AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2016 - 87

In one case, Marks used the ADS-B Out GPS position
information to track an unidentifiable aircraft to a specific
hangar. He called the airport's FBO and asked someone to
leave a note for the pilot on the hangar door.

You can expect to hear from the FAA's
ADS-B Compliance Monitor. Most of the
time, an aircraft owner is contacted by letter, but in at least one case, the office left a
note on a hangar door.
"I've had guys flying around with a
wrong ICAO code. Have you ever tried to
track down a wrong ICAO code? You don't
know who it is, but you know where he's
flying," James Marks, an aviation safety
inspector and the FAA's ADS-B focus team
lead for Flight Standards, said at a workshop during the 2015 Aircraft Electronics
Association convention. The ICAO code
is a discrete aircraft identification, like an
N number. In one such case, Marks used
the ADS-B Out GPS position information
to track an unidentifiable aircraft to a specific hangar. He called the airport's FBO
and asked someone to leave a note for the
pilot on the hangar door.
ADS-B, which uses satellites instead of
ground-based radar to determine aircraft
location, is a key technology behind the
FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation
System. The FAA has mandated ADS-B Out
equipage beginning January 1, 2020, for
operations in most airspace where a transponder is required today.
As of March 1, 17,528 U.S. general aviation aircraft were equipped for ADS-B Out,
according to the FAA, which estimates GA
equipage at 11 percent to 17.5 percent of the
fleet. During February 2016, 763 GA aircraft equipped with the technology. The
FAA's ADS-B equipage information comes
from its Compliance Monitor system.
Marks said he has called hundreds of
owners of aircraft found to be out of compliance. "Out of all of them, only one had any
idea that something might be wrong," he said.
In early 2015, more than 25 percent
of ADS-B Out-equipped aircraft did not

fully comply with the equipment performance requirements in FAR 91.227. Since
then, that ratio has decreased, to about
20 percent.
Most problems are fairly simple configuration errors. The FAA currently is
focusing on what the agency is calling
"high-priority" avionics behavior, including missing or erroneous Mode 3/A squawk
codes; invalid or duplicate 24-bit ICAO
codes; and what's called "egregious kinematics," where the aircraft's reported GPS
location jumps around so much that it cannot be displayed by air traffic control-or
other aircrafts' ADS-B In systems.
Another common error is an incorrectly
programmed emitter category. For example, many "Light" aircraft (here, the term
light means less than 15,500 pounds) incorrectly transmit that they are "Small" aircraft
(15,500 pounds to 75,000 pounds). In the
world of ADS-B Out, most general aviation
airplanes should be programmed as Light
aircraft. Issues with air/ground determination, another parameter in your ADS-B Out
broadcast, also are common-as are missing
barometric or geometric altitudes.
The current emphasis of the Compliance
Monitor team is on following up with aircraft
operators, Alex Rodriguez, an FAA aerospace
engineer, said during an FAA safety seminar in Manassas, Virginia, on February 24.
"We've actually been involved with owners
and repair stations, and owners and manufacturers, so [the aircraft owner] can correct
the problem on his own aircraft."
The ADS-B Compliance Monitor is
always monitoring, Rodriguez explained.
"There is no biennial check, like you have
with transponders."
He said that changes are coming to the
Compliance Monitor, including the ability to request a report through a webpage.
www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 87

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2016