On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:37:12 +0000, Ron Lee wrote:

Would that portable ADS-B equipment meet the NPRM requirements?

I doubt it since the NPRM only discusses ADS-B Out.

And the Zaon solution, as I understand, is only -In. So this doesn't
address the mandate. But what it does do is lower the bar for those that
want to get the benefit made available by the mandate.

[...]

Andrew, if your club folks want weather, buy a 396/496 with XM weather.

That's where we're heading. We actually tried to do this concurrent with
our first WAAS upgrades, but a combination of a busy shop and the first
aircraft being a "problem" (where to put the portable GPS with a full
panel and an emergency gear extension lever on the floor {8^) has pushed
this back a bit.

Rent it out when people need it.

We did discuss this, but it has a number of logistic issues. First,
we're spread over two airports. Second, we have no "facility" (ie. a
club house) where to store the units. So the consensus right now is to
simply perform semi-permanent installs in the fleet.

Any suggestions for alternatives are very welcome, however.

Get a Zaon for traffic. All that they
want is available right now. ADS-B is not the answer.

The problem with current traffic solutions, from my perspective, is the
very limited space in which they can be trusted to operate. One of our
airports, for example, is largely shadowed by local geography from the
nearest RADAR. So too close to the airport - a place where traffic would
be quite nice grin! - means no transponder-based traffic.

However, the price of the Zaon units is low enough that we may invest
today even knowing that we'll probably want to replace these with ADS-B
based units at some point in the (not too nearby) future.

- Andrew