On Oct 29, 9:00*am, wrote:
On 10/29/2010 11:16 AM, Mike Schumann wrote:

If the fundamental focus had been on affordability, there is no reason
that we couldn't now have commercial ADS-B equipment at the same price
points as FLARM units.

NavWorx announced on Wednesday Oct. 27 that they are currently shipping
the ADS600B transceivers.
They offer their informal solution to the FAA's STC and/or TSO mandates

can be installed on both experimental and certified aircraft when it meets “portable installation guidelines.”



I think we need to be fairly cautious parsing marketing talk.

On the page at http://www.navworx.com/myths.asp NavWorx is trying to
handle what they probably see as an wide negative view on ADS-B
adoption now from lots of commentators and organizations like AOPA,
authors in Flying Magazine, etc. Probably not what NavWorx intended
but having a read of all the links/comments they give there provides a
pretty good summary of the current negative-side view of ADS-B
adoption.

The reference above was to this statement from NavWorx...

"FAA memo mandates that all ADS-B equipment must be installed via STC
and meet TSO-C166b or TSO-C154c. NavWorx is compliant with TSO-C154c
providing both TIS-B and FIS-B. NavWorx equipment is available today
and can be installed on both experimental and certified aircraft when
it meets “portable installation guidelines.”"

Lets parse the two important bits of that statements carefully

**NavWorx [products] are compliant with TSO-C154c**

That is not saying the products are manufacted under TSO approval,
they are not. But there is often ambigious language in FARs about
whether a product needs to be manufactured under TSO approval or just
"Meets the requirements in TSO–xxx" to be installed. The later is the
case in FAR 91.225 that governs ADS-B carriage requirements. So
technically for a certified aircraft that leaves the A&P and maybe
FSDO to try to work out how to determine if something "Meets the
requirements in TSO–xxx" but is not yet TSO approved. If it gets to
the FSDO we can probably guess what their answer will be most of the
time. But with the current STC requirement policy from the FAA there
are no field approvals for installation of any ADS-B data-out
equipment on any certified aircraft (an STC cannot apply to an
experimental aircraft). And the FAA is extremely unlikely to approve
an STC that involved non actual-TSO approved ADS-B data-out equipment,
but like I've said before I really hope that work can be done in
parallel. It would be a very "brave" A&P who now tried to justify an
ADS-B data-out install as a minor modification to avoid doing even a
337.

Now the STC requirement is just an FAA approvals policy not a
regulation. (You can read it here
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgPolicy.nsf/0/34a9674f068fb64d86257790006d038a/$FILE/Approval%20for%20ADS-B%20Out%20Systems.pdf).
The FAA could change policy tomorrow. They could let any non-IFR
aircraft use field approval, they could let any glider use field
approval. It might be reasonable for the industry to try to work with
the FAA to more aggressively shorten the time those kind of aircraft
require STC for installations.

***NavWorx equipment is available today and can be installed on both
experimental and certified aircraft when it meets “portable
installation guidelines.***

No argument on NavWorx's claim here about "experimental aircraft", I
beleive they can have Navworx equipment, both their ADS-B receive only
and ADS-B transceiver equipment installed.

You cannot install an ADS-B data-out system that required connection
to an aircraft static source and installation of transmitter antennas
and call it a "portable install". NavWorx also makes portable UAT data-
in (receive only) products and I parse their statement here as "well
if you can't install one of our UAT transceivers because of this STC
requirement in a certified aircraft then you can at least install one
of our UAT receivers and still get some ADS_B benefits". Remember they
are only saying "equipment". Misquoting what's his name: It depends on
what the meaning of "equipment" is.

As a reminder UAT data-in is only suitable receiving UAT direct
broadcasts from UAT data-out equipped aircraft and FIS-B (weather and
Notam etc. data). A UAT data-in receiver cannot receive ADS-R or FIS-B
reliably unless you have an UAT data-out transmitter in the aircraft,
or combined in a transceiver. BTW -- I would have said ADS-B data-out
in general there before which is technically correct but the FAA also
seems to be discouraging mixed UAT data-out and 1090ES data-in or visa-
versa installations, and not that they can regulate what portable
receiver devices you install if you want to but I want to know more
why the FAA believes this is important enough to caution against.

For the GA market it would be great if ADS-B vendors could talk about
the actual STCs they are working on for installation in certified
aircraft. But I expect they see that as a competitive secret. I'd like
the FAA to talk about how long they expect the STC requirement to
remain in place and/or (since picking a time my be impossible) some of
the milestones they want to see before lifting this requirement in the
hope that may help the industry work though this.

Again this stuff only applies to certified aircraft. Experimental
aircraft are free to install the NavWorx and other ADS-B data-out
devices. The caution there for GA aircraft is if that installation is
going to be used to meet the carriage mandate in
FAR 91.225 they _may_ need to do extra work (e.g. on use a fancy WAAS
GPS driving the data-out).

And remember the NavWorx transceivers are not practical for
isntallation in gliders today, they consume too much power and don't
interface to any popular glider traffic displays and other issues I've
flogged to death before here.

----

BTW to be clear as well on all these FIS-B and TIS-B services. They
currently should be available in (mopstly) east and west coast ARTCC
regions as a part of the essential services (TIS-B and FIS-B (Weather,
NOTAMS etc.) enroute rollout but integration for most TRACON/Terminal
infrastructure will not happen until through 2013. So check with your
local TRACON for when exactly they will have essential (FIS-B, TIS-B)
and critical (ADS-R and ATC surveillance) service available.
Unfortunately there seems no good FAA or ITT website that provides
schedules in a understandable format (if anybody knows one I'd love to
know). It seems some pilots are interpreting some information
available on-line as many regions have full ADS-B essential (TIS-B and
FIS-B)and critical (ATC surveillance and ADS-R) services available in
both enroute and terminal service areas.


Darryl