Proposed Senate Bill would mandate ADSB In as well.
Link to the bill on the Senate Website: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4D769D21-8592-4F07-A401-E80F036CB14E
Comes out of the hearings about what happened at DCA earlier this year. I've read through it but the transportation attorney in the household won't have a chance before this weekend, but the Bill's preface reads:
"A Bill To require all aircraft to be equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast In, to improve aviation safety, and for other purposes."
I mean it would 90 - 180 days before the FAA would be required to say what exactly that means. Would having my Stratus 3 wired in with the ESG be enough? Dunno until specifics. But that "and for other purposes" clause...think ADSB billing practices are bad now that would seem to break that door wide open.
Now still has to venture through committee to the Senate floor, to the House, so as proposed is not likely to be how it remains, but this is something everyone needs to keep an eye on.
Comments
Definitely a convenient idea from a lay perspective, it might rank up there with the occasional failed effort of seat belts on motorcycles. While on that tangent, am looking forward to seeing what happens when we require motorcyclists to wear air bags.
I love having ADSB-IN. At the same time it is also a weak link as I encounter scenarios where I see a plane that ADSB's display does not paint. And, I pack two different ADSB-IN systems where it is not all that uncommon for one system display to show a plane, and the other does not. Perhaps this is from tolerance filtering, or perhaps it is simply that one of the systems does not see the other plane.
Oh, and fun fact: there are legal scenarios where planes may fly without an active transponder (ie: turned off). No transponder = no ADSB target. So, lets see how Congress cracks that nut.
For the core concern, the DCA incident traces to a known airspace constraint issue. Related, there is some evidence showing that the jet's pilots had started to take collision avoidance actions in the seconds before impact. This suggests that ADSB-IN would not have prevented the DCA incident as the jet's systems were arguably way more advanced than a simple ADSB-IN system for a GA plane.
While ADSB-IN is a good idea in general, the only cure to bad airspace routing is fixing the bad airspace routing.