Thank God for ADS-B

Rykymus

Rykymus

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
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647
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Allen, TX
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Display name:
Rykymus
Was flying home last night. Short hop, 30 mins, KMCC to KSCK, at 3,000 MSL. (Average elevation along route is less than 100ft.) Stratus 2 connected to iPad was showing someone tooling around directly ahead of me at 1900 ft below me. Normally, I would have started my descent, but waited because of this guy. I was on flight following, but ATC wasn't reporting any traffic between me and my destination when the cancelled FF and told me to squawk VFR. I descended slower than usual, and eventually changed course slightly to the right when the track on the iPad turned yellow. Even though he was less than a mile away, we just could not see him. (And my wife has amazing vision.) Finally, I spot him about a half mile to my left, opposite direction, about 500 ft below. The only light the guy had running was his tail beacon.

Had I not been using the Stratus/iPad combo, I would have started my descent early and might have collided with the guy. Of course, I was all lit up with everything flashing, but if that guy wasn't aware that he didn't have his nav lights on, then I have to assume he wasn't paying to much attention to other things, especially seeing as how he was tooling around at around 1,000 ft AGL late at night.
 
Remember VFR is visual, if you rely on ADSB too much one of these days you're going to get a no transponder aircraft which is only going to be able to be seen with your eyeballs.

Many folks flying low level are paying quite a bit of attention, as the nature of the flying demands.

Shy of going over 100nm IFR, I'm normally under 2,000AGL for most all of my flying and believe me I'm quite aware of everything from the surface conditions, to birds, to other aircraft, chances are I'm monitoring the closest CTAF as well as the local ATC freq, even if I'm not talking or squawking.
 
I had a GDL88 installed along with a GTN650 about a year and a half ago. The traffic awareness is very eye opening. I can only think of one time that I spotted traffic with my eyes before the audible alert, and that time it was almost simultaneous. There has been a lot of traffic that has been identified that I would have never seen if it hadn't been called out. It is a great safety if used properly and not relied upon exclusively.
 
Blah, blah, blah.....VFR.....Blah, blah, open your eyes.....Blah, blah, blah, technology sucks......yada, yada, yada,....AdSB is not for real pilots......


Tired of hearing this ****. I had my GDL for 18months......it saved my bacon for than a few times. Never saw the planes.

I can't count how many times center has called out traffic and how rare it is for pilots to Roger up with "in sight" .....it's always'looking" then ATC calls out, no factor.


Facts are, pilots can see **** over a mile out. With 300 knots closing, you have seconds to see and avoid. with AdSB or active traffic, its a non event. The amount of "got him on ADSB" returns to aTC is growing. And knowing where he is narrows your focus.


Blah, blah, blah.....AdSB .....
 
Unit74 said:
Blah, blah, blah.....VFR.....Blah, blah, open your eyes.....Blah, blah, blah, technology sucks......yada, yada, yada,....AdSB is not for real pilots......


Tired of hearing this ****. I had my GDL for 18months......it saved my bacon for than a few times. Never saw the planes.

I can't count how many times center has called out traffic and how rare it is for pilots to Roger up with "in sight" .....it's always'looking" then ATC calls out, no factor.


Facts are, pilots can see **** over a mile out. With 300 knots closing, you have seconds to see and avoid. with AdSB or active traffic, its a non event. The amount of "got him on ADSB" returns to aTC is growing. And knowing where he is narrows your focus.


Blah, blah, blah.....AdSB .....
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Its really funny...before I started my flight training I always thought - man its so easy to spot planes (especially when standing on the ground and you have the wide open blue sky as a contrast). When your actually in the air as well and looking for planes it becomes a totally different ball game - its amazing how hard it can be to actually spot a plane...also makes you realize just how small you are in that vast sky. I am always looking for business jets coming into Scottsdale and they look like little ants lol
 
Get rid of your ASB-B...think of how much better you would have been off flying along fat, dumb and happy oblivious to the other plane and the fact that you were almost bent metal in the sky. Probably would have never ever seen him relying on just see and avoid since he did not have all his light on.

Your blood pressure would have been much lower.

Ignorance is bliss. I am looking out for your health here.
 
Wait....

If NorCal didn't see him, how did ADSB? NorCal has more tools at its disposal. And around SCK, coverage is good to the ground. There is a reason everyone and their uncle uses it for instrument approach practice.
 
Unit74 said:
Blah, blah, blah.....VFR.....Blah, blah, open your eyes.....Blah, blah, blah, technology sucks......yada, yada, yada,....AdSB is not for real pilots......


Tired of hearing this ****. I had my GDL for 18months......it saved my bacon for than a few times. Never saw the planes.

I can't count how many times center has called out traffic and how rare it is for pilots to Roger up with "in sight" .....it's always'looking" then ATC calls out, no factor.


