Excuse me if I missed something: what is the definition of a “listening squawk” ? Wasn’t a squawk a code of four 3-bit digits (i.e. 0-7) that one transmits?
“listening squawk” sounds like a contradition in terminis
Infringements on controlled airspace seem to be a huge topic of conversation in the UK
Like everything in aviation (esp over here) they are blown out of all proportion on the forums. The CAA only seems to prosecute when the infringement is truly egregious. The prosecutions I have read about (the CAA publish them) were quite eye opening – one chap flew straight across Stansted and Luton zones without a valid license!
I wouldn’t be surprised (but I haven’t seen hard numbers) if we have more infringements per hour flown than the US. There are two issues: in the UK (and some other European countries^) the airspace system is infernally complex; and there seems to be almost an allergy in some quarters against using GPS.
^ cough Belgium cough
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”.
I guess that’s along the same lines as calling private pilots “recreational pilots”. Using the same label (recreational driver) to describe somebody using a car only on the weekends to visit family or drive into the mountains for fun would sound odd. That aside, it actually surprises me how few mid-air collisions occur in a dense traffic area, given how often I have to change course to avoid traffic. I have no idea how it works out, only that the evidence says it does… mostly!
what is the definition of a “listening squawk” ?
The listening squawk system has been running in the UK for a few years: the idea is that you set a particular squawk code on your transponder, and tune to but do not speak on a particular radio frequency. Then, if ATC do need to get in touch, they just give you a call.
Thanks for explaining, jwoolard, but I’m afraid I still don’t get it (it’s been a hard day’s night…) : without talking to anybody, how do you know what squawk to set? Or do you pick your own and announce it in your flight plan, ready for requests to change it?
Then again, for as little as I understand R/T in UK airspace, imagine I am crossing the English Channel from Calais to Dover, then to continue along the South coast to Bembridge or so – I might well have tuned into London Info in good faith, without talking to them; but if Manston Radar want me to use another squawk, how will I know?
US pilots are much better trained in general operational matters (like getting in and out of airports ) than European pilots.
Most European pilots are trained at small airfields – because it costs far too much to train at the big ones.
And a US trained PPL, asked to fly a 300nm leg from A to B, can just jump in and fly it. Almost no new European PPL pilot feels able to do that.
Yes – the “GPS is illegal” bunk is one factor for which the UK will continue to pay a high price in CAS busts for many years (the population of pilots who fly long-term is relatively stagnant) but also pilots are fed with a load of fear of ATC, CAS, etc. If an ATCO asked a load of new UK PPL to fly a heading (in clear VMC) which takes them into a hill, I am not suggesting any of them would actually crash into the hill but the situation in the cockpit would be interesting to say the least while they are wondering what will happen after they land if they disobey.
Admittedly the US has much more of a unified airspace structure over there and finding out info is straightforward. The language is common (well, sort of 
) but most European pilots don’t feel able to fly anywhere for real in their own country either! I think perhaps France is the most extreme example of a “big country” yet having very few pilots who fly say 200nm+ trips within it.
So whole chunks of issues which affect Europe are simply missing in the USA.
Ah ok: the common squawk codes and matching are published in the AIP. Here is a good poster explaining it.
Annoyingly, London Info don’t have a listening squawk system (that’s what I was advocating above), so at present you would have to talk to them.
In my ideal world, you would cross the FIR boundary, set some squawk (which would cover the whole of the south east of England) and tune into the defined frequency. At that point, if anyone wants to get hold of you, they would. You would follow the south coast of England, passing a few miles north of Lydd. If Lydd had instrument traffic and desperately wanted to get hold of you (unlikely) they would give London Info a call and London Info would politely ask you to call Lydd for traffic coordination.
Further along, you would be approaching Shoreham at (let’s say) 1500ft. This takes you right through their circuit, and climbing would take you right through their hold (4000ft in the overhead), so you drop the listening squawk and call Shoreham without anyone telling you. By the time you’ve left Shoreham, there’s not much point in tuning anything else, so you continue non-radio until 10 miles from Bembridge, then give them a call to say hi.
Along the whole route, you have been getting a TIS-B feed taken from the Pease-Pottage secondary radar. Combined with FLARM, this gave you all the traffic info you could want.
Most likely, you have only talked to Shoreham as you went past their circuit, but everyone else (in this example, really only Lydd) was able to talk to you if they wanted. If you had screwed up the navigation and headed straight for the Gatwick zone, someone could have called you to check everything was OK a minute before you infringed. This way, ATC are happy, and you are happy :-)
Government installing infrastructure to routinely track the movement of citizens is not an easily defensible moral position. ADS-B Out being mandatory in some areas would never have passed scrutiny in the US if there wasn’t a way to turn off identity reporting when outside of those areas. What annoys me is reading the regulation to become effective in 2020, which requires the system start automatically with ID on and require pilot action to shut it off.
