So, I've been doing research on what it will take to comply with the ADS-B "out" requirement looming on 1 January 2020. It all boils down to having a WAAS/GPS and the ability to transmit the data that this device calculates (again this is bare minimum and does not include all the additional hardware needed to take advantage of ADS-B "in" datalinks). There are several options for installing WAAS/GPS capability, and likewise several options for how to transmit the data. One way to transmit the data is with a 1090 extended squitter (ES) transponder. If you fly above 18,000' or anywhere outside the US a 1090 extended squitter (ES) transponder is required based on what I've read. However I'm a bug squasher and will never fly above 18,000', however I would like to ensure that someday I can fly into or through Canada, either as a destination or a route to Alaska.
What I can't seem to wrap my head around is all the talk on this website of folks flying to or from Alaska to the lower 48 through Canada, and I'd be willing to bet that most are not equipped with a 1090ES transponder. I don't understand why I'm reading that international flight requires this type of transponder yet people fly to Canada all the time and most likely don't have this capability. Can anyone explain?

If you go low, they don't know. Unless the Air Force is flying one of their many airplanes with the big radar dome mounted on top looking down near you.

From what I gather, its pretty easy to get a transponder waiver through Canada.

What I can't seem to wrap my head around is all the talk on this website of folks flying to or from Alaska to the lower 48 through Canada, and I'd be willing to bet that most are not equipped with a 1090ES transponder. I don't understand why I'm reading that international flight requires this type of transponder yet people fly to Canada all the time and most likely don't have this capability. Can anyone explain?

My SQ2 does not have a transponder. Bringing it down from Alaska I requested and received a waiver to cross the border into Canada, and I had to file eAPIS.

You don't need ADS-B out in Canada for the type of flying you're talking about. Sounds like the only place Canada uses it is over the Hudson Bay in the flight levels. I'd give you a reference but if you google ADS-B Canada you'll find info.

I'd be very careful trying to comply with the 2020 mandate until SOMEbody actually decides what will comply with that mandate. There's equipment out there right now that will supposedly comply, but the FAA has a really notorious habit of changing these requirements frequently at least until the requirement goes into effect.

There is a lot of discussion going on about this right now, including AOPA telling the FAA that the current equipment is simply too expensive.

Which is the other reason to hold off as long as possible.....as the deadline approaches, more equipment will be approved, and hopefully, it will be better and less expensive.

Maybe.

MTV

MTV,
In general I agree that what you say is a valid concern, and a reason to not install all the obsenely expensive equipment to both comply with the mandate as well as to take advantage of the datalink broadcasts that NextGen offers. But here's the thing; so far the FAA has not backed down on their deadline for compliance. If that remains so, there will be tens of thousands of aircraft owners all standing in line at the few avionics shops that are capable doing the install. So while you wait for your installation to be complete after 1 January 2020, you could potentially be grounded, and who can stand the thought of that happening?

You don't need a ES transponder in Canada. I don't have a transponder at all in my 180 and I live here. To fly into class C airspace you do need a mode C equipped transponder though, but as mentioned, you can call ahead and get an exemption.

I had the same question and asked Nav Canada.

Nav Canada's position on ADS-B

NAV CANADA’s current focus is on benefits derived from using ADS-B Out transmissions for ATC purposes such as introducing surveillance into areas which have little to no radar coverage (including high altitude and remote locations such as the far North, oceanic airspace, etc) and where there is a need to reduce separation standards between aircraft. There are presently no plans for implementation of ADS-B in other areas of the country.

ADS-B in Canada utilizes the 1090 MHz frequency. There are no plans for use of ADS-B In (weather or traffic) or UAT (978 Mhz) at this time.

Even without a transponder you can get prior permission to get into a Canadian airport that normally requires Mode C so you can clear customs.

For the US my understanding is that if you have UAT ADS-B out you still need to have a transponder so 1090ES would seem a better path and then use any of the portable dual band solutions for ADS-B in to get weather & traffic. This is Trig's avionics comment.

A UAT solution will often be more expensive than a 1090 ES based solution, because the 1090 ES ADS-B capability is built into many existing ATC transponders, whereas the UAT solution is a separate datalink radio. Although there is some hot debate on the subject, you will still need a transponder if you install UAT, which is why the total cost is higher. To be fair, if you already have a transponder and it has plenty of life left in it you can dodge that part of the cost, but in general the cost favours the 1090 ES solution.

Also the new Iridium satellite system will have 1090ES receivers and be used for aircraft tracking world wide even when out of range of ground based ADS-B receivers by Aireon. Better than SPOT - WAAS GPS & much faster updates. A consideration if you fly in remote areas.

Aireon will provide a global emergency tracking service to ANSPs and Search & Rescue authorities to provide the aviation
community with the ability to query the location and last flight track of any ADS-B Out equipped aircraft
• Aireon ALERT will be provided as a free public service

NMXWinds wrote: If that remains so, there will be tens of thousands of aircraft owners all standing in line at the few avionics shops that are capable doing the install. So while you wait for your installation to be complete after 1 January 2020, you could potentially be grounded, and who can stand the thought of that happening?

