), you finally get to own an aeroplane with ADSB IN/OUT don't expect me and everyone else to fit in with your perceived concerns about MAC's and force me to install something to make you feel warm and fuzzy.
Look out the bloody window if you are VFR.
If it's IFR I won't be flying anyway.
Thread Starter
you wind up so well Francis....I would have hoped by now that you would have picked up that I am pro-choice. Just the same as carriage of transponders, this will be replaced with carriage of transponder with ES....there is a choice now if you choose not to carry and the choice that leaves you wrt airspace you wish to access. Just as there will be a choice wrt ES fitment.
The time is coming...the equipment is available. All that will be required is a choice.
My bet is the tech will make such an improvment to traffic alerting equipment, pilots will wonder why they didn't get access to it earlier. Guaranteed!
Anyway, enough of the commentary. Off to find more equipment options
Definitely not specifically aimed at Frank, but he posted:
I'm trying to only gently put a spanner in the works here, so please be open to my post.
The world is constantly changing...the freedoms we had a generation ago were not set in holy writ. Where is it in the Bill of Rights (that we don't have - yet) that there is any freedom to fly around in the air - B050 or not - above land that we don't personally own. Airspace rights do still exist for property owners. Binghi the flying lawyer should be able to confirm the concept.
You can't jump in your E49 Charger/Porsche 911/Lamborghini and roar around anywhere on other people's land, nor can you drive on the road without complying with ever-increasing regulations. I don't necessarily concur with all this "nanny state" stuff, but what super-privilege does owning an aircraft give you?
BTW I am not ATC, I do hold a PPL, but right now I do not own an aircraft. But I do own a rather nice, powerful loud car (worth more that the old Piper Cub) - why can't I drive it anywhere I want?
Because there are other people in the world that may be affected by my actions, that's why. Same with your B050, boring holes in the sky, or wandering around wherever the fancy takes you. You don't know to whom or how you may be of interest.
Just a thought.
However if I choose to fly OCTA /class G where there is no current need for ATC surveillance, in my own little aeroplane, and never set foot in CTA, exactly, what will it do that my mode C transponder viz the TCAS in the RPT doesn't already do to keep the poor bloody travelling public feeling safe from nasty people in little aeroplanes who dare to fly on the same day they want to.
The world is constantly changing...the freedoms we had a generation ago were not set in holy writ. Where is it in the Bill of Rights (that we don't have - yet) that there is any freedom to fly around in the air - B050 or not - above land that we don't personally own. Airspace rights do still exist for property owners. Binghi the flying lawyer should be able to confirm the concept.
You can't jump in your E49 Charger/Porsche 911/Lamborghini and roar around anywhere on other people's land, nor can you drive on the road without complying with ever-increasing regulations. I don't necessarily concur with all this "nanny state" stuff, but what super-privilege does owning an aircraft give you?
BTW I am not ATC, I do hold a PPL, but right now I do not own an aircraft. But I do own a rather nice, powerful loud car (worth more that the old Piper Cub) - why can't I drive it anywhere I want?
Because there are other people in the world that may be affected by my actions, that's why. Same with your B050, boring holes in the sky, or wandering around wherever the fancy takes you. You don't know to whom or how you may be of interest.
Just a thought.
Thread Starter
AVBUYER article ADS-B Update
ADS-B UPDATEJanuary 2010Category: Upgrading Business Aircraft Author: Dave HigdonNextgen:
Infrastructure progress is accelerating, final decision is not...
The aviation world got some excellent, long-awaited and somewhat unexpected news in early December - the kind of news that should quicken the heartbeat of many a technology junky. Later that same month, more news followed related to the same topic, fueling a feeling of actual progress in the often-moribund feeling realm of the nation’s next-generation air-traffic control system.
These milestones followed an earlier report from an industry group on implementing the switch from the radar-based environment to one based on satellite position information and the underlying technologies. Steaming full speed ahead into the New Year with these bullet points firmly established also portends well for avionics manufacturers and the people involved in updating aircraft systems. After all, equipment mandates come along infrequently and even less frequently apply to the entirety of the aviation fleet – from piston singles to commercial airliners. But the movement forward of Automatic Dependent Surveillance- Broadcast (ADS-B) does all of those things.
