I am all for lively discussions about why this and not that, etc. When it turns into basically someone continuing to tell others they are an idiot, well why not just kindly STFU. The ADS-B discussion seem to be fully entrenched in this sort of dialog and is becoming once again another topic that has gone off the rails.

The reason for this new topic is to highlight just how awesome flying with ADS-B is in Alaska. The reason I'm saying Alaska is because, well, this is where I live. Duh right? This is about flying with ADS-B in areas that are not even remotely near 2020 ADS-B mandated airspace. Imagine you and your buddies are flying to the Wrangell Mountains for some awesome backcountry flying and camaraderie (I had to look up how to spell that). We all have ADS-B 'in' and 'out'. It's difficult at times, lots of times in fact, to keep an eye on your buddies. Eyes outside looking at all the wonderful sights, and then you buddies disappear. I for one like to know where other planes are in relationship to me. Even though your talking to each other, it's easy to just lose them. ADS-B gives me their position info right now! Oh, there is my buddy Squash, flying his "sexy beast" at my 2 o'clock, going away from me,1k above me. Sweet. There is something so comforting about knowing where people are in the area you are flying in.

Equiping my airplane with both ADS-B 'in' and 'out' is expensive. I believe that the information I receive from it justifies the cost. Buying helmets was also expensive, but also items that I feel give me a better chance of surviving an accident. Personal PLB's, safety vests, SpiderTracks, 406 ELT all fall under that. Safety is my first concern for myself, passenger(s) and those around me.

I don't EVER plan on flying into Anchorage International. No need to with Lake Hood being right there and I don't need ADS-B to accomplish that. Why equip my plane then? For exactly what I stated above. I'm not the only one who enjoys being able to see who else is out there. Yes there will be many people who feel this is a waste of money. People are entitled to their own opinions....just not their own facts. Fact is, I feel safer with it.

Greg


BTW: Squash's 'sexy beast' is his super sweet 185.

Started flying ADS-B in SW AK when the Capstone program launched. It's a great tool and the WX features are super cool out in the middle of nowhere. I'm a big fan.

I am with you on the safety part, great stuff. It will be interesting to see how this new Orion's Belt satellite system works out. With it being satellite based it should be better than the ground based ADS-B system.

Yep. Couldn't agree more. Like akgreg, I have helmets, vests, spidertracks, PLBs, sat phone, 406 ELT, etc.....and ADS-B in and out....in both planes. And ADS-B is amazing.

The other day I went flying with a friend who left lake hood to join me in the air as I departed from Soldotna. I picked him up on my screen and intercepted him easily. Prior to ADSB, I would have spent 30 min on the radio doing something like this:

Me, "where are you?"
Him, "two miles from the edge of the second valley"
Me, "What's your altitude?"
Him, "800 feet"
Me, "what's your groundspeed?"
Him, "115 mph"
Me, "have you crossed over the edge of that oval lake yet?"
And on and on.

I justify my safety gear by thinking of what I would pay for some device that I didn't have when stranded somewhere and injured. For example, I imagine some situation where I'm stuck and without a sat phone. What would I pay to have a sat phone in that situation? Or spider tracks. I go flying and flip my plane in the water. No one knows where I am. ELT sinks before a signal goes off. No PLB and no spider tracks. What would I give to have a PLB and a website that will show my friends back home of my last spider ping?

Well, here we are in 2017 with the technology to have airplanes talk to each other with location information outside of radar areas. Now TCAS does this, but you want to talk expensive? But even at TCAS prices, I still ask the question of what my life is worth if I were to imagine a situation where I am about to have a mid air collision that could have been avoided? Think it won't happen to you? Midair collisions do happen, and I would bet that the victims of recent occurrences would have opted for the technology had they known of their destiny.