Facts are, pilots can see **** over a mile out. With 300 knots closing, you have seconds to see and avoid. with AdSB or active traffic, its a non event. The amount of "got him on ADSB" returns to aTC is growing. And knowing where he is narrows your focus.


Blah, blah, blah.....AdSB .....
Click to expand...

So you attribute two likely fatal saves in the last 18 months to your ADSB?!
I gotta ask, how on earth did you stay alive before you put ADSB in?


With tech in the cockpit, you're preaching that to the wrong person man.

I fly a rather techy plane, I got full ADSB, on board radar, XM, sat phones and trackers, WAAS, AHRS, etc etc etc.

That said, it's easy to go the inverse as well and be blasting along with ADSB, thinking about all the stuff you never would have seen with your eyeballs that you now can see and start loosing your external scan a little and slam into a plane with no transponder, or a waaay off transponder/encoder. Remember that ADSB is 100% reliant on another mans panel and on circuit boards and software.

ADSB is a lot like a airbag,

Saying "I would have died if I didn't have a airbag when I crashed into that wall", well frankly the airbag is great, but so is having your eyes outside and not hitting the dam wall to start with.

In the OPs situation he should have not hit that plane ADSB or not.

Seen it a million times,

One instance, checking a VFR pilot out in a G1000, we're heading towards a ridge line, I see him fiddling with the G1000, I have a ruff idea of where he's going with this, I push his hand away from the knobs and ask if we're going to clear the ridge?

CAVU conditions,

he looks outside for a second, looks back inside, outside, goes back to turning knobs, I told him to take the plane back and he would not be getting checkout today.

These tools are great, but too many folks are using them as a substitute, not as an aid.
 
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MAKG1 said:
If NorCal didn't see him, how did ADSB? .
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He did not necessarily say that ATC did not see the traffic, they just may have not advised him of said traffic before frequency change. Heading home to KWVI ATC is 50/50 of advising me of traffic ahead before they cut me loose vs. ending radar services right then and there when I can still see traffic on ADS-B along my route to the field.

If he asked ATC and they did not report seeing any traffic head...then yup, good question.
 
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James331 said:
So you attribute two likely fatal saves in the last 18 months to your ADSB?!
I gotta ask, how on earth did you stay alive before you put ADSB in?


With tech in the cockpit, you're preaching that to the wrong person man.

I fly a rather techy plane, I got full ADSB, on board radar, XM, sat phones and trackers, WAAS, AHRS, etc etc etc.

That said, it's easy to go the inverse as well and be blasting along with ADSB, thinking about all the stuff you never would have seen with your eyeballs that you now can see and start loosing your external scan a little and slam into a plane with no transponder, or a waaay off transponder/encoder. Remember that ADSB is 100% reliant on another mans panel and on circuit boards and software.

ADSB is a lot like a airbag,

Saying "I would have died if I didn't have a airbag when I crashed into that wall", well frankly the airbag is great, but so is having your eyes outside and not hitting the dam wall to start with.

In the OPs situation he should have not hit that plane ADSB or not.

Seen it a million times,

One instance, checking a VFR pilot out in a G1000, we're heading towards a ridge line, I see him fiddling with the G1000, I have a ruff idea of where he's going with this, I push his hand away from the knobs and ask if we're going to clear the ridge?

CAVU conditions,

he looks outside for a second, looks back inside, outside, goes back to turning knobs, I told him to take the plane back and he would not be getting checkout today.

These tools are great, but too many folks are using them as a substitute, not as an aid.
Click to expand...

Where did you fit the cappuccino maker?
 
James331 said:
These tools are great, but too many folks are using them as a substitute, not as an aid.
Click to expand...

Thanks for bing a super pilot and all, but did you miss the part about the other plane flying around at night with no strobes or nav lights on and this being a perfect example of the benefits of ADS-B?
 
If being able to see and avoid VFR in VMC makes me a super pilot, it's a sad day for GA.


Well he saw the beacon correct?

I'm not saying ADSB isn't great, as can be seen in all my posts on the subject, I just shake my head when people make it out to be the savior.
 
Mid-air collisions were already vanishingly rare before the advent of TCAS or ADS-B. Obviously no one was colliding with all those aircraft. The traffic displays are a good tool for safety, but far from the only one. Glad it helped someone avoid dutch.
 
James331 said:
If being able to see and avoid VFR in VMC makes me a super pilot, it's a sad day for GA.


Well he saw the beacon correct?
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Nobody gave you that much credit. When you are done straightening out your eppalauts , you'd realize the OP only knew the other guy was there from ADSB. A beacon at night and below absolutely melts into the earth. I'd expect you to know this as a self proclaimed super pilot.

