ADS-B vs Flight Following

Frank Palmieri

Frank Palmieri

Filing Flight Plan
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Frank P
After 2020 when we are all (or almost all) supposed to be on the ADS-B out system, will that take the place of flight following or VFR flight plans? Since big brother will know who you are where you are and where you go shouldn't that be the same as a flight plan or flight following?
 
They're three different things for different purposes. So... no. There is some overlap in functionality and usage, but they are 3 different tools.

Also, the ADS-B mandate only applies to planes operating in controlled airspace. There are a whole bunch of planes that won't be upgraded and will quite happily operate outside of controlled airspace, and there are a whole bunch of airlines and military planes who won't be upgraded by 2020 and will likely get a waiver.
 
Thanks for the reply. In my area, Long Island NY, it's very rare to be in uncontrolled air space unless you are doing some low flights. If I fly slightly west I'm in bravo and there is charlie and delta all over the place here. If figures the airlines will get a waiver even though they are the ones who can well afford the upgrade.
 
As long as it's available, I will always us Flight Following. I don't worry about Big Brother in this case, I worry about traffic and weather. We're all in the system together, I don't see why we can't cooperate together. ADS-B traffic is just a bonus SA tool.
 
Frank Palmieri said:
After 2020 when we are all (or almost all) supposed to be on the ADS-B out system, will that take the place of flight following or VFR flight plans? Since big brother will know who you are where you are and where you go shouldn't that be the same as a flight plan or flight following?
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Actually, a VFR flight plan indicates your intentions. ADS-B does not. (Whenever I filed a VFR flight plan I also used flight following, so I could play "instrument pilot".)
 
If you do not have ADS-B IN capability, you would still need flight following for ATC to let you know where the traffic is. Of course then there's people that won't necessarily have ADSB OUT as @Eric Gleason has pointed out.
 
dont care about big brother watching, in fact if i ever go down in the corn field middle of nowhere when its 20 below, i want all the big brother and their brothers/sisters and extended family to come look for me. flight plan + FF for sure, ADSB for additional SA
 
Eric Gleason said:
Also, the ADS-B mandate only applies to planes operating in controlled airspace.
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Note that you're using the term "controlled airspace" loosely. ADSB-out will be required, basically, in airspace where Mode C is required now. There is a world of Class E controlled airspace where ADSB will not be required. Don't know about Long Island.
 
I haven't flied a VFR flight plan since I got my PPL. I haven't used Flight Following since I got ADSB in. I can see what they do, and don't really see the point.
 
If you are just flying along with ads-b, no one will take notice if you go down. No one is actively tracking you. Flight following there is a specific tag on you, and you are in radio communications. So if you do go down someone will notice almost immediately. VFR flight plans, I haven’t filed one of those in a long time. And if you go down it will be a little while before anyone starts to notice and get things going.
 
Flight plans automatically trigger a SAR effort if you don't arrive at your destination. Flight following does not, though a vigilant controller might start the process if they think something has happened to you. And they may not. They're people, too, and won't always make the same judgement call you would.

ADS-B just provides a location.


steingar said:
I haven't used Flight Following since I got ADSB in. I can see what they do, and don't really see the point.
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Nope, you can see other traffic with ADS-B out. You can't see anyone with just a mode C transponder. You're also looking at an older radar picture than the controller is.


DoubleD said:
Note that you're using the term "controlled airspace" loosely. ADSB-out will be required, basically, in airspace where Mode C is required now. There is a world of Class E controlled airspace where ADSB will not be required. Don't know about Long Island.
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You're right, and I should have been more specific.
 
I don’t think it’s going to change anything for us... other than we will be sending more personal info out that no doubt makes its way to databases for tracking, taxing, trending, etc.
 
I saw a Youtube video about ADS-B and the guy claims its a prelude to the government instituting a pay to play program. They will have all the info needed to charge by mile, trip or areas once we upgrade. Seems a little paranoid but it gets you thinking.
 
