Affordable ADS-B out

[3Dreaming]

I have been around aviation for a while, and this is just like the mode C requirement from years ago. There are still people flying around in airplanes without mode C transponders.

[dstclair]

Yup. ADS-B out will only be required in the airspace that currently requires Mode C.

[MovingOn]

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[FastEddieB]

Personally, I'll take a look at the landscape in late 2019, if I'm still flying then and have a plane.

Until then, not so much.

Hopefully, by then you guys will have scouted out ALL the options and someone will present it in a digest format.

Thanks in advance!

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[3Dreaming]

I am in the wait and see camp. I have seen to many times where something is scheduled to change in aviation only to see it disappear before the deadline is reached. 6 years from now who knows what kind of advances will have been made in the electronics or certification procedures. The stuff your buying today could be obsolete by the time 2020 gets here. It's fine if you want the latest and greatest right now, but I'll bet there will be better options when 2020 rolls around.

[dstclair]

I am in the wait and see camp. I have seen to many times where something is scheduled to change in aviation only to see it disappear before the deadline is reached. 6 years from now who knows what kind of advances will have been made in the electronics or certification procedures. The stuff your buying today could be obsolete by the time 2020 gets here. It's fine if you want the latest and greatest right now, but I'll bet there will be better options when 2020 rolls around.

Skyguard has provided what they feel is the appropriate data to the FAA to be TSO C154-c certified which may future-proof my purchase. But that was only one factor in my purchase. I figured $975 to receive traffic for the next 6 years was a bargain.

I didn't really care too much about receiving traffic and it was my wife who prompted me to try and figure out a solution. Now that I have traffic, I consider it a great tool to have in busy airspace like my home DFW area. I went up on a glorious weather day yesterday and, it seems, every other pilot in the DFW area was up as well. My 795/GDL-39/Skyguard configuration saw much more traffic than I did. One particular bogey was at my alitutde coming at me at 90 degrees. I saw the vector and become even more vigilant in searching. The verbal warning started and it was then I finally saw the aircraft. It was clear it was going to cross behind but only by a quarter mile or so. I do not believe they ever saw me. I'm not so sure I would've seen the aircraft if not for the graphics, either.

I think it's a very good safety tool to add to the toolbox.

[drseti]

Like TCAS before it, I have concerns that ADS-B reliance can actually diminish safety, if we aren't especially vigilent and aware of its pitfalls. Every second spent looking at a screen is time not scanning outside. And, both systems only display participating traffic - they'll never see that NORDO antique, or that modern aircraft whose transponder happens to be inoperative, or still set to Standby. Please don't forget that technology, no matter how great, is never a substitute for see-and-avoid when you're flying in VMC.

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[drseti]

It's somewhat like having someone in the seat next to you helping look for traffic.

That's great, as long as you realize not all traffic shows up on the screen. I've written extensively on this topic in the aviation literature (mostly in the 1980s, when transponders and TCAS were first mandated). References available upon request. My 1990 book "Near Midair Collisions as an Indicator of General Aviation Collision Risk" is long out of print, so I'm considering scanning it and posting PDFs to my website.

[3Dreaming]

For all of you who are buying the new equipment, you are doing your part to keep GA rolling. I'm just not ready to spend the money yet, because I think there will be changes in the next 6 years.

[MovingOn]

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[drseti]

for some of us, 6 years is a lifetime.

For those of us who've lost contemporaries within the past six years, that is indeed a sobering thought.

[MovingOn]

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