Fair enough. I will add to that end that I have in my life flown in a total of two aircraft with Mode S 
Fair enough. I will add to that end that I have in my life flown in a total of two aircraft with Mode S
Me too. Albeit for about 800 hours in total!
Not counting airliners and corporate jets, in the back, that is! (there is somehow always some kind of exception)
Agreed, that would be cheating.
I can think of exactly one benefit to private pilots of Mode S: their use in conjunction with listening squawks. I’m a huge fan of listening squawks: 90% of all UK class G radio traffic could be eliminated in one go if instead of calling up all sorts of people for a basic service, people just wore the relevant listening squawk for their local LARS or London Info as appropriate.
The CAS protection function of the LARS basic service (the reason NATS pay for it) would be covered, people wouldn’t need to give their life stories on the radio, and any coordination needed (eg asking someone to stay down for a few miles below incoming instrument traffic) would be possible. The truly non-transponder traffic (apart from gliders, very little) would be allowed to call up and say hi.
This might even free up some money, allowing eg one person to cover all of the Farnborough sectors. Maybe the money saved could pay for a TIS-B service. I for one would be quite happy to pay the one off cost of installing an ADS-B in receiver in return for never wasting ATC time asking for indormation that can be given (in a more useful way, IMO) by a technological solution.
I agree, I don’t see the point of a basic service. I would call up for traffic service or just don’t call. I try to set a listening squawk when OCAS.
90% of all UK class G radio traffic could be eliminated in one go if instead of calling up all sorts of people for a basic service, people just wore the relevant listening squawk for their local LARS or London Info as appropriate.
I think the best solution to traffic avoidance in Classes G and E is on board equipment for those who want it (which incidentally works fine with Mode C) plus air to air traffic advisories in really pinched areas. I fly mostly in Class E airspace that has 100% radar coverage and is packed with aircraft, but probably no more than 25% are talking to the ground. If you want to get a traffic service, fine, but if you don’t its a bit strange to be cruising along in those classes of airspace and have somebody on the ground expect to call you up out of the blue and ask you to do something
(Incidentally I’ve noticed for air-to-air traffic advisories people seem to use just color and type, i.e. ‘Blue and White Cessna’ or “Yellow RV”)
its a bit strange to be cruising along in those classes of airspace and have somebody on the ground expect to call you up out of the blue and ask you to do something
In an ideal world, I agree.
Sadly, at least here in the southeastern UK, there are quite a lot of infringements of controlled airspace, and one of the best tools for reducing them has been the radar service offered by NATS as Farnborough Radar. The funding justification for Farnborough Radar (away from Farnborough) is that they prevent X number of incursions per year. The same job could be done if people used listening squawks rather than calling up and giving a short autobiography and telling the controller their plans for the weekend.
Also, we have a very polarised airspace system here – it is either class G, class D (treated more like US class B) or class A^. In order to avoid a fully controlled environment around every instrument approach, we have to live with class G. Pragmatically, this means that controllers have to ask nicely for traffic to stay out of the way of jets coming in. They aren’t allowed to tell you to get out the way^^, and for the most part the system works – most people realise that being obstructive for its own sake serves no purpose.
The UK system has many flaws, but one of the biggest is the over-reliance placed on verbose high workload radio without having proper funding for ground stations.
^ yes, there are exceptions, but they are few and far between and see virtually 0 traffic.
^^ although some do, that’s another discussion
The airspace environment in the US is not so different than described. Airliners and other jets descend from the Class A floor (at 18,000 ft above which everybody is IFR) and between there and entering Class B at 10,000 ft (if they do), its through Class E with uncontrolled traffic. IFR traffic does get good radar service on the way down, but most VFR traffic in Class E airspace is squawking Mode C and not talking to anybody. I guess above 10,000 ft a greater fraction would be talking to ATC.
Infringements on controlled airspace seem to be a huge topic of conversation in the UK. They occur all the time in the US too, but the ATC reaction seems to be less. Or maybe just the public reaction. Typically an infringement results in a phone call if they can find you (they’re good at that, Mode C notwithstanding) and (I’m told) after more than a couple incidents some mandatory training. I don’t believe the blocks of (Class B) airspace around major air carrier destinations are any larger in the US to provide additional margin, but I could be wrong. Maybe its because the jets are basically in a line, on rails, going through the middle of those Class B blocks.
PS I fly into my own base in the back of jet once in a while, lots and lots of VFR traffic, and even with mandatory communication once we’re into the Class D it does make me think about the 20 hour Chinese speaking student on base leg as we steam down final at some outrageous pace.
Typically an infringement results in a phone call if they can find you
If a glider gets within 1km of an airliner, the newspaper here will have a headline the next day: “Ruthless leisure pilot almost caused catastrophic accident”.
