NavWorx has introduced its ADS600-EXP Universal Access Transceiver (UAT), an ADS-B technology solution for Experimental and Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) aircraft owners, which performs to the requirements of the FAA’s ADS-B rule.
The ADS600-EXP meets the mandatory performance requirements of TSO-C154c for aircraft operating in the U.S, and transmits SDA=2 and SIL=2. The new product is based on the NavWorx ADS600-B, which has received FAA TSO/STC certification.
Optionally equipped with the TSO certified TransMonSPE, the ADS600-EXP will interface with older transponders, eliminating any need to replace the transponder or altitude encoder, according to company officials. The ADS600-EXP communicates with a wide variety of display systems via Wi-Fi and RS232.
NavWorx is offering the ADS600-EXP for a limited time for $699.
As Hiram Percy Maxim, founder of the American Radio Relay League, once said:
“As ye transmit, so shall ye receive”.
With a ‘cheaper’ ADS-B out box for Experimentals, this may be going in the right direction. However, to be a truly effective program, FAA would establish specifications for the box, develop a bid process for qualified manufacturers and contract with the lowest cost provider to build and distribute these things for distribution to the light GA community for free. There is an established principal at all levels of government, “State mandate – State pay.” If these clever boxes were distributed at no cost beyond installation to the GA community, there would be a very high rate of compliance and a few thousand pilots would probably keep flying. And the skies would certainly be safer.
I applaud NavWorx for their release of ADS600-EXP, proving that reasonably cost devices for GA are possible. I fly a 1946 Ercoupe 415C (LSA), certified before TSO or PMA requirements (CAA). Is my aircraft eligible to use this devise?
I would say no to your question, which is a crying shame. Your aircraft is a type certificated aircraft and even though its weight & max. speed allow you to fly it with a drivers license ‘medical’, it is not an LSA or Experimental. The FAA’s wisdom is something I can’t begin to comprehend……probably because there seems to be a total lack of it in this overgrown Bureaucratic Monstrosity, much like in the other Federal Government Bureaucracies.
Disappointed, but what I expected. The Ercoupe once again becomes “orphaned” in GA regulation. Despite numerous FSDO opinions that the 415C doesn’t require TSO’d instruments or avionics (except transponder) … I have assumed that ADS-B will equate to a transponder. Thanks for your response.
It is quite possible that you could use this ,it would depend on your FSDO inspector. As basis for this consider that the much used Bendix/King KX-170 nav/com radio is not TSO’d. Most older radio gear was not produced under a TSO, they “meet the requirement” of the TSO. You are also correct in thinking that the “rules” may be different for your CAR 3 aircraft vs. part 23, in most cases that is true. The aircraft must meet it’s certification standard, in this case CAR 3.
I say again–the good old FAA double standard. Now that we have a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment to meet ADSB, it will be allowed only in experimental and light sport aircraft.
In the meantime, we owners of two seat 30 to 40 year old $25K certified airplanes get financially screwed out of aviation.
EAA should be fighting for us too along with AOPA. I would consider my annual investment in these two organizations a waste if they do not pursue the same standard for us. So EAA and AOPA, while this is a good thing and thank you for the effort, the champagne may be cold, but don’t pop the court until you achieve the same results for the certified aircraft owners.
Here’s what I don’t get. How can this be legal for Experimental but not for certified?
Do the experimentals not hurt so much when they hit you?
Someone elucidate me.
What a silly comment.
These two statements from the previous poster are key. The FAA could easily do this as a start to their 2-year delayed re-write of Part 23. The huge cost burden on GA of the requirement for ADS-B TSO’ed equipment is a monster stumbling block for the FAA’s desire to get GA ADS-B equipped in an earlier time frame. The FAA could solve this with a stroke of the pen… overnight.
” Instead, we need revised and relaxed NIC and NAC criteria less restrictive than FAA’s current excessive TSO performance criteria, thus allowing for use of any GPS or Galileo GNSS sensors (and not requiring SBAS).”
It is time for FAA to now back off it’s entirely inappropriate and unnecessarily excessively stringent ADS-B TSO criteria, so as to allow companies like NavWorx to build entirely satisfactory Mode S based units for the global marketplace at much lower cost, for LSAs, UAVs, small amateur built aircraft, and also many tens of thousands of ASMELS GA airplanes, for retrofit.
Ed, your use of alphabet soup in your post is indeed impressive but that’s about as far as it goes. Otherwise it’s incomprehensible to this acronym dunderhead.
The FAA has become yet another unelected self serving bureaucracy in a bloated federal government that makes and imposes expensive law on us its serfs whom it dismisses with contempt.
OK. So it works with older transponders. Great.
