As far as tax payers are concerned, they will save with this switch. Untold amounts of money will be saved in SAR both during false alarms, which unlike with the 121.5 system, generally only require a phone call to to deactivate vs. activation of both air and ground SAR resources, and of course on actually crashes where the pilot will be located in hours rather than a search potentially going on for weeks involving massive resources. Yes, the direct cost to the pilot will be more but having been involved in SAR for these units and seen them in action, I can tell you I won't fly my plane on trips without one.
I fully agree on the ADB. The real shame of this is that everyone was expecting this announcement to include the FAA final specs on ADS-B in, not just out ADS-B out. "ADS-B in" will have direct benefits and everyone envisioned combined unit boxes. I'm told though that XM and others in the cockpit wx industry are lobbying hard to make sure that the FAA doesn't finalize that any time soon. Shame.
Helen
On 6/22/2010 1:02 AM, Jeff Francis™ wrote:
Passing the cost along to the taxpayer hardly seems the right solution to the 121.5 vs 406.1 issue. Sure, it's not entirely reasonable, but at least it's better than the new ADS-B mandate. The new ELT's are more likely to save your life than the current/old ones, so there's a (potential) direct benefit. ADS-B amounts to little more than an enormous new tax for the small aircraft owner, with essentially zero benefit in return. Not that I agree that the mandate to eliminate 121.5 ELT's with no notice is a good thing, just that it's less bad than the ADS-B deal.
On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 17:00, Ian R. Garnham <ch2driver@cox.net> wrote:
If the FCC mandates this then they should make provision whereby the 121.5 units could be traded in for 406/406.1 ( let's wait until they can decide which frequency they want to use! ) ELT's and they pickup the difference in cost!
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-=jeff=-
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