These are all the same rehashed issues that stopped Mode S in any significant sense for private aircraft in the US. The difference now is that the new law allows a tiny sliver of untracked movement, the very least I think the bureaucracy could get away with, and requiring pilot action to turn it off, not on.
There are 50 quite autonomous states in the US with free, uncoordinated, unreported movement between them. It’s that way by constitutional design, and for about 2/3 of the countries history (pre FBI) there were no national police agencies, also by design. I’ve mentioned before that my planes have been flown all around US with no radio contact, one with only a hand held radio and no transponder. It’s no problem at all, and I do think its important that groups like AOPA help Congress understand the issues and keep it that way.
You have some misconceptions with the way ADS-B works. First, unlike the transponder rule, which only requires it be on in controlled airspace, an ADS-B Out unit must be on at all times, including operation while on the ground. ADS-B that uses 1090ES is never anonymous, only the UAT version has that possibility and it requires that a mode S transponder not be installed in the aircraft for the anonymous feature to operate, otherwise, you would report two identifiers at the same time. It always takes pilot action to turn on the anonymous mode, assuming it is available, so 2020 has nothing to do with it. The portion of the regulation that says if you have the equipment installed, it must be on at all times, is already in effect. What is not in effect is the requirement to install it until 2020.
Any aircraft that had a mode S transponder installed is never anonymous in the US. Probably tens of thousands of such mode S transponders were installed in GA aircraft because it offered the possibility of mode S TIS, a feature of the mode S radar in the US that links traffic to aircraft that are equipped. This is not ADS-B as the traffic is linked on 1030 MHz and only in an area served by an ASRS-9 radar system. There are just over a 100 such sites in the US. So pilots have freely given up being anonymous to obtain the TIS traffic.
AOPA did keep the option open for aircraft owners who installed UAT to satisfy the ADS-B Out requirement, but many pilots are installing a 1090ES transponder anyway. Aircraft that were originally certified without an electrical system are permitted to fly in much of the airspace that currently is covered by the mandate and are only excluded from operation inside of class A, B and C airspace.
Hello NCYankee, I’m searching for a substantial inconsistency between my post and your response, or a misconception on my part about the way ADS-B works…
First, unlike the transponder rule, which only requires it be on in controlled airspace, an ADS-B Out unit must be on at all times, including operation while on the ground. ADS-B that uses 1090ES is never anonymous, only the UAT version has that possibility and it requires that a mode S transponder not be installed in the aircraft for the anonymous feature to operate, otherwise, you would report two identifiers at the same time.
I’m certainly very aware that UAT is the only ADS-B Out technology that allows autonomy, and for that reason in one aircraft I’ll be installing ADS-B with the UAT option and not Mode S. The aircraft currently has a Mode C transponder and that won’t change.
(In the other aircraft I’ll install nothing despite operating from an airport within a Mode C veil. My operation of that plane will be waivered under the new requirements for ADS-B Out, just as it is waivered negative transponder now – the ADS-B Out regulation is a photocopy of the Mode C regulation in relation to non-electrical aircraft)
It always takes pilot action to turn on the anonymous mode, assuming it is available, so 2020 has nothing to do with it. The portion of the regulation that says if you have the equipment installed, it must be on at all times, is already in effect. What is not in effect is the requirement to install it until 2020.
I think I said the same about the ADS-B Out defaulting to aircraft ID being on, and about pilot action being required to turn it off, and thereby become autonomous. In terms of the date, I actually don’t know a single aircraft owner who is currently installing ABS-B Out on an existing aircraft, or who plans to immediately, so from that point of view the whole US ADS-B Out issue starts in 2020. I plan to begin work on my affected aircraft in 2020, not before.
Any aircraft that had a mode S transponder installed is never anonymous in the US.
I’m fully aware that Mode S does not allow autonomous operation. That’s probably the biggest reason that no US aircraft owner I personally know has ever installed Mode S in their aircraft, and why it was never made mandatory for any light GA aircraft operation in the US under 18,000 ft. The only aircraft owners I know with Mode S got it through buying a new aircraft with Mode S installed. In fact its just one aircraft, a 2004 Diamond DA40. The rest of us in my world are just fine with Mode C or even /X in limited cases.
Mode-S is an international standard in which the US participate
That seems to be a bit of reversionist history :) AFAIK Mode-S was mostly invented in the 80ies by MIT’s Lincoln Labs, so it’s more like an US standard adopted by the rest of the world