Il take ADSB, iPads, wiz bang dodads and lots of expensive stuff starting with Garmin please. My chances are far better looking at some technology than hoping to see a gnats ass at 100 yards and call it "see and avoid" . Doesn't mean I'm not looking outside. It's more like X-ray vision, thermal imaging and clearvoance all wrapped into one. Then I can look for the boggie.
 
steingar said:
Mid-air collisions were already vanishingly rare before the advent of TCAS or ADS-B. Obviously no one was colliding with all those aircraft. The traffic displays are a good tool for safety, but far from the only one. Glad it helped someone avoid dutch.
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
I have to agree when I fly a ADSB equipped airplane it really points out some aircraft I wouldn't have noticed until the last minute.
 
MAKG1 said:
Wait....

If NorCal didn't see him, how did ADSB? NorCal has more tools at its disposal. And around SCK, coverage is good to the ground. There is a reason everyone and their uncle uses it for instrument approach practice.
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If the other guy had ADS-B OUT and this guy had 1090 ADS-B in...
 
Only a fool would not use all the tools available,even when flying VFR. Love my ADSB.
 
Has anyone tallied the all-up price of all the nationwide ads-b equipment(ground and airborne), and associated expense....and compared it to (predicted) lives saved?

We know it will save lives over time.
The question in all these things becomes, at what cost?

Certainly the emotional effects on some, of seeing another a/c at less than a mile cannot be disregarded....but I often like to boil things down to tangible items like $$ and lives.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Has anyone tallied the all-up price of all the nationwide ads-b equipment(ground and airborne), and associated expense....and compared it to (predicted) lives saved?

We know it will save lives over time.
The question in all these things becomes, at what cost?

Certainly the emotional effects on some, of seeing another a/c at less than a mile cannot be disregarded....but I often like to boil things down to tangible items like $$ and lives.
Click to expand...


Only ones I care about are currently fighting over a Nature Cat toy and a plastic dump truck. That's worth it to me. Don't care if Uncle Sam can track me. Ever heard of Axiom? They already know it all, including what you like on your deep dish with extra cheese along with those two Sprites.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Has anyone tallied the all-up price of all the nationwide ads-b equipment(ground and airborne), and associated expense....and compared it to (predicted) lives saved?

We know it will save lives over time.
The question in all these things becomes, at what cost?

Certainly the emotional effects on some, of seeing another a/c at less than a mile cannot be disregarded....but I often like to boil things down to tangible items like $$ and lives.
Click to expand...

Douglas did the cost analysis on fixing the cargo doors on the DC-10. It cost 730 people their lives across 4 different incidents.

It's hard to quantify the value of human life. The complaint is always "but at what monetary cost?!" when it comes to safety. I mean, sure we could have seatbelts, airbags, safety glass, antilock brakes... but c'mon! Think of the COST.
 
Why on earth did we not have 50' breakwaters and levees completely surrounding New Orleans before (and after) Katrina?
Why does not every building in an earthquake zone have earthquake safety features?
Etc.

Cost is always going to be (quite rightly) a consideration with the decision to include or require safety features.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Why on earth did we not have 50' breakwaters and levees completely surrounding New Orleans before (and after) Katrina?
Why does not every building in an earthquake zone have earthquake safety features?
Etc.

Cost is always going to be (quite rightly) a consideration with the decision to include or require safety features.
Click to expand...

The building code for new construction in California is written to incorporate earthquake safety features. All of the earthquake-susceptible buildings in Los Angeles are mandated to be retrofitted. So.... that's a thing that is, in fact, something that occurs.

And cost IS always going to be a consideration. But what is the value of your life? Or the life of your kids? Or the life of other loved ones? Just because YOU don't see the value doesn't mean that there ISN'T value. Someone else's life might not be worth much to you, but if your hide is the one being saved by something, you're damn well going to appreciate it.

In before some hardcore guy says "Well I understand there are risks so I'm fine with..." It's not about you. The good of the many outweighs the selfishness of the one.
 
No argument against the idea of keeping your eyes outside and not relying on tech or ATC to save my butt. But since two of us looking where we new the other plane should be could not spot it until it was passing under and left of us makes the value of the ADSB pretty obvious. Had I not known about that plane, I would have started my descent sooner and been pretty much at the same altitude as him when our paths crossed. Would I have seen him and avoided him without the ADSB? It's not really a question that I want answered.

Frankly, I don't give a rat's **** what any other pilot thinks. I'm going to use everything I can get my hands on to increase my chances of surviving every flight...including my eyeballs.
 
Use all the tools at your disposal, always.