Eric Gleason said:
Nope, you can see other traffic with ADS-B out. You can't see anyone with just a mode C transponder. You're also looking at an older radar picture than the controller is.
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As long as he has properly configured OUT and is in radar coverage he will see the Mode-C targets as TIS-B transmissions. However half the usefulness of Flight Following is the additional data, if you're not talking to them then every time they call you as traffic you'll be "Altitude Unverified" and "Looks like he's heading for XYZ as well, but I'm not sure".
 
I pretty much never file VFR flight plans, though perhaps I should, because it guarantees SAR process if you don't show up. I do pretty much always get flight following, and I do now have ADS-B out (which doesn't really change either of the above, just makes it a little simpler for controllers to know who I am, and for me to see more (not necessarily all) traffic.

Out of curiosity, if you forget to close your VFR flight plan (or, worse, decide to change your destination and also forget to amend or close your flight plan) and they start a SAR effort that turns out not to be needed, do you get billed for it? What would that cost, give or take?
 
deyoung said:
I pretty much never file VFR flight plans, though perhaps I should, because it guarantees SAR process if you don't show up. I do pretty much always get flight following, and I do now have ADS-B out (which doesn't really change either of the above, just makes it a little simpler for controllers to know who I am, and for me to see more (not necessarily all) traffic.

Out of curiosity, if you forget to close your VFR flight plan (or, worse, decide to change your destination and also forget to amend or close your flight plan) and they start a SAR effort that turns out not to be needed, do you get billed for it? What would that cost, give or take?
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Probably wouldn't be cheap but it will probably never happen. In your scenario, you have landed somewhere. They wont launch SAR until after they've looked everywhere within the radius of your fuel range. They call the Towers, the Airport management, the FBO's. Your family. The call Local Law Enforcement and put them on the lookout for you and they will check at airports without services. Only way I could see it possibly happen is if you land, no one sees you, you put it in your hangar and lock it, there are no windows or cracks to look through and see and no one else has a key. And You go hide for a few hours and don't tell anyone where you are.
 
Eric Gleason said:
Flight plans automatically trigger a SAR effort if you don't arrive at your destination. Flight following does not, though a vigilant controller might start the process if they think something has happened to you. And they may not. They're people, too, and won't always make the same judgement call you would.
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I keep guard active on comm 2. If the mill quits a whole lotta people are going to hear about it. And since everyone with a blasted computer can now track my movements (thanks ADSB!) I suspect plenty of folks will know right where I've gone down. Again, I really don't at all see the point of Fight following. Just a holdover from a previous age.
 
One really doesn’t have much to do with the other. ADS-B out does help the controller because it’ll give them a heads up of who’s getting ready to enter their airspace but that’s not exactly a huge benefit.

As far as taking the place of flight following? Well, by the most basic definition flight following is just traffic advisories. In reality, ATC is providing you basic radar services. As such, basic radar services includes traffic advisories, limited vectoring (pilot request), safety alerts, sequencing and separation (TRSA,C,B) at certain airports. Of course, they can be used for enroute weather, SAR, practice IAP while VFR, airfield / notam Information, etc., etc.

So, while ADS-B out / in setup provides a ton more SA than without, ATC still has a role by providing additional flight following. How important depends on the individual pilot. Today I went out flying twice with no flight plan, no ATC FF, no ADS-B in and wait for it...no iPad with Fore Flight. That’s just crazy!
 
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luvflyin said:
Probably wouldn't be cheap but it will probably never happen. In your scenario, you have landed somewhere. They wont launch SAR until after they've looked everywhere within the radius of your fuel range. They call the Towers, the Airport management, the FBO's. Your family. The call Local Law Enforcement and put them on the lookout for you and they will check at airports without services. Only way I could see it possibly happen is if you land, no one sees you, you put it in your hangar and lock it, there are no windows or cracks to look through and see and no one else has a key. And You go hide for a few hours and don't tell anyone where you are.
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I've never heard of it happening for an aircraft, but have heard of it happening for hikers. Some states have laws that allow them to bill you for the cost of your rescue. Some of those laws include a negligence clause or other language that gives them some leeway in deciding who to bill. Here's a pretty good article about it:

https://www.outsideonline.com/1986496/search-and-rescue-public-service-not-exactly
 
