ADS-B - Automatic Infringment Generator?
 

I note that the ATSB has a memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CASA that requires the ATSB to notify CASA with the details of any reported incident, confidential or not, together with identifying details, for enforcement action (ie:Punishment) by CASA.

I also note that Airservices has a similar MOU with CASA although I am not aware of its contents.

I believe ADS - B out provides for the exact identification of any aircraft using it, and ADS - B equiped aircraft fitted with an aviation quality GPS, broadcast postion, altitude and speed to Airservices receivers around the country continuously, In theory then, the location of every aircraft so equipped is known at all times, flying or not. Aviation anonymity disappears for all pilots.

What are the chances then that Airservices wil share this information with CASA continuously? It would not be hard to produce a computer application that automatically generates an infringement notice when controlled airspace, danger areas, etc were breached as well as low flying and a host of other allegedly illegal activities were observed. It would also be very easy to put a persons private aviation activities under surveillance for the purposes of a ramping or other action. Furthermore, I assume that the ADS -B logs will be kept forever, making retrospective enforcement action possible.

What are the chances that CASA will use this technology as an enforcement tool?

Yes I know. If you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to fear........

I'd be very worried about this if it were to happen.

Flying up to QLD a few weeks ago it was poor weather that required a lot of decision making including a few U turns to pick a different route and decisions to fly at 500ft for times (visually) below cloud.

I would hate to have to factor big-brother into my decision making process. Sure I'm flying 500' visual but what if the GPS logged me as 400ft. Would that press me into making the poor choice of flying higher between a layer, risking being trapped?

I think this kind of surveillance will lead to poor safety outcomes as people will make worse decisions by factoring in their infringement notice.

The first part of you statement about identification and altitude is true. The second part is not true. The location of your aircraft is only know if
a) you have your transponder turned on. (ie if you are not flying you can't be seen)
b) you are in range of an Airservices ADS-B receiver. The coverage of ASA receivers can been seen here. To be seen at 500ft you would basically have to be overhead one of the receivers. The automated program would be difficult to create because how would it know that you didn't have a clearance. It still would rely on the controller identifying that you are in controlled airspace without a clearance and reporting it manually.

I don't dismiss the rest of your argument however. You right that it could be kept indefinitely and used against you. It is possible to set up your own ADSB receiver easily and cheaply and by extension CASA could possibly do this if they were using it to gather evidence against a particular operator (I have no idea if they are allowed to do this.)

Personally, I drive a car everyday and it is subject to speed/redlight/drug/ alcohol enforcement. I have accepted this because it is for the better good of my and my family's safety. I cop the odd few ks over the speed limit fine every now and then because I was careless or not paying attention. Similarly I know where the speed/redlight cameras are on the routes that I regularly travel and make sure I am complying. I have a GPS that tells me where most of the others are when I am in unfamiliar area. (A VCA warning feature on the next versions of Ozrunways Shagpile?) Everything I say, click on the computer and write down at work (I am an ATC) is recorded and can be used against me. It is one of the conditions of my employment and I have accepted it.
Every time you switch on your phone, us an ATM, walk into a 7eleven, fill up your car, you are being watched in case you break the law and they need the evidence to prosecute you. It's part of living in the 21st century. :)

How will CASA know whether you have a clearance or not? We only keep the audio tapes for 30 days and they can't just be replayed willy nilly.

As to CASA calling it a violation, that's exactly what it is. A Violation of Controlled Airspace, a VCA. How do you know it was a "minor infringement"? Do you know what other activity was going on in that piece of CTA at the time?

Airservices doesn't care about the enforecement side of things because that's not our job. We do care about trying to keep you out of airspace without a clearance because it's a safety concern. ADS-B would allow us to make directed broadcasts to aircraft before they penetrate. The number of times I've made blind broadcasts to a VFR pootling along right through the middle of an active firing area and received no response. Maybe if they shot one of you down you might pay more attention.

A while back I noticed a pair of unidentified VFRs absolutely nose to nose at the same level. One happened to be squawking a code other than 1200 so I made a broadcast referring to the code. The pilot piped up and apologised for not squawking 1200. Fark! He was less than a minute away from having a head-on - I couldn't give a toss about the code, just turn!

C'mon shagpile, get real. Next thing you'll be telling people not to make radio broadcasts for fear it'll be correlated to a radar return.

This argument was had over eight years ago. Yes, this argument is a real possibility. The argument was also along the lines of creating a form of road tax.

Sunfish, if a VCA is generated then is there an argument that you are somewhere else? Is this argument the same as using ABC as your call sign to avoid AVDATA charges at monitored aerodromes?

Hadn't seen those coverage maps before. I stand corrected RE low flying.

What I'm suggesting is looking at real life safety outcomes, which needs to consider people's fear of being in trouble as a contributing factor to decision making.

I agree with the view expressed by le P.

Everyone: Please try hard – very hard – not to enter controlled airspace without a clearance.

And please do a search for and read the thread about the flight path tolerances that must be applied when flying in G or VFR in E, and read AIP ENR 1.1 19.12. “Sticking a wingtip a couple of feet into CTA” means you are actually at least 1 nm closer to CTA than the rules permit you to be, depending on your AGL.

