Helping General Aviation stand out from the crowd

You will have hopefully seen today’s news that NATS has started a trial promoting the use of ADS-B by General Aviation that encourages pilots to connect a transponder to a non-certified GPS source.

This is big news for the GA community and will hopefully lead to a real step forward in terms of improving pilots’ visibility to each other and other airspace users. As it says in our news release, there could be real safety benefits to be had from what would be quite a simple change in the aircraft’s cockpit or in the application of current regulations.

Essentially, we want to create an airspace environment where everyone knows as much as possible about the traffic in the sky around them, making it safer for all.

Most Mode S transponders have an ADS-B capability. If you have one of these we hope you’ll be keen to take part, so please do contact us at: [email protected]. Consult your licensing organisation (LAA, CAA, EASA) about the steps needed to carry out this minor modification. You can also read the letter with more details on the trial and how to get involved.

One of the most immediate and tangible things the trial will change is that all equipped pilots should become visible on Planefinder and Flightradar24. I suspect there are some very clever people keen to make the most of this new data, so it will be interesting to see how that develops.

We hope you enjoy taking part and in the meantime, the below infographic should take you through the reasons behind the trial and why we’ve also invested in developing a low power ADS-B transceiver called LPAT for pilots who fly aircraft not equipped with a transponder.