I routinely ask for flight following when in radar areas. Why? Because an extra set of eyes is a safety advantage for me. If I subscribed to the "see and avoid" is good enough, then I would never talk to approach control. But I do talk to them. And I use ADS-B for increased traffic awareness. I personally love it. I wish everyone had ADSB-out so that I could avoid hitting them. If you hate traffic showing up on your screen, then don't get ADSB-in.

As an actual user of the ADS-B technology, I see the benefits.

Well shoot, I guess I will be on the other side.

I got the GDL 39 and an IPad two Airman's shows ago. I was sold on the weather feature of ADSB. Well it turns out you need ground stations for the WX to work, and there aren't any nor are there plans to put them on the Katmai Coast/Kamishak bay area where I need the WX the most.

I went in to talk to the guy next to Northern Avionics on Merrill, he is like the ADSB guru started out with capstone project., and owns the only privately owned ADSB ground station. He is working on a satellite based system and predicted the system would start changing to satellite system around 2025. They really should have done it with a satellite based system, now we are mandated for a system that is outdated before it is even running completely.

I didn't even know they had internet in Homer. Howdy Wes.

Weather was never part of...MY...reasoning. I'm fully aware of the fact that the weather info is limited at best in Alaska. TRAFFIC is what I'm after.

akgreg wrote:I didn't even know they had internet in Homer. Howdy Wes.

Weather was never part of the reasoning. I'm fully aware of the fact that the weather info is limited at best in Alaska. TRAFFIC is what I'm after.

Weather was absolutely a huge part of the Capstone system, aimed at improving aviation safety on the YK Delta and Southeast Alaska. And it did just that. There's no question that access to weather can be a crucial improvement to safety especially for working pilots. In the lower 48, XM has offered that service for several years, and I've used it extensively and I love it.

The full ADS-B system was in fact not intended to provide weather OR traffic info. Those features were added as part of ADS-B to entice more pilots to install the equipment.

There is no question that ADS-B traffic and weather CAN be a safety advantage. That assumes, of course, that, in the case of weather, that you're in range of a GBT, and in the case of traffic that the other aircraft is also ADS-B equipped if you're out of range of a GBT, or the other airplane is transponder equipped assuming you are within range of a GBT.

For the record, I have NOTHING against ADS-B, except perhaps the price. What I do have an issue with is the considerable mis information that's been put out about the system, how it works, what it does and what it doesn't do. And examples of this have appeared in a couple of the major aviation magazines, whose editors SHOULD know better. There have been examples on this site on another thread.

Since my airplane doesn't have an electrical system, ADS-B won't be in this plane's future. But I have flown Capstone equipped airplanes, both in the Capstone coverage area, where it is very nice, and outside, where it is less useful.

MTV

I didn't make this picture for this thread, but this is why I like ADS-B.

mtv wrote:

akgreg wrote:I didn't even know they had internet in Homer. Howdy Wes.

Weather was never part of the reasoning. I'm fully aware of the fact that the weather info is limited at best in Alaska. TRAFFIC is what I'm after.

Weather was absolutely a huge part of the Capstone system,

MTV

I don't think akgreg was talking about weather and it not being part of the capstone system or ADS-B. I believe he was commenting that he did not choose ADS-B because of the weather services it offers, but rather on the traffic service alone.

Having flown "blind" in my normal flying routes, insulated from the benefits of XM weather, the fact that ADS-B weather isn't as good as XM doesn't much matter to me. Yes, all this stuff is expensive. Totally agree.

I should have said.....MY.....reasoning. I figured the Mensa members here would have figured that out. I will use pictures next time.

I am offended, of course we have internet in Homer, the AOL dial up works just fine.

Weather problems were already solved with XM in my book. Traffic to me is the big advantage. Imma fan. Just like you have to know everyone doesn't need to equip, you also need to know that there's a lag between the radar returns and the actual weather. Always fly the wx you are in, not the forecast - or in this case - the wx shaded on our ipads.

akgreg wrote:Weather was never part of...MY...reasoning. I'm fully aware of the fact that the weather info is limited at best in Alaska. TRAFFIC is what I'm after.