If you are a serial offender, CASA – not Airservices - will suspend or revoke your licence.

Once everyone has an iPad, this will be mostly a thing of the past.

Dead reckoning and legacy GPS units without the detailed maps or with outdated database (because they are so hard and expensive to update) are the main culprits.

What is the ‘this’ to which you refer, Baswell, that ‘will mostly be a thing of the past’? Are you referring to:

- entry to controlled airspace without a clearance?

- mandated flight path tolerances?

How will ATC, watching that blip tracking towards or skimming along the boundary of controlled or restricted airspace, know if the PIC:

- is ‘blessed’ with an iPad or not?

- understands what the iPad is telling her?

Thank you for your considred reply Penguin. ATC has always been good to me, especially going North in the Melbourne VFR corridor with Five aircraft coming the other way at me and cloud preventing proper hemispherical separation.

Yes, getting addressed as VH-Sunfish is also more likely to get my attention then "VFR AIrcraft Ten miles South of X" and nobody wants to bust controlled airspace.

What I was wondering more was an application so that CASA can spot activity by an aircraft normally flown by a known "troublemaker" and arrange a suitable reception committee.

For example, the YAK 52 flown by Barry Hempel, and maybe apply a wheel clamp or handcuffs for the pilot.

Shagpile, ADS-B is line-of-sight RF stuff. not satellite. It's aimed at national coverage above F280. Aside from low level flying what rules are you concerned about that altitude, speed or position information alone would cause you any grief with CASA?

Sunfish, CASA could just subscribe to something like flightradar24 if they wanted to find out where a particular aircraft was. Fit out the detector van with an ADS-B receiver and drive to the location for a more detailed look. No idea on the admissibility as evidence. ADS-B might make it easier for CASA to find an aircraft but is hardly going to convict you. You have to cooperate and turn it on in the first place.

The I pad generation is the problem....not the solution
 

GPS is the major cause for most GA violations of CAS in Europe...I do not know the situation down under.

ADSB will not be the big brother that you fear...just wait for ADSC, this will report automatically every violation....

glf

That would be the one.

Last year at NATFLY some government employees that would know these things told me for the first time in years, VCAs went down. Now correlation does not equal causation, but what happened that year? Thousands of weekend warriors started flying with big aviation maps on their iPads.

It'll be interesting to see how the numbers are going now!

Maybe we should introduce a new squawk code: 1201 - VFR and know what they hell I am doing. ;-)

What about all the non transponder equipped aircraft you can't reliably pick up, especially altitude, skimming along the bottom of steps near all the major airports? Or on top of Romeos?

CASA claims people pressing "direct to" without consideration is a major problem here too. Doesn't surprise me with the average GPS you find in VFR aircraft. Tiny displays (if they have a map display at all) and ancient never updated databases.

Let’s hope it is causation rather than correlation. Without knowing the trend in the number of GA hours flown around controlled airspace in particular, it may be difficult to determine.

The people glued to the iPad screen keeping the wing of the cartoon aircraft just outside the line on the screen actually don’t know what the hell they are doing.

shagpile Serious question for all from a retired avionics tech... and please don't slag me off for this; I have been retired now for 5 years and things may have changed...!

I was under the impression that ADS-B altitude information is derived from a precision barometric altimeter as in the case of TCAS and RVSM ops. The reason being that altitude information from a GPS derived source is not considered sufficiently accurate. Using your example a situation exists whereby a pilot could in fact have three or four different altitude indications displayed in the cockpit... barometric as when set to QFE, barometric as when set to QNH, GPS alt and Radio Altimeter... not forgetting altitudes when flying above transition levels when QFE and QNH are irrelevant. I appreciate that the latter case does not come into the equation at 500' but which 500' are we to depend upon...

Anyone?

The words "barometric" and "geometric" altitudes come to mind, Phalconphixer :)

In "my" airspace its not location that is the problem, its activation times. Military airspace only active intermittently, and on weekends. Do any of the iPad style maps use NOTAMS to only display active RAs?

Sunfish - would it be less of a concern if it was used as an educational/awareness tool rather than enforcement/punishment one? (I know, flying pigs and all that).

Lets not ferget about airways charges for all aircraft..:hmm:





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Binghi, have you even looked at the coverage charts? It'd be a whole lot easier and a whole lot more effective to add a few cents to the cost of avgas if they wanted to collect, that way every mile of flying is charged, not just those in ADS-B coverage. It'd also catch those who don't fit the gear or don't turn it on. No contested bills, no database, no extra bureaucrats. No tracking required.

Hmmm... yeah, though, le Pingouin. There is that looming Drone menace - civilian Drone's that is. Wont be long before Oz has literaly thousands of commercial Drones (UAV's) competing with manned aircraft for ATC time, and resources... and they dont use much 'taxable' fuel..... be a bit unfair for aircraft owners to be subsidising the commercial drone operators dont yer think...:hmm:

...which brings us back to aircraft owners subsidising the ADS-B setup so that commercial drones can operate in Oz airspace... YEP, theres many reasons why there is a push for ADS-B..:hmm:


...........and as we become ever more reliant on a GPS system we neither own or control the threat of terrorism bringing the house of cards ADS-B system down just grows and grows...






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