New Technologies Are Driving GA to Incredible Heights

On November 5th through November 7th, 2009, AOPA held their annual AOPA Aviation Summit at the Tampa Convention Center located in Tampa, Florida. Over 7,500 aviation enthusiasts attended various forums, speeches, as well as hundreds of booths featuring the latest in G.A. technology.

One such session, an informative panel entitled “Flying the Future Now,” focused on the latest avionics technology, both for pilots today and in the future. Led by AOPA’s Editor-in-Chief, Tom Haines, the panel featured three prominent industry leaders: Garmin’s Avionics Product Manager, Bill Stone, Rockwell Collins Senior Director of Control Technologies, David Vos, and Free Flight Systems CEO, Tim Taylor.

Discussing such subjects as synthetic vision, enhanced vision, ADS-B, and advanced flight control systems, the panel participants provided attendees an in-depth look at GA’s evolving cockpit. Join Aero-TV as we profile significant segments from the panel’s discussion in the coming weeks. In Part Two of the series, Free Flight Systems CEO, Tim Taylor, and Rockwell Collins Senior Director of Control Technologies, David Vos, discuss the import of ADS-B.

While there is tremendous confusion about what ADS-B is... and isn't, this is a technology that the FAA is betting their Next-Gen ranch on. FAA calls ADS-B "...one of the most important, underlying technologies in the agency’s plan to transform air traffic control to a satellite-based system. It is an air traffic system that will provide more precise surveillance data to air traffic controllers and to ADS-B equipped aircraft at the same time. This information will significantly enhance pilots’ situational awareness.

This technology provides more precision for tracking aircraft than radar by giving the location, identification, heading and speed. In addition to the surveillance data (traffic) being provided, it will also broadcast weather information to properly-equipped aircraft. ADS-B will bring the precision and reliability of satellite-based surveillance to the nation’s air traffic controllers and pilots."

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