AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2013 - 79

NOT LONG AFTER the FAA took a giant
step toward Next Generation Air
Transportation System (NextGen) implementation in late May 2010, when it issued
a final rule requiring many aircraft to equip
with Automatic Dependent SurveillanceBroadcast (ADS-B) Out capability by 2020,
we said the smart move was to do nothing
right away (“Next Step Toward NextGen,”
August 2010 AOPA Pilot).
Since then, a lot has happened. Much
of the ADS-B ground infrastructure, scheduled to be complete by the end of 2013, has
been installed. Expected completion of the
nationwide ground network has slipped
only one calendar quarter, to the end of
March 2014. That success is tempered by
federal budget sequestration, which has
pushed back work on at least one NextGen
component—the Metroplex Initiative—and
threatens significant program delays in
the 2014 fiscal year, which begins October
1 (budget discussions were under way as
this issue went to press).
In addition, a few problems have
cropped up that indicate the system may
not quite be ready for prime time. While
these problems have been corrected, they
do illustrate that the ADS-B system is not
yet mature.
What kind of problems?
Mike Mercer of Vienna, Virginia, is on
short final to Lansing (Illinois) Municipal
Airport in his Beech Baron on August 11,
2012, passing through 200 feet agl with
the gear down. “The airplane yaws significantly to the right, and there’s a wicked
noise. I thought something had fallen
off the plane,” he recalls. “I said, ‘What
was that?’ My buddy said, ‘I think it was
an F–16.’”
The jet had crossed above him from
left to right. “I’m guessing he couldn’t be
more than 100 feet above the tail,” the Air
Force veteran said. “He was in full afterburner when he came over the back of
the aircraft.” Mercer said he had been
“thumped”—an unofficial term for an
unapproved procedure “that’s designed
to shake the hell out of the pilot and make
sure he knows you’re there.”
He also surmised that he had stumbled
into a TFR. Mercer was monitoring Flight
Information Service-Broadcast (FIS-B, a

www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 79

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2013

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