Electronics is not the end all, be all (oh snap, as my auntie would say)
Mothers Day coming back from lunch with my daughter in Ohio (Put-In-Bay) I get a call from Saginaw ATC to call the tower at Ann Arbor.
The other pilot who was with me says, "what'd we do wrong?" I said, "nothing"
So I call. They were all exercised that I had blasted through their airspace at 1800' without permission. I advised him I had just come through the Detroit B and I was above his airspace. He got that tone in his voice, "his equipment had recorded me as being at 1800 feet". I pointed out that his equipment does not measure altitude, it reads my Mode C and I obviously had an equipment failure. It got quiet on his end. Hopefully that is the end of that.
Cept now I have to spend money on a transponder (sigh)

So use the ADS-B if you have it - and keep your Mk-I eyeballs on a swivel cuz that target showing 1900 feet below might actually be at your altitude.
I do agree that the guys out there with a clapped out rotating beacon powered by a wimpy incandescent bulb trying mightily to shine through a terminally opaque lens as their night time visual warning need a swift kick.
 
The building code for new construction in California is written to incorporate earthquake safety features. All of the earthquake-susceptible buildings in Los Angeles are mandated to be retrofitted. So.... that's a thing that is, in fact, something that occurs.

And cost IS always going to be a consideration. But what is the value of your life? Or the life of your kids? Or the life of other loved ones? Just because YOU don't see the value doesn't mean that there ISN'T value. Someone else's life might not be worth much to you, but if your hide is the one being saved by something, you're damn well going to appreciate it.

In before some hardcore guy says "Well I understand there are risks so I'm fine with..." It's not about you. The good of the many outweighs the selfishness of the one.
Click to expand...
 
"Safety at any cost"
"Zero accidents"
i understand some want this, even if it means killing GA.
I find I cannot accept it however.
 
Unit74 said:
Il take ADSB, iPads, wiz bang dodads and lots of expensive stuff starting with Garmin please. My chances are far better looking at some technology than hoping to see a gnats ass at 100 yards and call it "see and avoid" . Doesn't mean I'm not looking outside. It's more like X-ray vision, thermal imaging and clearvoance all wrapped into one. Then I can look for the boggie.
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I like my ADS-B too, but you might be giving it too much credit. At the moment, there aren't enough ADS-B out equipped planes out there to be able to rely on it to spot traffic. You're still dependent on a feed that ultimately comes from ATC, i.e. radar (and as someone else mentioned, the altitude info you are getting through that source depends on the other aircraft's Mode C and is equally reliable). Although it's true that there's a lot of traffic I see on ADS-B that I never acquire visually, the reverse is true as well, lots of traffic that gets uncomfortably close (based on my Mark Is) never shows up on my ADS-B. So yes, it's great to have, but even better to keep those eyes outside (as you said you do).
 
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Thumbs up for ADS-B and my eyes! I use both but love ads-b to see the aircraft I never would have seen.. now if we could inly get ads-b out for drones... :)
 
Negative sir......adsb is fed via ADSB out planes and radar services. I see the hits daily. If they have radar coverage, they will be on the adsb feed.


Now, when I was on my way to Gastons a couple years ago, I went head to head with a cub. I saw him about a half a mile out and altered course. Dude never saw us......you could see his eyes and he was oblivious. No adab return nor did the zaon light him up, for obvious reasons.
 
I have ADS-B In and I'm amazed at how many airplanes I don't see that are pretty close to me. I've been flying 25 years and have had two near misses (that I knew about), both in controlled airspace. One the tower screamed a warning at us seconds before we would have hit each other, the other the tower was surprised when I told him we almost hit a 172 that just departed his field. Both incidents were before ADS-B. As others have said, it's nice to have, but I don't rely on it. It sure makes it easy to find friends when flying somewhere together though!

I find a lot of pilots think that ADS-B is mandated for all aircraft by 2020. Remember it's only required where you now have to have a transponder. Don't go into controlled airspace, it's not a requirement. I can imagine there will be a lot of planes in the air after 2020 without ADS-B. I know a lot of older guys with old airplanes they will not upgrade. You can buy a Taylorcraft for $20K. I'm not sure they can justify spending 25-30% of the airplane's value to put in a new transponder.
 
Unit74 said:
Negative sir......adsb is fed via ADSB out planes and radar services. I see the hits daily. If they have radar coverage, they will be on the adsb feed.
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I'm not exactly sure why, but this is not necessarily true, at least not yet. I have had traffic called out to me by ATC that I did not see on ADS-B. I have an old GDL90, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with it. There may still be some bugs/quirks in the system to be worked out.
 
Anyone with the financial means should have it in their plane. It is dumb and highly irresponsible not to.
 
TexDeuce said:
Anyone with the financial means should have it in their plane. It is dumb and highly irresponsible not to.
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That's horsesh!t. People have been flying VFR without the fish finder for the entirety of aviation and there's no valid reason that should change. The "Big Sky" theory has proven to be pretty effective over time. If someone wants to get the equipment for their own piece of mind, by all means do so, but implying that anyone with the money to do-so is an idiot if they don't is ridiculous and facetious.
 
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