Eric Gleason said:
I've never heard of it happening for an aircraft, but have heard of it happening for hikers. Some states have laws that allow them to bill you for the cost of your rescue. Some of those laws include a negligence clause or other language that gives them some leeway in deciding who to bill. Here's a pretty good article about it:

https://www.outsideonline.com/1986496/search-and-rescue-public-service-not-exactly
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Yeah. I was climbing Mt Whitney many years ago. Somebody had to be air evaced off the mountain. They said it would cost him a fortune. I think I remember it being on the Wilderness Permit application that it's going to cost you if they have to come save you. The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department bills Motorcyclists who have a little to much fun up in the Twisties and need to be air evaced after their crotch rockets teach them a lesson up there. Way I figure a pilot who needs rescue should pay if what happened to drop him out of the sky was clearly negligence on his part. Like 'I thought the tanks were full, the line kid said he was gonna fill em up.'
 
I am a big advocate of flight following. The traffic advisories are nice but that is not the number one reason, as that is not even perfect. I like being monitored by ATC so that if something happens, I have someone to talk to. Yeah if I suddenly disappear from the scope, ATC may not notice or make a big stink about it. But that is not how most enroute emergencies happen. Usually enroute emergencies start with something semi manageable, and you have time to make a mayday. I am already on a frequency with a controller, who knows my tail number and my current location (something a VFR flight plan doesn't tell them either). If I can do nothing else than say N123AB mayday, the controller will be alerted to my position and that I am in trouble, and can start to provide assistance of some form. I am not scrambling to change frequencies to 121.5. I am not trying to ascertain my exact position to explain to them.

I like knowing that somebody has a REAL idea of who I am and my position, so that we can skip that whole part and concentrate on the emergency.
 
If you own a cell phone, internet connection, credit card, bank account, social media account, big brother already has all the information it could ever want about you, should it be interested. Where you go in your plane is of no further concern unless you are running drugs.
 
Hi.
FF for ever, or as long as we can get it.
Nothing is 100%, many times you will see traffic on the screen and you will never get a visual, and when that happens, and it gets too close for comfort, the ATC / FF is your best partner.
Use everything you have available.
 
deyoung said:
I pretty much never file VFR flight plans, though perhaps I should, because it guarantees SAR process if you don't show up. I do pretty much always get flight following, and I do now have ADS-B out (which doesn't really change either of the above, just makes it a little simpler for controllers to know who I am, and for me to see more (not necessarily all) traffic.

Out of curiosity, if you forget to close your VFR flight plan (or, worse, decide to change your destination and also forget to amend or close your flight plan) and they start a SAR effort that turns out not to be needed, do you get billed for it? What would that cost, give or take?
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I pretty much screw up every flight plan I file- I either forget to close them, change my destination without amending, or screw around enjoying flying and show up late. This is embarrassing- but it does give me insight on what happens when the SAR "effort" starts:

Flight service calls you a million times. It'll come up as "UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT." They'll ask if you're ok, you say you are, and they say they'll close your flight plan.

Once I missed the calls because I was flying and didn't have service- flight service called the owner of the plane I was renting. Then the owner started blowing up my phone. He asked me if the plane was ok. I told him the plane was fine aside from all the bareassed farts I'd loaded into the apolstry and the fact that it was owned by a prick. Then I called flight service and closed my flight plan.

The point is, you'd have to be missing for a LONG time before any expensive helicopters or fighter jets went looking for you. At this point unless I'm flying over wilderness I don't file a VFR flight plan- I just assume that some concerned resident of whatever subdivision I crash in will be a good sport and call 911. I guess you could say I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
 
When IFR, no worries. . .when VFR, I don't want the noise from ATC - just want to fly; will retire and fly something with no xpndr and NORDO. Will velcro an iPad to the panel - you'all watch out now, ya hear?
 
This talk of having trouble and the resulting SAR efforts reminds me of something I've always wondered about. Like many pilots, I've often followed the stories of missing airmen and the SAR operations following their disappearance as well the investigations if/when they're located. Perhaps my perception is wrong on this but it occurs to me that I've read of several missing pilots being located after very long searches or long after the searches were abandoned and in the end the plane ended up being found within a mile of the last known radar hit.

