EASA workshop and NPA on IC/EC & U-space

Ibra wrote:

n case someone wants to complain about airspace grab by drones and myriads of EC systems…

Wow, seems like they are really serious about this, may mean the end of uncontrolled airspace in urban areas. Assume this is related to the use of delivery drones etc… Interesting it is targeted specifically at the home built, paragliding community etc…

It is not only the end of uncontrolled airspace but in addition a significant redefinition of what “controlled” actually means. If the EASA will implement what is proposed, the best case will be that there is a de facto requirement for ADSB-OUT for everything which is in the air (including paraglides, etc.) (“best case” because in worse case they define a new standard for this purpose so that even aircraft already equipped with ADSB need an upgrade).

With the “dynamic reconfiguration” the dream of many European pilots that we are becoming more similar to the US is coming true: The CAAs can declare airspaces to ED-R like zones with as little as 30 minutes notice and pilots that have already been in the air when the change was announced get fined if they bust such an airspace – so finally we will have our presidential TFRs in Europe.

Malibuflyer wrote:

(“best case” because in worse case they define a new standard for this purpose so that even aircraft already equipped with ADSB need an upgrade)

Are there any hints that EASA actually wants this!?

Airborne_Again wrote:

Are there any hints that EASA actually wants this!?

The draft AMC of the proposed regulation is still very vague – but it is clear that they want to establish a traffic information system which is mandatory for all airspace users.

Obviously ADSB would be the natural candidate – the question now is, if it is also suitable for this purpose.
Does it still effectively work if we do not have dozens of aircraft in a 10NM radius but actually hundreds of them in a 1NM space?
Is it feasible to really equip all 5kg drones, all paraglides, etc. with conforming adsb systems?

My concern is, that even if ADSB in principle will be used as the new standard, the installed base at least needs a significant software update to enable handling of orders of magnitude more targets – and we all know what major software updates in certify equipment imply …

Airborne_Again wrote:

Are there any hints that EASA actually wants this!?

Doesn’t matter – the billionaires want this, so they will get it.

Doesn’t matter – the billionaires want this, so they will get it.

What do you mean?

Snoopy wrote:

What do you mean?

If you look at initiatives like Illium, you see that there are lots of investors with tons of money in the market. Most of them are not actually interested in aviation, but they are in the business of creating company shares that they can sell more expensively to the next generation of investors.
To be able to do that, they do not need a working aviation/airspace structure in Europe, but rather be able to tell the story “we captured a significant share of the airspace where we kicked out all others”.

Malibuflyer wrote:

If you look at initiatives like Illium, you see that there are lots of investors with tons of money in the market. Most of them are not actually interested in aviation, but they are in the business of creating company shares that they can sell more expensively to the next generation of investors.
To be able to do that, they do not need a working aviation/airspace structure in Europe, but rather be able to tell the story “we captured a significant share of the airspace where we kicked out all others”.

Thanks. That was considerably more informative.