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Joe Godfrey |
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| About the Author ... |
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Joe Godfrey mixes his love of flying with a
love of music. He is an instrument-rated private pilot who flies a 1974 Bellanca
Viking based at Palomar airport just north of San Diego, Calif. He composes
music for commercials, films, broadcast and corporate media and has composed and
produced thousands of music tracks for America's largest advertisers. In
addition to writing for AVweb, Joe contributes to
The Aviation Consumer
and IFR Magazine.
He is a director and pilot for
Angel
Flight West, a non-profit organization that uses private airplanes to fly
indigent medical patients. He is married and lives in Leucadia, California.
So far, Joe is the only AVweb staff member who has logged time with Ella Fitzgerald and
conducted the London Symphony.
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ADS-B is coming and it's coming fast. Automatic Dependent Surveillance -
Broadcast is picking up where Mode S and TCAS left off. Airplanes equipped with
ADS-B will broadcast their GPS-derived positions to ground stations and other
aircraft, which opens the door to free flight and should allow for better ops in
reduced visibilities, both in the air and on the ground.
There are three components to ADS-B. Item one is an IFR-approved GPS. Item
two is a multifunction display (like a Sandel 3308) that can display waypoints,
traffic and weather. Item three is the datalink that gets the data from the
ground. The jury's still out on which datalink system will prevail. 1090 Mode S
is still in the running. VDL Mode 4 is a TDMA (time division multiple access)
system that the European carriers are developing. UPS Aviation Technologies,
formerly II Morrow, developed a system from scratch that it hopes will prevail.
It uses a 50-watt transmission, which should allow for smaller, cooler systems
than the 200-watt Mode S technology. It's the same basic technology used in a
cell phone.
The FAA and the Air Cargo Association partnered for July 10th's test in
Wilmington, Ohio. Twenty-five airplanes from FedEx, UPS, Airborne, DOD and a P-3
Orion from Navy Pax River flew in circles with two-mile separations for 90
minutes. The goal is to give tools to pilots and controllers to enhance
"see and avoid." The Air Cargo Association hopes that more efficient
air traffic control will reduce costs and save time. The advantage for the FAA
is the reduced cost of testing. They can take the money they would have spent
for a dozen airplanes to fly donuts, and spend it on R&D.
This month, FAA's Alaska Region will roll out the Capstone Program in Bethel.
Two hundred Part 135 airplanes equipped with ADS-B gear are part of a three-year
data-gathering process. The FAA chose Alaska because CFIT accidents are common
there and the radar coverage is so spotty. Two tests are planned for next year.
Hundreds of Gulf-based helicopters will be tested as part of Operation GOMEX,
and a system is being set up for planes inbound to SLC for the 2000 Olympics. GA
hasn't been left out of the picture. AOPA's Phil Boyer is co-chair of the Safe
Flight 21 committee and is working hard to create a system that works for big
iron, air taxis, recreational pilots and controllers.
Right now the hardware runs about $12,000 per airplane. UAT expects that once
the the units are mass produced, a datalink will cost about what a Mode C
transponder costs now.
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