WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FAA’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) rebate website will go live Sept. 19, 2016.
On that day, general aviation aircraft owners can apply for a $500 rebate to help offset the cost to equip eligible aircraft in a “timely manner, rather than waiting to meet the mandatory equipage date,” FAA officials said.
“NextGen has played and will continue to play an important role in ensuring that our airspace is safe and efficient for the American people, and we are focused on achieving its full potential,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “This incentive program is an innovative solution that addresses stakeholder concerns about meeting the 2020 deadline, and will make a huge difference in helping the general aviation community equip.”
ADS-B is a foundational NextGen technology that transforms aircraft surveillance using satellite-based positioning.
ADS-B Out, which is required by Jan. 1, 2020, transmits information about a plane’s altitude, speed, and location to air traffic control and other nearby aircraft. ADS-B In allows aircraft to receive traffic and weather information from ground stations and to see nearby aircraft that are broadcasting their positions through ADS-B Out.
Owners can choose to install only ADS-B Out equipment to meet the 2020 requirement, or they can purchase an integrated system that also includes ADS-B In.
On June 6, 2016, Foxx and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta announced that the rebates would be available starting this fall, and that only installations performed after the program launched would be eligible for the rebate. Previously equipped aircraft will not be eligible. The $500 rebate will help offset the cost of purchasing required avionics equipment, according to FAA officials, who say it is available for prices as low as $2,000.
Beginning this month, the FAA will issue 20,000 rebates on a first-come, first-served basis for one year or until all 20,000 rebates are claimed, whichever comes first. The rebate is available only to owners of U.S.-registered, fixed-wing, single-engine piston aircraft that were first registered before Jan. 1, 2016.
The FAA will not provide rebates for software upgrades on already equipped aircraft, or for aircraft for which the FAA has paid or committed to upgrade. The FAA estimates that 160,000 aircraft need to be equipped by the deadline.
“We promised that we would help aircraft owners equip with ADS-B, and I am pleased to say that today we are honoring that commitment and we are delivering on our target date,” said Huerta. “We are encouraging aircraft owners to start equipping now. Do not wait until the last minute, because you may not be able to get an appointment with a certified installer.”
Aircraft owners who have a standard airworthiness aircraft may have a repair station or an appropriately-licensed A&P mechanic install the ADS-B equipment. Owners of aircraft certificated as experimental or light sport must adhere to applicable regulations and established standards when installing ADS-B equipment, FAA officials noted.
Owners are only eligible for the rebate if they install the avionics after Sept. 19, 2016, and within 90 days of the rebate reservation date.
Aircraft owners will have 60 days after the scheduled installation date to validate their equipage by flying their aircraft, and will then be able to claim the rebate.
The reservation system will require an N number, installation date, and the planned ADS-B equipment being installed. The reservation system will be available at the ADS-B Rebate website.
The FAA published a final rule in May 2010 mandating that aircraft flying in certain controlled airspace be equipped with ADS-B Out by Jan. 1, 2020. That airspace is generally the same busy airspace where transponders are required today.
Aircraft that fly only in uncontrolled airspace where no transponders are required, and aircraft without electrical systems, such as balloons and gliders, are exempt from the mandate.
An FAA rebate of $500 offered to a small fraction of the GA user community isn’t going to save this ill-conceived, faulty, over-specified, unnecessarily complex, dysfunctional, excessively costly, insecure and vulnerable, and already obsolete FAA 91.225/.227 ADS-B program.
Not only are much of the US and international airline fleet flying to the US, as well as DoD, not going to meet the 2020 deadline, but airspace critically threatening drones and many experimental airplanes and gliders are not going to be equipped. Further, security is unsolved, and FAA’s present ADS-B concept (of using it as “pseudo-radar”) will NOT EVER economically or technically “solve” NextGen, by any means.
Worst of all for GA, any rational, effective, appropriate, and useful installation of FAA’s faulty ADS-B that is likely to mesh with other systems and avionics already installed is likely to cost vastly more than the $2000 minimum claimed by FAA (typically by a factor of x3 to x10 more than FAA’s assumption). So it would be utterly foolish for nearly any GA aircraft owner to now “bite” on this FAA induced scam, unless that person was already going to retrofit the aircraft with other new avionics anyway, for some other reason.
And even then, RNP, GLS, and data link capable modern useful avionics needed for “real” NextGen are still not available for typical low end GA airplanes, so any retrofit now of GA avionics (focusing on FAA’s ADS-B, which is NOT NextGen in itself) is itself likely to be an utter waste of money, except to perhaps get a basic simple GPS driven electronic map, which is otherwise a valid, useful, and sensible investment. Except for a simple GPS (WAAS is obsolete and isn’t even needed), with an electronic map display, it is foolish for anyone in low end GA to presently spend a dime on avionics, until real NextGen avionics eventually become available to GA with RNP, 3D trajectory definition for exchange with ATS, and a suitable Data Link (e.g., to start to provide a very low cost mimic version to the C-N-S capability of FANS1/A (e.g., with RNP+DL+ADS-B and -C), that the big transport jets have been using, for well 20 years now).
The ADS-B system works great for me. Give it a try. You’ll realize just how many aircraft you’re not seeing with your eyes.
What system do you have and cost to buy/install?
Sir, I’ve been using ADS-A, ADS-B, and ADS-C since the early ’90s. I have no beef whatsoever with ADS, whether A, B, or C. In fact I helped invent it, starting in the ’70s. My concern is that FAA has completely screwed it up, failing to use it for what it was originally intended, and overspecifying NIC and NAC so as to make it unnecessarily horrendously expensive, while still INEFFECTIVE and vunerable, compared to its real and valid role with the N and C elements of a properly designed NextGen (that FAA has entirely screwed up). Yes, ADS is useful, but NOT FAA’s ridiculous overly specified (e.g., unnessarily requiring WAAS etc) and overly expensive faux ADS-B. So don’t waste a dime on FAA’s ADS-B falling for FAA’s bribe, at a completely unjustified taxpayer expense.
Does the ADS-B out ruling deadline apply to only US registered aircraft? Does it affect all aircraft flying in US airspace, such as Canadian registered aircraft as well?
If you’re flying into US airspace which requires ADS-B out, then yes.
Don’t bet on it. US Airlines ALREADY have relief beyond 2020, there isn’t a prayer DoD will comply, and if FAA even foolishly tries to turn the screws down on foreign carriers, those countries will just thumb their nose at FAA as their (State of the Operator) retaliates, and shuts out US carriers. So there is NO WAY 2020 is going to survive as a real deadline, as FAA still foolishly claims.