In one case that comes to mind, a pilot was on a long XC in an experimental that either he'd just bought or was ferrying for someone else who had just bought it, can't remember which. He was moving west to east across desert country in New Mexico. Not on flight following and no flight plan. Pilot goes overdue and a search is commenced. Pilot has lots of friends in the RV community who want to join the search effort, CAP and state police tell them to stay clear of the area. During the search an ATC radar track of a 1200 target is identified as very likely being the missing pilot. Search goes on for days or weeks, thousands of miles of desert are combed, nothing found, search is called off. Months later, the widow hires a private company to see if they can find her husband. They look at the known details of the case, go fly to the location of the last suspected ATC radar return and locate the plane less than a mile away on the ground out in the open in the desert. Took them like half a day start to finish.

Like I said, I could be wrong but my perception is I've read of several cases like this where large scale searches were performed and eventually the plane was located within 1/2 a mile of the last ATC radar hit. How does that happen? How do these trained search agencies conduct such large scale searches and yet repeatedly miss finding the plane that's on the ground within a mile or so of the last known radar hit?
 
I fly a plane that will never have ADS-B. Hec it doesn't have a radio unless I happen to bring a handheld and even then the noise from the old unshielded ignition system makes it about useless. No transponder either so while I suppose you could technically get flight following it would be no fun constantly reporting your altitude on a radio that doesn't work well.

I am like the stealth fighter. You can't see me you can't hear me but I am everywhere. Keep your eyes open and I will do the same. :)
 
Might be a different thread, but how many of you have gone to a 406 ELT? If there wasn't some stupid mandate I'd go 406 before I wasted a penny on ADS-B out. As it is, I consider swapping it during each condition inspection, but the old dog sill hunts.
 
Ravioli said:
Might be a different thread, but how many of you have gone to a 406 ELT? If there wasn't some stupid mandate I'd go 406 before I wasted a penny on ADS-B out. As it is, I consider swapping it during each condition inspection, but the old dog sill hunts.
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Same here
 
Juliet Hotel said:
This talk of having trouble and the resulting SAR efforts reminds me of something I've always wondered about. Like many pilots, I've often followed the stories of missing airmen and the SAR operations following their disappearance as well the investigations if/when they're located. Perhaps my perception is wrong on this but it occurs to me that I've read of several missing pilots being located after very long searches or long after the searches were abandoned and in the end the plane ended up being found within a mile of the last known radar hit.

In one case that comes to mind, a pilot was on a long XC in an experimental that either he'd just bought or was ferrying for someone else who had just bought it, can't remember which. He was moving west to east across desert country in New Mexico. Not on flight following and no flight plan. Pilot goes overdue and a search is commenced. Pilot has lots of friends in the RV community who want to join the search effort, CAP and state police tell them to stay clear of the area. During the search an ATC radar track of a 1200 target is identified as very likely being the missing pilot. Search goes on for days or weeks, thousands of miles of desert are combed, nothing found, search is called off. Months later, the widow hires a private company to see if they can find her husband. They look at the known details of the case, go fly to the location of the last suspected ATC radar return and locate the plane less than a mile away on the ground out in the open in the desert. Took them like half a day start to finish.

Like I said, I could be wrong but my perception is I've read of several cases like this where large scale searches were performed and eventually the plane was located within 1/2 a mile of the last ATC radar hit. How does that happen? How do these trained search agencies conduct such large scale searches and yet repeatedly miss finding the plane that's on the ground within a mile or so of the last known radar hit?
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The short answer is: it can be really hard to see a crashed airplane, and finding it depends on the resources you have available. You can't search only the area of the last radar hit or last known position, so you have to dedicate resources to the entire probable area. An awful lot of planes are found close to the last known position, but an awful lot aren't, too.