Will it also work with older, non-WAAS, GPSs?
It will come with its own WAAS GPS receiver.
I don’t understand your fuss about UAT out. The ADS-B receivers being sold are mostly dual band, so can receive both Mode S and UAT directly. At a quick search this morning, I can’t find any manufacturers that don’t sell dual band receivers. I’m currently using a SkyGuard TXP, which broadcasts UAT out, receives UAT and 1090-ES both direct and is getting Mode-C traffic from the ADS-B towers. It’s a less expensive option for those of us that don’t fly outside the US borders or up in IFR land above 18,000′. All the other ADS-B receivers I’ve seen are dual band and will display traffic broadcasting on either band (UAT [978 mhz] or 1090-ES) equally well.
Currently the hole in the traffic picture is all the traffic without ADS-B as they are only displayed part time due to either Center radar not picking them up, data transfer from center radar to the ADS-B tower, or me being out of range from the ADS-B towers.
One issue I see is that some traffic is broadcasting Pressure Altitude while others are broadcasting GPS altitude. The Mode C traffic is being rebroadcast from Center with some sort of pressure altitude correction applied, but that doesn’t seem to be correct either. Consequently, the ADS-B traffic altitude reporting can be off by several hundred feet.
I see that the unit advertised above ties into the altitude encoder for the Mode-C transponder, so will be reporting pressure altitude. I know my unit reports GPS altitude. Wonder what the FAA’s plan is to reconcile the differences in altitude reporting?
@JS. The issue is these UAT based systems typically do not BROADCAST ADS position via Mode S. To the first order, the faster vehicle nearly always controls the collision dynamic. That’s why the birds sensing the “Hudson A320” couldn’t get out of the way in time, and why bugs splat on your windshield, even after detecting you, sensing you, and trying to avoid you. So even if the slower UAT equipped vehicle happened to have dual mode, they can’t solve the collision threat problem.They are NOT seen by the other Mode S based ADS-B aircraft without ADS-R. Note that Mode S is the global standard, not UAT. Worse still, ADS-R is absent or virtually useless in critical portions of the airspace where smaller slower LSAs, ASMELs, UAV, and many amateur built aircraft fly, and where Mode S aircraft nonetheless operate. Accordingly UAT has been, and remains a very bad idea. That’s why UAT hasn’t been adopted in any other country globally, and isn’t likely to ever be.
Your comments are the most intelligent and informed that I have ever read on the matter. Thank you for your time and insight.
Why do I have to pay 3x this price to put the same box in my Cherokee?
While NavWorx effort is applauded to bring a lower cost ADS-B system to market for LSAs, and is certainly much appreciated, and would even perhaps appear to some to be a step forward, this kind of unit still is likely no “long term solution” for virtually any aircraft or airspace users. That’s because any UAT based system cannot see other aircraft using Mode S based ADS (and vice versa) without also needing ADS-R, which will not be available or will be ineffective in much of the airspace otherwise used by LSAs, and even many, if not most ASEL GA airplanes at low altitude nationally. As such, any equipage with UAT, even if the avionics unit was offered at zero cost to the aircraft owner, and the aircraft owner only needed to pay installation cost, would not be worth it for many users. Ultimately UAT is just going to actually make the airspace system less safe overall, than otherwise using a single Mode S based ADS standard (as will be done by over 185 other country’s globally and ICAO). Instead, we need revised and relaxed NIC and NAC criteria less restrictive than FAA’s current excessive TSO performance criteria, thus allowing for use of any GPS or Galileo GNSS sensors (and not requiring SBAS). More appropriate specification of a relaxed NIC and NAC allowing use of virtually any aviation quality GPS (or eventually Galileo, or both, and without needing SBAS), offers a much better and significantly less expensive ADS solution for all airspace users, as well as ANSPs globally. Other country’s like Australia have already long ago figured this out. It is time for FAA to now back off it’s entirely inappropriate and unnecessarily excessively stringent ADS-B TSO criteria, so as to allow companies like NavWorx to build entirely satisfactory Mode S based units for the global marketplace at much lower cost, for LSAs, UAVs, small amateur built aircraft, and also many tens of thousands of ASMELS GA airplanes, for retrofit.
There is no significant cost differential for WAAS or non WAAS position sensor. Both are permitted by the TSO. Read AC 20-165A. This box has a WAAS GPS, so it obviously does not drive the cost in any significant way at a list price of $729. The cost issue is FAA certification for the TSOA and for obtaining an STC, not the technology of the GPS receiver.
ADS-B Out is for Surveillance and not for collision avoidance. It is merely an aid to visual traffic acquisition and only if ADS-B In is available. Your whole premise is wrong. Transponders are still the primary system used with TCAS.