US requires transponders and ADS-B Out in the rule airspace (A, B, C, Mode C 30 NM veil, above 10000 in E airspace). If an aircraft has a transponder installed, it must be operated (with mode C if installed) in any controlled airspace. Even with all this, the FAA is retaining all its primary radars to detect aircraft that are not required to equip and to verify targets are not spoofing their location. Some of the Secondary radars in the low volume areas will be discontinued, but all those servicing airspace above 10000 MSL will be retained along with those in the major terminal areas.
Jujupilote wrote:
On a day like today where most Europe is VFR (obviously a weekday ), it is interesting to look for a GA activity map.
This is just adsbexchange filtered below 6000 feet. Off course all traffic is not shown but is it relevant as a ‘heat map’ ?
Note how well that compares to the Blue Banana
Found some more info. The primary radars at Værnes (Trondheim), Sola (Stavanger) and Flesland (Bergen) are already gone. It’s all SSR, WAM and ADS-B. It’s tied together in something called ARTAS , which as I understand is a Eurocontrol version of FR24 (very roughly speaking 
)
WAM obviously also takes mode C, from Wikipedia
WAM operates with SSR Mode A/C, Mode S, and Mode S ES messages; no aircraft equipage change or mandate is necessary. For ADS-B equipped aircraft, WAM provides an ADS-B target report as well as a multilateration target report. WAM can complement ADS-B by providing transitional surveillance for non ADS-B equipped targets, and can be used for ADS-B validation.
and
The primary advantage of WAM is that it can be installed in mountainous terrain, where the line-of-sight propagation paths required for SSRs would be blocked. A second advantage is that, in many situations, its cost is lower than that of SSRs
In essence WAM prevents us from flying under the radar (sort of a no brain, no headache solution, but still)
Have to correct something further up. Avinor had 22 primary radars. In 2018 14 were decommissioned. The 8 left are rather new, from 2012. Looking at where they are placed, they surely can only be used for en route down to some rather high alt. They are planned to be there until 2035, not 2025.
MedEwok wrote:
Note how well that compares to the Blue Banana
Now that was an interesting read – not seen that before. Thanks!!
skydriller wrote:
Now that was an interesting read – not seen that before. Thanks!!
Thank you! I had come across that article on wikipedia purely by chance some years ago, and now that @jujupilote posted the picture of GA activity, it immediately reminded me of that shape.
MedEwok wrote:
Blue Banana
Looks more like the lower end of a hockey stick held up in the air Isn’t that roughly the same as the Ruhr area ?
LeSving wrote:
Isn’t that roughly the same as the Ruhr area ?
It’s certainly no coincidence that the Ruhr area is fully included and at the heart of the designated area, although, if you read the wikipedia article (which isn’t overly long to read) then you’ll see that the concept was created by a French geographer, who had no reason to give preferential treatment to the Ruhr area in any way. Domestically, he somewhat wanted to criticise the way the French economy was (and is) centred on Paris, which was not included in his original definition of the “Blue Banana” and internationally he was in favour of greater European integration.
To keep this somewhat on topic, the area in question is notable for its high population density, as seen in this image taken from the same wikipedia article:
So it is no surprise that economic activity is also centred on that region AND in turn that GA activity would be above average in that area, which more or less follows from the other two conditions.
MedEwok wrote:
So it is no surprise that economic activity is also centred on that region AND in turn that GA activity would be above average in that area, which more or less follows from the other two conditions.
In Norway, GA activity is spread out, and there is more private GA per capita spread out on the countryside than in high population areas with higher economic activity. There is more GA in absolute numbers in high population areas, but lots of that is commercial, not private. But, it depends on how you measure average. Planes per square km is certainly higher in high population areas.
LeSving wrote:
In Norway, GA activity is spread out, and there is more private GA per capita spread out on the countryside than in high population areas with higher economic activity. There is more GA in absolute numbers in high population areas, but lots of that is commercial, not private. But, it depends on how you measure average. Planes per square km is certainly higher in high population areas.
I would think the usefulness of GA as a mode of transport also increases farther from the population centres you are, and that factor may very well be relevant for Norway in particular, due to its challenging geography.
Also, high-density population areas are usually not innundated with accessible airfields everywhere, because land is expensive. Our UK pilot friends regularly post about how airfields get replaced by residential areas and such, especially in SE England, which had lots of airfields before for historical (WWII) reasons.
There are two competing factors imho:
One example is Greece, which, out of all EU countries, should have the highest usefulness and thus utilisation of GA as a mode of transport due to geography, but lack of high-density population outside Athens and Thessaloniki and comparably poor overall economic performance prevent that from happening.
Biggest problem in Greece is that the State (which controls practically all infrastructure) has no idea of what might be useful. The main thing which focuses their attention is what size backhander will come with another order for submarines – an old but true joke
They got their act together quite well on the vaccine front (relative to N Europe) although again helped by low population density, and at a local level the Greeks are as enterprising as anyone, but otherwise the way the country is run is hopeless. And because once in the Euro they borrowed way more than they could pay back, so they had their backs to the wall, and were forced to sell operating leases to Fraport on most airports, which destroyed almost all remaining GA prospects there.
There is plenty of money in Greece for a reasonable level of GA activity, and if you go back say 20 years there was more happening, but it’s been largely destroyed. GA also got largely destroyed in Spain and Italy but there they moved to the UL scene and carry on “below the radar” but you do need somewhere to land, which isn’t possible in Greece even if you pick where nobody is looking. You just can’t fly below the radar there, literally or metaphorically.
There is work ongoing to improve things, but all the time they have Fraport fleecing people €300+ for a typical stop, and have little 100LL…