I admit to being a pessimist but something tells me that this is actually the goal......

And I did not know that a WAAS GPS was required.

Double post

Mister701 wrote:And I did not know that a WAAS GPS was required.

It is, and it provides no improvement over a regular non-WAAS approach certified GPS for the pilot, the controllers, the other pilots in the area, or any other facet of nextgen infrastructure for VFR or non-precision IFR flight whatsoever.

Someone decided they needed it because ...well, there is no clear reason I can find, including from the FAA. Meanwhile, the cost difference between a WAAS source and a non-WAAS source is a large chunk of the cost of an average install. If they got rid of the WAAS requirement today for vfr and non-precision IFR, the costs of an install would drop by a grand or more by tomorrow.

lesuther wrote:

Mister701 wrote:And I did not know that a WAAS GPS was required.

It is, and it provides no improvement over a regular non-WAAS approach certified GPS for the pilot, the controllers, the other pilots in the area, or any other facet of nextgen infrastructure for VFR or non-precision IFR flight whatsoever.

Someone decided they needed it because ...well, there is no clear reason I can find, including from the FAA. Meanwhile, the cost difference between a WAAS source and a non-WAAS source is a large chunk of the cost of an average install. If they got rid of the WAAS requirement today for vfr and non-precision IFR, the costs of an install would drop by a grand or more by tomorrow.

Im certainly no expert but I thought I read somewhere that the WAAS difference has something to do with corrections in GPS computations that make the resulting information a bit more accurate and precise and maybe more timely. Not sure though.

gregwyatt wrote:I read somewhere that the WAAS difference has something to do with corrections in GPS computations that make the resulting information a bit more accurate and precise and maybe more timely.

You are correct. The important things that WAAS brings to the table are

1. Faster update rate - 5Hz rather than 1Hz

2. Better integrity monitoring - The non-precision sets used RAIM, the function of which can be broadly described by determining error by looking at position solutions from multiple partial sets of satellite signals to see how they deviate from one another, vs more advanced monitoring and local deviation broadcasts found in WAAS compliant systems. WAAS integrity checking is especially improved for vertical error estimation compared to RAIM.

There are other details as well. The upshot is that the accuracy of a non-WAAS TSO system is supposed to be roughly 40 feet 95% of the time. A WAAS system is supposed to improve this to around 18 feet 95% of the time,and provide updates 5 times a second rather than once a second.

The 1 Hz update rate is still as fast or faster than current primary and approach radar, so providing updates at 5Hz for anything except precision IFR approaches is no more useful in my opinion than updates at 1Hz for navigation, collision avoidance, etc. Being able to see traffic conflicts at +/-18 feet seems no more useful to me than +/-40 feet, nor does knowing it 5 times a second rather than once a second improve the outcomes of such an encounter for VFR bug smashers or enroute IFR drivers. So I am skeptical that the greater accuracy will play a role in improving the safety of flight or the utility of the airspace for anyone but those on precision approaches or flying IFR RNAV direct.

In short, I can't seem to get my head around how mandating WAAS across the board for everyone from $15k Tripacer drivers to A380's will improve safety or utility for anyone over allowing those who don't need WAAS to use TSO 129 non-WAAS units instead of equipment that is remarkably costly and of no utility. If the intent was to get rid of radar (it used to be), that has long been abandoned due to performance and security concerns.

The FAA might as well mandate having an expensive hockey puck on board at all times and have exactly the same impact on flight safety and airspace utility in my opinion.

Lesuther, you really know your GPS. I've got a question for you. Is a handheld WAAS GPS less accurate then a panel mount? My understanding with the ADS-B requirement is that it has to be a panel mount GPS, not a handheld. Am I right on this? And if so, why is that, if a handheld with WAAS is as accurate as a panel mount? Being able to use a handheld would also lower the cost for a lot of us.

As lesuther pointed out, WAAS is about position integrity. The hidden feature in the TSO requirement is a feature called FDE (fault detection and exclusion). En route, terminal and approach FDE capabilities allow the loss of the WAAS signal and onboard algorithms continue to correct for GPS signal errors and still provide WAAS level accuracy. This feature also means that a RAIM forecast is not required.

The ADS-B out signal also includes NIC/NAC numbers in its broadcast. These numbers are the GPS's position confidence, and the threshold for the signal to be displayed on a controllers screen can't be reliably maintained with a non TSO 145/146 WAAS receiver.

NMXWinds wrote:...so far the FAA has not backed down on their deadline for compliance. If that remains so, there will be tens of thousands of aircraft owners all standing in line at the few avionics shops that are capable doing the install. So while you wait for your installation to be complete after 1 January 2020, you could potentially be grounded, and who can stand the thought of that happening?

Here is something to consider. ADS-B is pre-Internet (okay pre World Wide Web) technology. Which makes it pre-iPad, Foreflight, Garmin Pilot, Stratus, GDL 39, etc. The Internet and all this new technology has left the FAA in the dust. All this portable technology is being used by everyone from the airlines to pilots flying in IFR conditions to us VFR guys, legal or not, because it's better then a lot of the "approved" archaic systems, it reduces workload, and makes flying far safer. The FAA, try as they may, can't legislate technology advancement, and they can't keep up with it.