Indeed, over the coming couple of years, that movement should continue to the point that paying the costs of equipping early with ADS-B could pay operational dividends in the short term, and provide operators with a cushion against rushing to comply with some future deadline to retain access to the airspace most used by business turbine and commercial aircraft.
MOPS: NOT JUST FOR HOUSEHOLD CLEANING
For years the organization known as RTCA has been working with players from all levels of aviation to define equipment-performance standards for the hardware needed to enjoy ADS-B. RTCA Special Committee 186 worked steadily, methodically, toward finalizing the Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) that equipment must meet in a standardized ADS-B supported Air Traffic Control network.
With several internal working groups involved, the committee tackled issues ranging from standards for display of traffic information, on resolving traffic conflicts, and for the standards needed by the two links the FAA wants to use, the so-called 1090-ES (Extended Squitter) hardware as well as the Universal Access Transceiver meant for smaller, non-turbine aircraft.
The committee’s working groups also included one focused on implementation. Those efforts came to fruition on December 4, when the RTCA announced completion of MOPS covering the entirety of the airborne equipment; the ground equipment received its standards some years earlier, allowing the FAA to begin ordering and buying equipment for a ground-based network of some 300 ADS-B stations that will tie together the entire country and relay airborne data to controllers’ screens.
SAME DAY, DIFFERENT BODY: TSOs
The RTCA reports, long anticipated by the FAA, had barely had time for the ink to dry when they arrived at the agency – which, in turn, issued the Technical Standards Orders (TSOs) for the airborne hardware aircraft will need to work with the NextGen system.
The FAA issued those TSOs to an eager avionics industry that had been awaiting the standards so that companies can complete their own hardware certification efforts.
With these TSOs in effect, the avionics industry now has the roadmap it needs to move ahead with the final design and approval work needed to offer its products to the aircraft owners and operators who will need to install new gear to use NextGen services dependent on ADS-B technologies. It’s a big step forward.
GROUND PROGRESS ACCELERATES
Deploying NextGen depends on the completion of a network of ADS-B ground stations, and the FAA hasn’t been idle here (to say the least). In Southern Florida an initial network of ADS-B ground stations became operational in August of 2008, according to the FAA’s Surveillance and Broadcast Services Office; initial operational capability was achieved the following month allowing controllers in Miami Center to track aircraft already equipped with ADS-B Out technology – the equipment that broadcasts the GPS position of an aircraft as well as its altitude, speed and direction.
The FAA has long operated ADS-B stations and used them for traffic control in Alaska under the Capstone Project, in the Ohio River Valley in conjunction with UPS, and in the Philadelphia area, which poses special issues due to a high level of radio interference sources.
The Ohio River Valley system was declared operational in October. Expected imminently is a declaration of initial operating capability for the largest ADS-B network yet, covering the Gulf of Mexico. IOC is expected for the Gulf imminently.
ADS-B BENEFITS TO GULF
For as long as aircraft have served oil and natural-gas producing platforms in the nearly 600,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico, operations there have struggled to continue anytime the weather goes down.
According to the Helicopter Association International and other sources, a normal day-in-the-life of the Gulf traffic is immense. The Gulf is home to almost 3,800 platforms which daily pump ashore more than 1.5 million barrels of crude oil and almost 8 million cubic feet of natural gas. Some 2,000 helicopters make about 7,500 flights a day moving supplies, equipment, fresh water, food and 10,000 workers needed to keep the platforms working 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
Working in cooperation with the HAI, the energy industry and equipment suppliers, the FAA has arranged to install a network of ADS-B ground stations on the producers’ platforms, along with Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS) stations and communications relays. A total of 23 ADS-B stations, 35 AWOS sites and a similar number of communications-relay stations have been going in over the past 18 months, with many of the offshore helicopter operators participating by providing lift to technicians and for the hardware they had to install.
Similarly, the producers who operate the platforms have not only provided space for the ground stations, but bandwidth on the underwater communications and computer lines connecting the platforms to shore. These network links will provide the lines between the ADS-B stations and the controllers’ screens at Houston Center, which oversees the Gulf airspace. The potential to improve the efficiency of the Gulf of Mexico energy-company traffic is immense.
Under the old system, operators like to say, you go VFR when the weather is good, IFR when the weather gets bad – and back to VFR when the weather persists. That’s a dangerous approach that typically results in flights being grounded. Under IFR rules, in an environment with no radar coverage beyond about 50 miles, the FAA’s ATC system employed an inefficient way of traffic management.
