The FAA is requesting comments on the removal of the current exception for gliders from the transponder requirement for aircraft in the National Airspace System (NAS).
This is part of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that is being conducted in response to recommendations from members of Congress and the NTSB. Comments are due by Aug. 17.
The low cost low power portable Mode S based ADS-B units mentioned above would be my first choice, as well. If for whatever reason it were still deemed desireable to burden gliders with obsolete (or at least rapidly-aging!) transponders, would suggest barring low-flying trainers (2-33s, etc.) from any sort of critical mixed use airspace or flight above 10,000 MSL then exempt at least such low-end gliders from transponder requirements.
The FAA’s ANPRM for gliders while perhaps well intended, is seriously mistaken and poor policy. It should NOT be implemented. The answer isn’t more and expanded use of obsolete transponder technology. Instead, it is well within technical capability now to field low cost low power portable Mode S based ADS-B units for under $500, that could be used by gliders, LSAs, low end GA, homebuilts, parachutists, balloons, and even small UAVs. That would allow ALL airspace users to see each other, all the time, in critical mixed use airspace, without FAA’s ADS-R (ADS ridiculous). The problem is FAA’s massively overspecified and unnecessary present criteria for ADS-B for NIC and NAC (unique globally) essentially requiring useless obsolete WAAS instead of using ANY GPS, …and the absurd UAT and ADS-R mess, which just prevents airspace users from seeing each other in critical airspace. Both ADS-R and UAT should be dumped, with NIC and NAC criteria then relaxed. If that were done, we’d finally be able to have good affordable low cost ADS based solutions for gliders, and any other airspace users, including all of low end GA. It can readily be done for under $500, and be portable, … but if and only if Congress finally breaks up FAA and completely reorganizes it, with technically capable operationally experienced people in the fall budget hearings, that finally understand the role of proper criteria and its relation to safety. Congress needs to shed aviation from this counterproductive faux-safety misguided FAA virus now additionally proposing to screw up gliders by give us more seriously mis-guided glider transponder rules, …as well as the well advertised obsolete unnecessary 3rd class medical rules, and ridiculous counterproductive pilot (ATPC) qualification rules, … all on top of a $40B massively failing and ineffective NextGen, that is just going to cripple or crush GA in 2020, if inappropriate rules like this latest transponder ANPRM and the the present foolish ADS-B rules and policies are not turned around and seriously revised, or rescinded.
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Well said! Now if all pilots – not just glider pilots – get off their couches and onto their computers perhaps we can move some of these kinds of proposals in the direction of common sense rather than nonsense. Be sure to study this issue – and the others affecting all of us – and log onto the NPRM websites and comment intelligently.
And always provide positive, workable solutions, not just rants! Just as this writer did!
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