industry ADS-B Essentials: Part 1 ADS-B installations are beginning to take off BY DAVID HUGHES, NEXTGEN PERFORMANCE AND OUTREACH, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION M ike Hall equipped his high-performance single-engine aircraft with ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillancebroadcast), but it had a glitch. The New York general aviation pilot upgraded his transponder to include 1090 ES (extended squitter) capability in 2010, and thought he was all set to Mike Hall 56 avionics news * june 2014 broadcast ADS-B Out. But he didn't realize he would also need a software upgrade and an additional wire to make sure the WAAS (wide area augmentation system) was feeding the ADS-B Out broadcast properly. "My airplane was not broadcasting ADS-B signals when I thought it was," Hall said. "I went back to the shop for the wire and the software. Now I fly a fully ADS-B compliant aircraft that meets the FAA's 2020 mandate." Hall has equipped his aircraft with UAT (universal access transceiver) capability on 978 megahertz, as well. As an early adopter of new technology, Hall finds the ADS-B In traffic and weather information useful as he flies for business and pleasure. He believes things will get easier for general aviation as equipage progresses in the next few years. The nationwide ADS-B infrastructure has been completed with 634 ground stations installed. The upgraded surveillance and broadcast system is capable of providing aircraft position information to controller screens at a much higher rate than the current radarbased system. There were nearly 4,000 civil aircraft of all types equipped with rule compliant ADS-B Out as of April, 2014. The majority of these were fitted with UAT and about 25 percent with 1090 ES. Less than 200 aircraft were equipped with both UAT and 1090 ES as Mike