Under the non-radar system, the Gulf is divided into hundreds of 10-mile-square grids. Aircraft are required to report their position so that the FAA can make sure that only one aircraft at a time is in any given square, as well as assuring no adjoining grid squares have traffic. And, finally, the traffic route needs to have a contiguous line of those 10-mile grids connected one after another between the flight’s point of origin and its final destination.
With the IOC in place, controllers can begin to handle ADS-B equipped helicopters similarly to the way traffic is managed in the radar environment over the Lower 48 states.
But as the FAA and operators gain experience and confidence in the system, the agency and operators anticipate that separation standards common to the on-shore radar environment can be shrunken to as little as five miles from the typical 50 for en trail separation, and as little as three miles in airport traffic areas. Achieving these lower levels of separation will essentially serve to increase capacity.
Additionally, since aircraft equipped with both ADS-B Out and ADS-B In capability can see other ADS-B Out aircraft, pilots will be better equipped to maintain their own separation, even when not under positive control of the FAA’s ATC system. That means benefits on good days, marginal days and bad days, day and night.
MORE TO COME: NATIONWIDE ROLLOUT
Meanwhile, the FAA reports that it is currently at more than 50 ADS-B ground stations installed, with more going on line each month. By the end of 2010, the FAA expects to have the entire nationwide network of 320 ADS-B ground stations installed, connected and functional.
The next significant deadline on the radar scopes of the industry, however, comes in April 2010. That’s when the FAA expects to publish a NextGen implementation final rule for industry comment. And the next milestone is expected in September when the agency makes an in-service decision for the network.
The agency would like to have the system change-over to the NextGen ATC network completed by 2018 and is expected to hold to its deadline of 2020 for users to equip with ADS-B Out, in order to retain access to Class A, Class B and Class C airspace.
For those who may have let their airspace classification knowledge slip, Class A is IFRrequired airspace between 18,000 feet msl and 60,000 feet msl; Class B is over the nation’s busiest airports, with a major airport at the center – think Atlanta, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Chicago O’Hare and other similarly high-traffic areas; Class C is a smaller space over airports down a notch in traffic – like Wichita Mid-Continent, which holds its designation in large part because of the traffic from aircraft factories adjacent to the airport.
Currently, the well-known, widely available Mode A/Mode C transponder meets the FAA’s requirements for access to Class A, Class B and Class C airspace. Come final implementation of NextGen and ADS-B Out will be the key that unlocks access to those airspace designations, as well as for operators who wish to file to fly under IFR rules in Class E airspace, which, in short, is the airspace below Class A, and outside Class B and Class C.
All aircraft must transit at least some Class E to travel any distance, and when the weather goes down, the instrument rules allow any properly equipped and approved aircraft to transit Class E flying under an IFR flight plan.
WHAT OPERATORS WILL NEED
The FAA is apparently going to stick with its proposed requirement of ADS-B Out hardware only, leaving the decision on whether to equip with ADS-B In to the aircraft owners and operators. Fortunately, equipping with ADS-B Out sets up the aircraft well to also install the receiver that enables it to receive ADS-B signals from other aircraft and from ground stations.
The ADS-B In link offers operators a number of benefits, including weather and traffic links, with traffic visible at distances far outside the capabilities of any current on-board traffic-avoidance gear.
ADS-B In should also allow the aircraft to receive nationwide weather images, text messaging and other services still being debated. And the weather input, now available through a number of subscriptionbased services, will require neither a subscription nor the proprietary receivers these services use.
In the end, equipping for ADS-B In could be a money saver and performance enhancer. But at the moment, it’s the ADS-B Out hardware that will be a must to sustain the kind of access available today with a Mode C transponder. ■
ADS-B UPDATEJanuary 2010Category: Upgrading Business Aircraft Author: Dave HigdonNextgen:
Infrastructure progress is accelerating, final decision is not...
The aviation world got some excellent, long-awaited and somewhat unexpected news in early December - the kind of news that should quicken the heartbeat of many a technology junky. Later that same month, more news followed related to the same topic, fueling a feeling of actual progress in the often-moribund feeling realm of the nation’s next-generation air-traffic control system.