In one find I was involved in, the plane crashed through the forest canopy and there was only the tiniest visible clue from a very small angle. That one was found because we had a police helicopter at 100' (state, I think), who noticed scavenger birds circling an area. That was in northern NJ, so we're not talking about the Amazon rain forest with triple canopy; it was a garden variety hardwood forest. I think that search went on for several days before we found it, and it was a pretty big effort.

My crew found a crash in Vermont in the middle of winter. There were high, thin clouds flattening the light that day. The trees on the mountains were bare, but looked like little dark gray dots. The plane was an Aerostar that had picked up ice and went basically straight down, crashed, and burned. The debris field was only slightly larger than the plane, and from the sky in those lighting conditions it looked like a small gray smudge on the mountain. At least one crew had questioned it before my crew did, but it was rejected for some reason. My pilot saw it first, and if he hadn't said something I probably would have missed it too.
 
Eric Gleason said:
The short answer is: it can be really hard to see a crashed airplane, and finding it depends on the resources you have available. You can't search only the area of the last radar hit or last known position, so you have to dedicate resources to the entire probable area. An awful lot of planes are found close to the last known position, but an awful lot aren't, too.
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I get the need to manage resources at all that. And I also get that many planes are located quite a distance from the last known radar hit. But my point is at least some of them are located near the last radar hit, so if you're truly interested in managing resources responsibly why wouldn't you look near the last known radar hit first and really search the dickens out of that area? In the case I'm thinking of, the radar track was known when CAP conducted the initial search and gave up. Months later, a helicopter went out to look near the area of the last radar hit and found the wreckage almost immediately in an open area a mile or two past the last known hit.

Again my perception could be wrong, but it seems like I've read about incidents like these several times where CAP or some other state agency conducts a search and says leave it to us, we're trained and we know what we're doing. Then they give up and ultimately the plane is found not far from the last place anyone knew it to be. I'm not saying these agencies don't know what they're doing and I get that trees and snow can obscure things. But it just seems like doing extensive unsuccessful searches and then eventually locating the wreckage right near where it was last known to be happens more often than it should.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Again my perception could be wrong, but it seems like I've read about incidents like these several times where CAP or some other state agency conducts a search and says leave it to us, we're trained and we know what we're doing. Then they give up and ultimately the plane is found not far from the last place anyone knew it to be. I'm not saying these agencies don't know what they're doing and I get that trees and snow can obscure things. But it just seems like doing extensive unsuccessful searches and then eventually locating the wreckage right near where it was last known to be happens more often than it should.
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How can I put this delicately. CAP is made up of volunteers. They are only as good as the pool of volunteers is capable of. Being in emergency services (including volunteer fire), I can say I have seen that situation repeated in other groups as well.

Not saying all are bad at all. I have worked with some damn fine and dedicated volunteers. But sometimes you get what you pay for.
 
In the few cases that I have first hand knowledge of CAP being accused of giving up on a search too quickly, there was much more to the story, and it was never a case of anyone (CAP or otherwise) just performing a cursory search and then giving up. I can't comment on any of the cases you're talking about. In cases when searches aren't performed the way we'd like, it's often because there are operational limitations (weather, equipment, etc.), political conflict with other agencies, or personnel availability.

Juliet Hotel said:
I get the need to manage resources at all that. And I also get that many planes are located quite a distance from the last known radar hit. But my point is at least some of them are located near the last radar hit, so if you're truly interested in managing resources responsibly why wouldn't you look near the last known radar hit first and really search the dickens out of that area?
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It's actually SOP to do just that, unless you have something like an ELT hit that would lead you to think it wasn't there. In the first hours of a search, you try to get a plane in the area of the last known position to perform a search, as well as have a plane fly along the intended route (and offsets of that route) to listen for an ELT and look for clues.

Getting radar tracks is often a tough task that goes through various levels of bureaucracy, and can easily take 12-36 hours before being delivered to the search managers and planning staff. Sometimes you start a search with nothing more than "N123X filed a flight plan from KALB to KBUF and didn't arrive. Their last known contact was 10nm SW of KSYR when they contacted FSS for a weather update." By the time this gets to CAP, the plane has probably been overdue at least 4 hours, and more like 8-12.
 