We can't even imagine what all of this will look like five years from now, and we fly with it day in and day out. Where do you suppose the FAA ends up in all of this? I have no idea and neither do they. But five years from now will look different then it does today I'll bet.

Besides, outside of the government, nobody wants ADS-B - at least no one who has studied the technology and understands all it's flaws and inherent dangers. Wouldn't surprise me if it has a lifespan shorter then Loran, a lot shorter.

Of course I could be wrong........Nah.

Capt. Chaos wrote:The ADS-B out signal also includes NIC/NAC numbers in its broadcast. These numbers are the GPS's position confidence, and the threshold for the signal to be displayed on a controllers screen can't be reliably maintained with a non TSO 145/146 WAAS receiver.

The TSO 129a equipment also has the confidence metrics included for an ADS-b out transmission. The difference is that the availability of the WAAS metrics is closer to 99% while TSO 129 metrics are only available about 89% of the time. I would assert that difference is almost inconsequential for most users.

The FAA has only mandated the use of WAAS since 2012 for ADS-b compliance. Prior to then, they embraced TSO129 for positional inputs. Here is one of many relevant circulars related to that from back when the FAA was still optimistic about the future of ADS-b:

https://www.aea.net/Training/courses/ADSBForum/pdf/AEA%20ADS-B%20Installation%20Guidance.pdf

The FAA has all but conceded that their analysis of system performance of ADS-b was pretty awful, and realized they could not get rid of any of the costly radar services that were major reasons to justify the costs of Nextgen. Then it was pointed out that even current traffic levels at several class bravo airspace cannot service all the aircraft with ADS-b services...there isn't enough bandwidth to support all the data. Then they degraded the weather component of the service and completely dropped the error correction elements of the ground to air and air to air to partly address the issue, yet they still require radar to fix the rest of the problem. Now a kid with a little google fu and some saved up lunch money can DDOS critical segments of the ADS-b services. The FAA responded by scrambling to filter out spoofed and spurious data from their ground based systems, but aircraft are still vulnerable with the air to air component. It will not surprise me one bit if the FAA nixes the air to air component entirely due to these critical vulnerabilities, or simply tells everyone that the collision avoidance component is useless unless the air to air component is somehow disabled. Collision avoidance would become useless at low level (like in the pattern) at many airports or in the mountains away from ground based systems. The ground based filters are still yielding failures as well.

In the end, ADS-b could have been wonderful. As it is, it has been a shaky, obsolete, and complex rollout that incurs unnecessary costs without discernible benefits to most GA users or even any users in general in my opinion. Apparently, the GAO has a similar opinion.

And apparently, if you use the FAA-provided and broadcasted weather data for navigational purposes and the reliance on that data results in an incident, you could be subject to an enforcement action.

To get back to whether a handheld unit provide sufficient accuracy to be used as a position source, I would disagree with the AOPA that they are adequate for integration into he ADS-b system. A TSO position source provides RAIM, FDE, and gives the ADS-b the aforementioned integrity metrics. I have never interfaced to a handheld unit that provided those metrics in the same way, although perhaps some exist that do. TSO-129 compliant sources are far less expensive right now than WAAS sources, and the existing GA fleet has almost 50% penetration for these sources. TSO145/6 penetration is hovering at 10%. The air carrier fleet has less than 10% equipped with ADS-b compliant systems according to the GAO and the FAA. If the airlines dont see a benefit, why will GA? But the allowance of TSO129 equipment would cut the cost of literally half of the ADSb installs in half, and cut the costs for the rest of the GA fleet by at least a quarter.

lesuther wrote:The FAA has all but conceded that their analysis of system performance of ADS-b was pretty awful, and realized they could not get rid of any of the costly radar services that were major reasons to justify the costs of Nextgen.

The system has unfortunately gotten caught up chasing it's own tail. Why are we using a corporate model for implementing public policy? Many of us have heard and embraced the American corporate mantra; "Lets do more with less" and we almost always loose sight of the fact that it inevitably ends up doing less with less. Lesuther's analysis is so spot on here pinpointing the motivation for Nextgen. What makes those radar services so costly? The short answer is "people". Public policy and public services would be so damn much easier to implement if it wasn't for the people involved. I'm not faulting the Agencies here. I truly don't believe that they set out to screw it up, but the motivation is all wrong and the results always cost more than anticipated. I believe they'll figure it out. But the older I get the more skeptical I become. I hope I don't morph into a Luddite.

I have a hundred stories about this process in the oil patch. Campfire material.

It is frustrating watching the FAA implement anything and hold the flying public to a standard they can't meet. Even when mandated by congress to simplify certification and rewrite part 23 they just shrug their shoulders and will be years late if it ever happens... and even relatively simply things like 3rd class medical reform have been dragging on for how long now? It would be nice if we could say we'll hold up our end of the bargain when they hold up theirs. Wishfull thinking I know...