These milestones followed an earlier report from an industry group on implementing the switch from the radar-based environment to one based on satellite position information and the underlying technologies. Steaming full speed ahead into the New Year with these bullet points firmly established also portends well for avionics manufacturers and the people involved in updating aircraft systems. After all, equipment mandates come along infrequently and even less frequently apply to the entirety of the aviation fleet – from piston singles to commercial airliners. But the movement forward of Automatic Dependent Surveillance- Broadcast (ADS-B) does all of those things.
Indeed, over the coming couple of years, that movement should continue to the point that paying the costs of equipping early with ADS-B could pay operational dividends in the short term, and provide operators with a cushion against rushing to comply with some future deadline to retain access to the airspace most used by business turbine and commercial aircraft.
MOPS: NOT JUST FOR HOUSEHOLD CLEANING
For years the organization known as RTCA has been working with players from all levels of aviation to define equipment-performance standards for the hardware needed to enjoy ADS-B. RTCA Special Committee 186 worked steadily, methodically, toward finalizing the Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) that equipment must meet in a standardized ADS-B supported Air Traffic Control network.
With several internal working groups involved, the committee tackled issues ranging from standards for display of traffic information, on resolving traffic conflicts, and for the standards needed by the two links the FAA wants to use, the so-called 1090-ES (Extended Squitter) hardware as well as the Universal Access Transceiver meant for smaller, non-turbine aircraft.
The committee’s working groups also included one focused on implementation. Those efforts came to fruition on December 4, when the RTCA announced completion of MOPS covering the entirety of the airborne equipment; the ground equipment received its standards some years earlier, allowing the FAA to begin ordering and buying equipment for a ground-based network of some 300 ADS-B stations that will tie together the entire country and relay airborne data to controllers’ screens.
SAME DAY, DIFFERENT BODY: TSOs
The RTCA reports, long anticipated by the FAA, had barely had time for the ink to dry when they arrived at the agency – which, in turn, issued the Technical Standards Orders (TSOs) for the airborne hardware aircraft will need to work with the NextGen system.
The FAA issued those TSOs to an eager avionics industry that had been awaiting the standards so that companies can complete their own hardware certification efforts.
With these TSOs in effect, the avionics industry now has the roadmap it needs to move ahead with the final design and approval work needed to offer its products to the aircraft owners and operators who will need to install new gear to use NextGen services dependent on ADS-B technologies. It’s a big step forward.
GROUND PROGRESS ACCELERATES
Deploying NextGen depends on the completion of a network of ADS-B ground stations, and the FAA hasn’t been idle here (to say the least). In Southern Florida an initial network of ADS-B ground stations became operational in August of 2008, according to the FAA’s Surveillance and Broadcast Services Office; initial operational capability was achieved the following month allowing controllers in Miami Center to track aircraft already equipped with ADS-B Out technology – the equipment that broadcasts the GPS position of an aircraft as well as its altitude, speed and direction.
The FAA has long operated ADS-B stations and used them for traffic control in Alaska under the Capstone Project, in the Ohio River Valley in conjunction with UPS, and in the Philadelphia area, which poses special issues due to a high level of radio interference sources.
The Ohio River Valley system was declared operational in October. Expected imminently is a declaration of initial operating capability for the largest ADS-B network yet, covering the Gulf of Mexico. IOC is expected for the Gulf imminently.
ADS-B BENEFITS TO GULF
For as long as aircraft have served oil and natural-gas producing platforms in the nearly 600,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico, operations there have struggled to continue anytime the weather goes down.
According to the Helicopter Association International and other sources, a normal day-in-the-life of the Gulf traffic is immense. The Gulf is home to almost 3,800 platforms which daily pump ashore more than 1.5 million barrels of crude oil and almost 8 million cubic feet of natural gas. Some 2,000 helicopters make about 7,500 flights a day moving supplies, equipment, fresh water, food and 10,000 workers needed to keep the platforms working 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.
Working in cooperation with the HAI, the energy industry and equipment suppliers, the FAA has arranged to install a network of ADS-B ground stations on the producers’ platforms, along with Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS) stations and communications relays. A total of 23 ADS-B stations, 35 AWOS sites and a similar number of communications-relay stations have been going in over the past 18 months, with many of the offshore helicopter operators participating by providing lift to technicians and for the hardware they had to install.
Similarly, the producers who operate the platforms have not only provided space for the ground stations, but bandwidth on the underwater communications and computer lines connecting the platforms to shore. These network links will provide the lines between the ADS-B stations and the controllers’ screens at Houston Center, which oversees the Gulf airspace. The potential to improve the efficiency of the Gulf of Mexico energy-company traffic is immense.