Frank Palmieri said:
I saw a Youtube video about ADS-B and the guy claims its a prelude to the government instituting a pay to play program. They will have all the info needed to charge by mile, trip or areas once we upgrade. Seems a little paranoid but it gets you thinking.
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How’s that paranoid?

If you went back in time and spoke to someone in the 50s about all the taxes, tolls booths, road blocks (aka “safety checkpoints”), civil asset forfeiture laws, mass public surveillance, license plate readers, police driving mil vehicles and acting more like soldiers than peace keepers, they’d probably think you were describing some communist dictatorship that we were going to bring freedom to, not the US.

Trusting big government has very little benifits, but tons of risks.

Frankly I have more faith in used syringes and gas station sushi.
 
I used to be a CAP member so I'm well aware that its made up of volunteers. I voiced this question to a few higher ups when I worked with them. The answers were along similar lines, 'its complicated, we have procedures for a reason, can't comment on that particular case without knowing more details yada yada yada'. IOW when we want your opinion of what we could be doing better we'll ask, until then shut up and do your job. Thing is, I wasn't all saying I thought they could do better and I'm not saying it now. What I'm saying is it just seems odd that finding long missing aircraft not far at all from their last known position happens at all much less as often as it does.

It could well be that I'm the only one who thinks this way and to honest, it wouldn't be the first time I was the only one in the room that thought a certain way about something. ;)
 
Frank Palmieri said:
I saw a Youtube video about ADS-B and the guy claims its a prelude to the government instituting a pay to play program. They will have all the info needed to charge by mile, trip or areas once we upgrade. Seems a little paranoid but it gets you thinking.
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Think about this too. Somewhere all the data from your flight could be stored. Was your last flight review really 1.0 hour, or .9? Were you 1,000 feet above that populated area, or 900. Just think of the enforcement mechanism ADS-B provides, beyond user fees.
 
Enforcement by whom? For sure there will be evidence of violations in the data ADS-B will provide. But for every one of those violations there will be weeks worth of data that reveal no violation at all. If the FAA has enough people standing around with enough free time to troll the ADS-B records for days on end looking for potential violations, I think we might have just identified the reason for their budget problems.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
The answers were along similar lines, 'its complicated, we have procedures for a reason, can't comment on that particular case without knowing more details yada yada yada'. IOW when we want your opinion of what we could be doing better we'll ask, until then shut up and do your job.
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I'm not sure how you get to "when we want your opinion of what we could be doing better we'll ask, until then shut up and do your job" from "I can't comment without details," etc.

The answer is complicated. And finding planes is really hard. That's the answer.

I think unfound planes show up close to their last charted radar position less often than you do, though I don't have statistics. In the many searches I was involved in as either aircrew, ground crew, or base staff, we only called off a few searches without finding the target. In at least one of those cases, it wasn't that close to the last known position. In one of those cases it turned out to be a wild goose chase and the plane showed up in the Bahamas.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
I used to be a CAP member so I'm well aware that its made up of volunteers. I voiced this question to a few higher ups when I worked with them. The answers were along similar lines, 'its complicated, we have procedures for a reason, can't comment on that particular case without knowing more details yada yada yada'. IOW when we want your opinion of what we could be doing better we'll ask, until then shut up and do your job. Thing is, I wasn't all saying I thought they could do better and I'm not saying it now. What I'm saying is it just seems odd that finding long missing aircraft not far at all from their last known position happens at all much less as often as it does.

It could well be that I'm the only one who thinks this way and to honest, it wouldn't be the first time I was the only one in the room that thought a certain way about something. ;)
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Could be that environmental conditions changed sufficiently in the intervening period that the wreckage was easier to spot when the helicopter came back out. Or the wreckage condition changed. Or the helicopter searched an area that was assigned to a higher altitude faster moving aircraft that missed it during the first search. Or good old fashioned human error. Or, as someone else was talking about, it WAS seen but looked like something else. Any number of things. Hell, I missed my car keys 3 times yesterday despite looking directly at them.

Can't know if it's a systemic problem based on anecdotal evidence.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
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