ALASKA AIRMEN'S ASSOCIATION FORUMS

I am wondering if anyone part 91, 135 or 121 has gotten any of the ADS-B equipment under the statewide equipage plan?

Has anyone been approved?

It is August and I read in the equipage agreement that there are deadlines, and a number of aircraft that have to equipped within a specified amount of time. Also Joe Pearson stated in his President's Report where the AOPA has objected to some of the proposed standards--my question is... in the agreement is there a clause that releases the signatories from the deadline for equipage over the standard, or will we loose out and the SBS office move away and equipage goes elsewhere in the Lower 48?


Can anyone respond to this, please!

At the forefront of the new air traffic frontier is a system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast or ADS-B, which threatens to overturn the dominant role played by radar at airports such as Dublin and, indeed, throughout the world.

While modern radar can plot an aircraft's position and trajectory, it is less accurate with distance.

GPS-equipped aircraft, on the other hand, know where they are to within metres and, using ADS-B, broadcast this accurate information direct to traffic management centres and to other aircraft.

It is so precise that more aircraft can be safely packed into the same area of sky and, using a sophisticated form of anti-collision equipment, navigate safely around other aircraft without the aid of controllers.

Where necessary, controllers can direct pilots via Datalink, a sort of aerial e-mail, thus doing away with radio and its potential for fatal misunderstandings.

Of most interest to airlines, however, is that jets will be able to navigate more directly to their destinations without having to take complicated zig-zags through convoluted airspace, saving both time and fuel.

The only constraint on their journey may be the availability of runway space.

The FAA reckons that NextGen and its attendant technologies will be widespread across the US by the middle of the next decade.

Eurocontrol, on the other hand, is suggesting that, unless the single European sky becomes a reality sooner, it may be 2020 by the time Sesar is fully rolled out across Europe.

The delay can only prove costly for all Europe's economies, as aircraft continue to navigate from one antediluvian radio beacon to another.

Anglo-Irish co-operation in merging airspace, on the other hand, may well prove a more useful beacon for Europe to follow.

Numerous Part 135 operators in Western Alaska already have the Phase I and II "Capstone" ADS-B equipment installed utilizing a grant program. Other 135 and 121 operators in-state have begun to use the low-interest loan program offered by the State and are slowly upgrading their fleets. At least one general aviation operator has been approved for the loan program and has equipped his airplane.