Summer Grind

After a very successful NCATT AET test review class I began the summer grind. This is the last drive for our avionics students before they complete the Avionics program and start the Airframe and Powerplant portion in the Fall. From 0700 to 1525, five days a week, they are installing autopilots, GPS's, transponders, glass cockpits and are testing weather radar and transponders. They will be finished in before August, then I will be jetting to Kansas City at the AEA headquarters for a three-day NCATT AET review course. 

Not to worry for those who are wondering about the new avionics textbooks, I am still knee deep in rewriting. In reviewing the last draft I noticed a missing element. I felt that attitude and heading indication needed to be in the first volume and I wrote a new chapter which included subjects covered in the NCATT Autonomus Dependant Navigation add-on rating. My partner (my Dad) is reading through the new chapter and we will have a completed draft by the end of this month. Stay tuned for more.

I just spent my Saturday attending an ADS-B seminar organized by the FAA Safety Team (FAAST). I learned that if all aircraft are to be modified by the 2020 deadline, every one of the avionics shops in the country would need to complete one hundred modifications per day until 2020. Based on my attendance of only nine avionics technicians, we would need more graduates, or at least more avionics shops. The presenter was asked if the FAA would be issuing waivers and he said that the FAA felt giving a ten year notice was enough warning and the FAA is not hinting at an extension of the deadline.  With the requirement that the GPS had to be WAAS compliant, one gentleman told the crowd that the new FAA mandate was going to cost him more than he paid for his airplane. Even a young pilot joked about the would-be sudden disappearance of his college fund. Those may be dramatizations, but it does look like the average modification for the minimum FAA ADS-B Out compliance would be $5500 to $7500. Not chump change by any stretch of the imagination. 

He did announce that there was some government loans available if you qualify, but of course I do not know of too many low income aircraft owners around.  Oh, and by the way, the requirements for Mode A and C transponders still stands. There was no conclusion about how the FAA would enforce or periodically require certification and I have not heard from the FAA on those issues either. I also cornered my local FAA Avionics ASI and she was nice but told me those issues and wether an Field Approval will be required. I hope not. To me if this a modification of the GPS and Transponder then this should not appreciatly effect form fit or function as the FAA defines it. 

I will post here when I know more on all of these issues. Until next time, keep them flying.