Under the old system, operators like to say, you go VFR when the weather is good, IFR when the weather gets bad – and back to VFR when the weather persists. That’s a dangerous approach that typically results in flights being grounded. Under IFR rules, in an environment with no radar coverage beyond about 50 miles, the FAA’s ATC system employed an inefficient way of traffic management.
Under the non-radar system, the Gulf is divided into hundreds of 10-mile-square grids. Aircraft are required to report their position so that the FAA can make sure that only one aircraft at a time is in any given square, as well as assuring no adjoining grid squares have traffic. And, finally, the traffic route needs to have a contiguous line of those 10-mile grids connected one after another between the flight’s point of origin and its final destination.
With the IOC in place, controllers can begin to handle ADS-B equipped helicopters similarly to the way traffic is managed in the radar environment over the Lower 48 states.
But as the FAA and operators gain experience and confidence in the system, the agency and operators anticipate that separation standards common to the on-shore radar environment can be shrunken to as little as five miles from the typical 50 for en trail separation, and as little as three miles in airport traffic areas. Achieving these lower levels of separation will essentially serve to increase capacity.
Additionally, since aircraft equipped with both ADS-B Out and ADS-B In capability can see other ADS-B Out aircraft, pilots will be better equipped to maintain their own separation, even when not under positive control of the FAA’s ATC system. That means benefits on good days, marginal days and bad days, day and night.
MORE TO COME: NATIONWIDE ROLLOUT
Meanwhile, the FAA reports that it is currently at more than 50 ADS-B ground stations installed, with more going on line each month. By the end of 2010, the FAA expects to have the entire nationwide network of 320 ADS-B ground stations installed, connected and functional.
The next significant deadline on the radar scopes of the industry, however, comes in April 2010. That’s when the FAA expects to publish a NextGen implementation final rule for industry comment. And the next milestone is expected in September when the agency makes an in-service decision for the network.
The agency would like to have the system change-over to the NextGen ATC network completed by 2018 and is expected to hold to its deadline of 2020 for users to equip with ADS-B Out, in order to retain access to Class A, Class B and Class C airspace.
For those who may have let their airspace classification knowledge slip, Class A is IFRrequired airspace between 18,000 feet msl and 60,000 feet msl; Class B is over the nation’s busiest airports, with a major airport at the center – think Atlanta, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Chicago O’Hare and other similarly high-traffic areas; Class C is a smaller space over airports down a notch in traffic – like Wichita Mid-Continent, which holds its designation in large part because of the traffic from aircraft factories adjacent to the airport.
Currently, the well-known, widely available Mode A/Mode C transponder meets the FAA’s requirements for access to Class A, Class B and Class C airspace. Come final implementation of NextGen and ADS-B Out will be the key that unlocks access to those airspace designations, as well as for operators who wish to file to fly under IFR rules in Class E airspace, which, in short, is the airspace below Class A, and outside Class B and Class C.
All aircraft must transit at least some Class E to travel any distance, and when the weather goes down, the instrument rules allow any properly equipped and approved aircraft to transit Class E flying under an IFR flight plan.
WHAT OPERATORS WILL NEED
The FAA is apparently going to stick with its proposed requirement of ADS-B Out hardware only, leaving the decision on whether to equip with ADS-B In to the aircraft owners and operators. Fortunately, equipping with ADS-B Out sets up the aircraft well to also install the receiver that enables it to receive ADS-B signals from other aircraft and from ground stations.
The ADS-B In link offers operators a number of benefits, including weather and traffic links, with traffic visible at distances far outside the capabilities of any current on-board traffic-avoidance gear.
ADS-B In should also allow the aircraft to receive nationwide weather images, text messaging and other services still being debated. And the weather input, now available through a number of subscriptionbased services, will require neither a subscription nor the proprietary receivers these services use.
In the end, equipping for ADS-B In could be a money saver and performance enhancer. But at the moment, it’s the ADS-B Out hardware that will be a must to sustain the kind of access available today with a Mode C transponder. ■
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Thales Awarded ADS-B/WAM System Contract
Print this page Send to friendPublished on ASDNews: Jan 26, 2010
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(January 25, 2010) -- Thales UK today announces that it has been awarded a contract to supply a Wide-Area Multilateration (WAM) system to National Air Traffic Services (NATS). This is to be a trial system to allow NATS Research & Development to investigate the operational capabilities of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and WAM to support their future en-route surveillance strategy. This is a project that NATS will run in partnership with the Eurocontrol CASCADE programme through its CRISTAL UK 3 project.
