Bond: Feds Should Foot ADS-B Equipage

Former FAA administrator Langhorne Bond said the federal government should step in to pay to equip aircraft for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) to realize the maximum benefit of the technology.

“The federal government has to step in here, or we face the real possibility of frustration and failure,” Bond said Wednesday.

Speaking at the Air Traffic Control Association meeting in Washington, Bond, now the president of the International Loran Association, described ADS-B as “a good step, but it isn’t enough. We need to know how to use this technology properly,” he said. “The notion of voluntary equipage needs to be taken out of the lexicon.”

FAA in early October issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking setting out performance requirements of the avionics needed to operate in an ADS-B “Out” environment. The document provides estimated equipment and installation costs ranging from a low of $4,328 for general aviation aircraft to a high of $463,706 for turboprops.

UPS and other carriers s have already started equipping their aircraft for ADS-B, but, Bond said, in order for ADS-B to have system-wide impacts on congestion and delays, all stakeholders must equip.