Reiterates That ADS-B Out Deadline Will Not Change

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta had a message for the members of the Aircraft Electronics Association in the keynote address of the opening session of the group's annual convention in Orlando Wednesday, and it was one we've heard many times in the past: the January 1, 2020 deadline for ADS-B Out will not change.

Huerta said that the airline industry has committed to meeting the deadline, and he hopes the GA community will make a similar effort. Huerta said that so far, there have been about 10,000 airplanes that have been equipped with ADS-B out.

But there have been a few bumps in the road. "As of mid-April, we have had close to 10,000 good installations, and about 1900 bad installations." Some of those, he said, were traced to problems with transmitted data. But, he said, the number of bad installations has stayed relatively flat, "so what that indicates is that the problem is not getting worse," Huerta said.

Huerta said that AEA members doing ADS-B installations need to be creative in how they market their services to convince pilots and owners to bring their aircraft into compliance and not wait until the last minute, when appointments will be difficult to get and demand on manufacturers will be high.

Huerta said that the proliferation of UAVs in the country is leading to a new and different generation of aviators, and they are coming in in non-traditional ways. Huerta said the FAA estimates that 7 million drones will be sold by 2020. So far more than 430,000 drone users have registered on the FAA's UAV database.  By comparison he said, there are just 320,000 aircraft on the manned aircraft registry.

Huerta said that advancement made in the UAV segment are expected to filter into manned aircraft, and make general aviation safer. The airline industry has improved safety by some 80 percent in recent years, and it is anticipated that it will improve safety by another 50 percent by 2025. Huerta said he would like to see similar improvements in GA, where the fatality rate has remained flat but stubbornly high. Innovations going on in the UAV industry could help improve the GA safety record, he said.

To that end, he said that the Part 23 rewrite that would allow certification based on performance standards should be completed by the end of this year. "This approach recognizes that there is more than one way to deliver on safety, and it provided room for flexibility and innovation in the marketplace. I expect that this will reduce the time that it takes to get safety-enhancing technology for small airplanes into the marketplace, while also reducing their cost," he said, adding that the agency has established a new policy that allows the installation of non-required but safety-enhancing equipment into GA aircraft.

Along with Huerta's speech, the opening session included the announcement of several association awards, a special tribute to AEA president Paula Derks, and a live presentation and webcast by Aero-TV of new product introductions prior to the opening of the exhibit hall on Thursday.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.faa.gov