Ian McFarlane of Burn Gliding Club provided this example: “I was at Burn Gliding Club yesterday (25th August 2022) and took a student on a winch launch sortie (we were typically gaining about 1200ft AGL in light winds). As I flew the downwind leg (in an ASK-21 Glider) I observed a small GA aircraft approximately 500ft [...]
CAA have specified that the Beacons will broadcast 978MHz UAT ADS-B messages with an Emitter Category of ‘Point Obstacle’. The location broadcast by the Beacon will be based on the geographical position of the Beacon as reported by the Beacon’s built-in GNSS position source. The altitude broadcast will be a fixed altitude in feet above [...]
Airspace users equipped with 978MHz UAT ADS-B IN and within range of these broadcasts should be able to receive real-time alerting of site activity from the ADS-B Obstruction Beacon if their avionics/Electronic Flight Bag application receives 978MHz UAT ADS-B IN data and supports the display of 978Mhz UAT ADS-B Point Obstacles. Some avionics/Electronic Flight Bag [...]
CAA has provided the following guidance for GA pilots: “Pilots observing the electronic depiction of an ADS-B Obstruction Beacon during the trial, should recognise that associated flying activities are underway, assess the location and vertical extent of the activity, avoiding the immediate vicinity of the beacon in accordance with their avoidance techniques when observing the [...]
Address Qualifier Field Encoding In accordance with DO-282, Beacons will broadcast an Address Qualifier value of 5, meaning the Address Type is ‘Fixed ADS-B Beacon’, using a non-ICAO, state assigned unique 24-bit address. 24-bit Address Field As qualified by the above, each Beacon will broadcast a fixed non-ICAO 24- bit address (Hex Code). These will [...]
Why is this Obstruction Beacon trial being undertaken? The CAA’s Airspace Modernisation Strategy (AMS) outlines a range of new digital flight information services, including FIS-B and TIS-B (Flight Information Service – Broadcast and Traffic Information Service – Broadcast). ADS-B Obstruction Beacons are another element of these digital flight information services. Several GA representative organisations have [...]