And then the FAA broke the traffic function of the Capstone design when they came out with the ADS-B specs by specifying two bands. To be sure you see everyone around you, you must have a dual-band receiver. To be sure everyone around you sees you, you must have a dual-band transmitter. Except the FAA recommends against installing dual-band out. Or you depend on the ground stations which has already been pointed out aren't reliable unless you're above 6,000' (and sometimes not even then). Of the numerous errors in ADS-B, this dual-band nonsense is the biggest, in my opinion.

akgreg wrote:I should have said.....MY.....reasoning. I figured the Mensa members here would have figured that out. I will use pictures next time.

Shoot, and here I thought I was the center of the universe.....

Now don't go all pissy here...just yanking chains.

MTV

I had to look up "Mensa" guess that means I'm not a member.

No XM radio in AK which is why I wanted the ADSB for weather.

Headoutdaplane wrote:No XM radio in AK which is why I wanted the ADSB for weather.

Yes, and having used XM now in the lower 48 for several years, I can recall a couple hundred times Id've killed for that kind of tool in AK.

MTV

I think all of us whose flying life exceeds 15-20 years or so can identify with how blind we flew "back then", when the only way of gathering the weather ahead while in the air was to visit with Flight Watch every so often. When we were on the ground obtaining weather enroute, we talked to FSS for a briefing update, or if we were lucky and there was an FSS on the field, we got a face-to-face and looked at NWS faxed maps that had come out a few hours earlier while obtaining our briefing.

Today's pilots, who cut their teeth on computer screens on the ground that can show in real time what the weather is actually doing, who have either XM or ADS-B In weather in their airplanes that is at best only a few minutes old and at worst maybe 20 minutes old, don't know what they're missing--and they should be thankful for that.

I've had onboard weather for a relatively short time, a little less than 5 years, but I can think of many flights across the country in which it would have been so very valuable. Right now I'm recalling a mixed business/pleasure flight in the TR182 from Laramie to Cheyenne to Dallas-Redbird with Wife 1 and a guest. Although we had sufficient fuel to make the Cheyenne-Dallas leg non-stop, I'd decided that a stop at Amarillo for a short rest would be a good idea, as it was getting bumpy, and our good VMC had become in-and-out IMC, which was making our guest passenger uncomfortable. A call to Flight Watch disclosed that there was a thunderstorm in the Dallas area, but it was moving through, and although the briefer was thorough enough, I was having a hard time picturing the overall weather picture at that point. I was all for going on to Dallas after a short rest, but my uncomfortable guest passenger persuaded me that she would really like to stay the night and go on in the morning.

We found a nice motel in Amarillo, and the next morning the weather was gorgeous--a very smooth VFR flight on into Redbird. But there was pooled water on the ramp and in the parking lot and on the streets--we soon learned that that "moving through" thunderstorm was a series of storms which had pummeled the entire Dallas area, complete with hail, high winds, and torrential rain. Yet I didn't get that serious a picture at all in my mind, from the Flight Watch briefer. Had I had what I have now in the cockpit, I would have likely seen a large string of red and yellow. It was only the fortuitous discomfort of our guest that kept us from tangling with even the fringe areas of that monstrous series of storms.

Cary

Cary wrote:I think all of us whose flying life exceeds 15-20 years or so can identify with how blind we flew "back then", when the only way of gathering the weather ahead while in the air was to visit with Flight Watch every so often. When we were on the ground obtaining weather enroute, we talked to FSS for a briefing update, or if we were lucky and there was an FSS on the field, we got a face-to-face and looked at NWS faxed maps that had come out a few hours earlier while obtaining our briefing.

I got a chance to do this in Northway a little while back. It was pretty interesting, watching all the stuff that rolled in through the FSS there.

Does anyone have working ADS-B weather on the Peninsula? It's one of the only places on the FAA map that isn't green.

If you do have it working, what kind of receiver/transmitter are you using?