On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 12:05:29 PM UTC-7, Steve Leonard wrote:
On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 1:32:53 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:

If the proposed rule making and TS0-C199 equipment could be so aligned that existing ADB compliant installations (in gliders there are only 2 or 3 brands), preferably with cheap or existing GPS receivers can be made to work (and I can see no reason why it would be technically difficult) then for many private gliders the cost would be low. For gliders with no current Mode S transponder, the costs would be approximately what a transponder install costs today ($3K maybe?).

I think you mixed a couple of terms. If you have an ADS-B compliant installation, you don't need the cheap/existing GPS source. If you have Mode S, then if the regs align and you can get a cheap/existing GPS approved, then the cost would be low.

But, this is "supposed" to be an option for a system that is to be much lower cost than a transponder. Not as something to put with you existing transponder. Think "handheld radio price-point". The exemption exists primarily because the cost was too great. The lack of an electrical system was chosen as a dividing line.

In the mean time, we wait as Darryl Ramm reads TSO-C199 to see how the government has once again written a spec to assure high prices...

Steve Leonard

I should have said ADS-B compliant transponders. No one has (to my knowledge) and ADS-B complete installation in a glider. But the Mode S transponders commonly installed in gliders all have the "capability" if connected to a compliant GPS, or were at least sold as such. Currently I am told that the compliant GPS costs far more than the transponder.

We have seen what cheap, non-certified equipment in this arena costs: the unregulated PowerFlarm transponder is around $2K once installed. Hard to see how a regulated transponder of any sort will be less. Is TABS intended to be a whole new class of equipment, replacing a transponder, or are those of us who fly near busy commercial space (such as RNO which started the whole thing) going to end up having to have both? Again, my glider and most of the privates flying around RNO lack only a cable (and regulatory approval) to make the promise of TABS a reality tomorrow.