Position reporting
 

Not long after the Malaysian aircraft went missing and still has not been found there was a sensible push to require aircraft to report their position to base on a more regular basis. Fifteen minutes was a figure quoted.

Since then there has been little or no news.

Would be interested to hear from Ppruners on this matter.

And the point would be?

Exactly. Whatever happened when that flight "went dark", it's pretty clear that position reporting would have ended at that point also. And we'd know exactly nothing more than we know already.

If position reporting goes dead at point where it crashes we know where it crashed.

When your position reporting ends you'll know that's were your position reporting ended, nothing more. And why report it "to base" when ATC are the ones who use the info.


The technology is available and being used in some areas by some air carriers. Eurocontrol rolled back the required date of ADS B to 2020. Next time you book a flight ask the airline if they are participating in ADS B yet.

But, it didn't though, did it? That's kind of my point, as a response to whatever happened to the Malaysian flight it's sort of inane because it wouldn't have changed anything. We *still* wouldn't know what happened or where it went after it stopped communicating.

Why sensible?

Surely if you're in 2-way with ATC and stop squawking, they're going to ask you pretty quickly whether you have a problem. And if you're not in 2-way, you can't make position reports.

G

The process of position transmission can easily be made automatic these days. This would save millions in money and time after a crash. We would then know where the aircraft crashed Particularly over the ocean there would be time to recover the recorders.

By, for example, fitting aircraft with ADS-B?

G

Absolutely right and they may well become a requirment. Lots of movement re ADSB in Australia.

4Greens

Trouble is ( as I understand it, and I'm definitely ready to be corrected) "traditional" ADS-B won't really help you find your hypothetical crashed aircraft in the oceanic case...for dare I say obvious reasons?

ADS-C might help but even then the aircraft can travel a long way between reports, though there is the provision for the automatic alerting of ATC if certain parameters are breached (e.g. Altitude deviation).

Most of Aussie ADS these days in the upper airspace seems to be ADS-C, even overland.

4Greens - A position report is generally used when you are out of range and/or the station that wants to know your position hasn't got the means to do so any other way. So if they can't see you, what will stop you issuing false position reports?

PM