Keep in mind that GPS is more govt controlled, so is GPS more reliable than Radar?
Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
191–197 of 197 posts
Re: Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost. This affects general aviation as older planes will require avionics upgrades. Otherwise I’m excited for the sheer amount of data that will be made available to the public. Now you will be able to track all FAA registered planes
> Now you will be able to track all FAA registered planes Almost all. If you're flying VFR you can put your transponder into an anonymous / incognito mode (if it supports it): * https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/faa-acts-to-preserve-ads... If you want IFR or flight following you'll have to de-anonymized, which is no worse than it was before ADS-B.
Just out of curiosity, how are you anonymous when an Ads-b transponder will respond to any request it receives?
Does incognito mode in your browser stop you from being tracked if e.g Google or facebook can see every or almost all of your requests?
Re: Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
#193A lot of comments seem to be about spoofing. Remember that there are multiple humans in the loop -- experienced pilots and experienced air traffic controllers -- and multiple levels of redundancy. Pilots have access to barometric altitude, radar altitude, traditional VHF navaids, TCAS-issued resolution advisories (based on directional antennas, not GPS)... in addition to GPS. Air traffic controllers have primary rada…
> Air traffic controllers have primary radar and secondary radar in addition to ADS-B information. No they don't. Most secondary (surveillance) radar in the US has been shut down already. The FAA has been busy shutting down basically anything that requires maintenance, and LORAN is gone too. I believe the whole point of ADS-B out was to shut down basically the rest. Source: commercially-rated pilot.
Err... The FAA is replacing all their secondary Mode S radars with... secondary Mode S radars with ADS-B capability. That's probably gonna last at least 20 years, once installed.
Maybe you're thinking of old-school SSR radars ?
Re: Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now I'm trying to remember if the radios have TX lights that would help show that you are transmitting...
G1000/G3000 radios do. TX and RX
G1000 will disable tx if you are transmitting for 35 seconds straight I think as a way to mitigate a stuck mic.
Re: Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that one of the main drivers of ADS-B is to enable smaller separation between aircraft due to the more accurate position reporting. If that's the case, then radar won't be a useful backup because planes would be closer than the radar can separate them.
Planes under IFR will be as close as ATC policies want to run them. If everything's working and separation standards become 2nm laterally, then when there's a GPS or ADS-B outage, we can just revert to the 5nm separation standards and use radar backup.
That might be easier said than done, though, because there may not be enough space to do that. If you have the airspace packed at 2nm and then you need to revert to 5nm, all the planes will fill 2.5x as much area. Plus, how would ATC safely effect that separation when the planes are closer than resolution of the equipment.
Re: Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I took flight school a few years ago, and had to learn to tune in non-directional radio beacons, and use VHF Omni-Directional Range tools for navigation. I wasn't allowed to use the GPS until I demonstrated mastery of the others. Considering that, I suspect the aviation industry will keep both systems working for a surprisingly long time.
This isn’t for pilots to know where they are, it’s for air traffic control to know where planes are. If GPS were to become the sole way to do the latter, every airplane would effectively get an invisibility cloak that those who want to do evil can activate (and even worse. Switching off the on-board transmitter is less scary than spoofing signals) Because of that, I would expect they keep using some way to detect pla…
> This isn’t for pilots to know where they are, it’s for air traffic control to know where planes are.
Yes, thank you for clarifying. I just explained that I am a pilot, so I did know that.
It was an analogy. Just like the way that pilots have multiple redundant "where are you tools", so too do I think traffic controllers will have multiple redundant "where is everyone" tools.
Because the industry, as a whole, is in favor of multiple redundant tools when it comes to safety.
Re: Air-Traffic Control Is in the Midst of a Major Change from Radar to GPS
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now you will be able to track all FAA registered planes Almost all. If you're flying VFR you can put your transponder into an anonymous / incognito mode (if it supports it): * https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/faa-acts-to-preserve-ads... If you want IFR or flight following you'll have to de-anonymized, which is no worse than it was before ADS-B.
Just out of curiosity, how are you anonymous when an Ads-b transponder will respond to any request it receives? Does incognito mode in your browser stop you from being tracked if e.g Google or facebook can see every or almost all of your requests?
In in cognito mode your transponder sends out a random ICAO ID when you squawk 1200 instead of the personally identifiable one.
So people can see that someone is in a particular place, but not who that person/plane is.