On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 3:43:03 PM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 5:46:19 AM UTC-7, Mike N. wrote:
I believe that military aircraft while flying without ADS-B out, for simulated intercepts for example. They would very likely be flying with ADS-B in to display targets.

I have no proof of the above, just kind of makes sense.

Why would you *assume* anything? Especially things that affect safety.

Lets start with how many US marine or other military aircraft flying in this MOA might be equipped with ADS-B In at all? That list is likely to be pretty short, maybe very short: I am not aware of *any* military aircraft that are ADS-B In equipped. They might exist, might be planned for but I'm not aware of any and have not seen any equipage plans for that amongst the considerable discussion of military ADS-B Out equipage. If anybody has any more information I'd love to hear it.

Avionics systems in military aircraft, airliners and corporate jets etc. are very complex and highly integrated. You can't just plug in an ADS-B In or Out system. Integrating ADS-B In with the tactical radar and IFF systems in military fighter aircraft is likely to be very complex, the latest (Block III) Super Hornets as an example (since the FA-18 was mentioned as operating in this MOA) don't include ADS-B In AFAIK. It may be less complex to integrate 1090ES In for military aircraft equipped with civilian derived TCAS II like some military transports.

BTW by means of an example, very few airliners that have 1090ES Out also have 1090ES In or UAT In. I'm watching the capability codes being transmitted by 1090ES Out equipped airline traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area (those codes describe their ADS-B In capability), almost none of the 1090ES Out equipped airliners have ADS-B In... but they all have TCAS, which will see and help avoid transponder equipped aircraft.

I spoke to an FAA avionics inspector at the Spokane FSDO about this very issue. The answer: ALL military aircraft must be in the same compliance as civilian aircraft, so they have transponders and ADS-B. I can't say whether those fighters had their transponders turned off, or my flarm didn't receive the signals. In other words, it was a FWIW.

The most danger comes with planes flying at very low altitudes like crop dusters. This puts them right in the line of fire of fighters doing low altitude training. There has been a mid-air between a crop duster and an A6 (the crop duster pilot survived - barely). One fmr military pilot recently told me he did 200 ft recon flights in a Mohawk while IFR - that's right, IFR.

Tom