The project will consist of a six-sensor active WAM/ADS-B system located around London and covering the airports of Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton and Stansted. This will be used to validate the new technology against a proven radar surveillance picture. The system will utilise existing NATS sites and infrastructure to allow data to be collected and processed at the central processing station based at NATS Corporate Technical Centre (CTC) at Southampton.
A key outcome of the CRISTAL UK 3 will be to validate the safety of ADS-B/WAM in meeting the current 3nm separation standard, which is essential to operations in busy terminal areas like London.
The ADS-B/WAM solution is based on the latest generation of single-board equipments supplied by Thales. This is one of several key installations in Europe where Thales has been selected following a call for tenders against stiff competition, ensuring that Thales products and system solutions lead the surveillance market.
The Thales MAGS system is part of a surveillance product family that includes ADS-B, TIS-B, FIS-B, ADS-R, local-area multilateration and wide-area multilateration capabilities. The modular product family includes options for redundancy, multiple data links, multiple transmit output power levels and omni-directional or sectored antennas to enable tailored, cost effective solutions for nearly any surveillance application.
Victor Chavez, Deputy CEO of Thales UK, says: "This requirement is another key step in demonstrating that Thales is the supplier of choice in the civil/military surveillance market. The system that Thales is supplying to NATS uses the same technology that Thales is supplying to the USA for the FAA's nationwide surveillance and broadcast services project."
Mark Watson, NATS' Head of CNS/ATM Research, says: "NATS is continually evaluating whether the latest technologies can support or improve its air traffic operations. Therefore, we are particularly interested in determining whether ADS-B and WAM can be used for surveillance to deliver the demanding 3nm separation standard in high-density airspace. We look forward to working with Thales to build the safety case for these technologies in some of the busiest and most complex airspace in the world."
Print this page Send to friendPublished on ASDNews: Jan 26, 2010
click to enlarge
(January 25, 2010) -- Thales UK today announces that it has been awarded a contract to supply a Wide-Area Multilateration (WAM) system to National Air Traffic Services (NATS). This is to be a trial system to allow NATS Research & Development to investigate the operational capabilities of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and WAM to support their future en-route surveillance strategy. This is a project that NATS will run in partnership with the Eurocontrol CASCADE programme through its CRISTAL UK 3 project.
The project will consist of a six-sensor active WAM/ADS-B system located around London and covering the airports of Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton and Stansted. This will be used to validate the new technology against a proven radar surveillance picture. The system will utilise existing NATS sites and infrastructure to allow data to be collected and processed at the central processing station based at NATS Corporate Technical Centre (CTC) at Southampton.
A key outcome of the CRISTAL UK 3 will be to validate the safety of ADS-B/WAM in meeting the current 3nm separation standard, which is essential to operations in busy terminal areas like London.
The ADS-B/WAM solution is based on the latest generation of single-board equipments supplied by Thales. This is one of several key installations in Europe where Thales has been selected following a call for tenders against stiff competition, ensuring that Thales products and system solutions lead the surveillance market.
The Thales MAGS system is part of a surveillance product family that includes ADS-B, TIS-B, FIS-B, ADS-R, local-area multilateration and wide-area multilateration capabilities. The modular product family includes options for redundancy, multiple data links, multiple transmit output power levels and omni-directional or sectored antennas to enable tailored, cost effective solutions for nearly any surveillance application.
Victor Chavez, Deputy CEO of Thales UK, says: "This requirement is another key step in demonstrating that Thales is the supplier of choice in the civil/military surveillance market. The system that Thales is supplying to NATS uses the same technology that Thales is supplying to the USA for the FAA's nationwide surveillance and broadcast services project."
Mark Watson, NATS' Head of CNS/ATM Research, says: "NATS is continually evaluating whether the latest technologies can support or improve its air traffic operations. Therefore, we are particularly interested in determining whether ADS-B and WAM can be used for surveillance to deliver the demanding 3nm separation standard in high-density airspace. We look forward to working with Thales to build the safety case for these technologies in some of the busiest and most complex airspace in the world."