We finally pulled the trigger on upgrading the workhorse RV-6 with an ADS-B Out. It was a bit of a mad race to get in before the June 30 cut-off for government subsidy, but we got it done.
The good news for those who haven’t upgraded is that the grant scheme has been extended. After chatting to Adam at Horsham Aviation – who has done plenty of these – we elected to upgrade our ageing Garmin GTX 320A to a shiny new Garmin GTX 335A ADS-B Out Transponder. This also required new antennas and bits which came with the kit.
That took care of ADS-B Out. For the ADS-B In, we could either pay thousands more for the Garmin that would do it, or just get a uAvionix pingUSB for about $300. That was a short decision process.
The total budget was driven by the fact that the ADS-B rebate would cover half of the cost up to a maximum rebate of $5,000. So, we had a $10k budget and that’s what we spent, with fittings and parts. In aviation there are three tiers of pricing: Expensive, Ridiculously Expensive and Beyond Ludicrous. We went with Ridiculously Expensive. It seems like a lot (actually, it is a lot) but when the government are paying half…
We’ve talked before in SportPilot about how ADS-B should provide much greater awareness of other aircraft in the sky. But that was theoretical. Now it was fitted and we got to test it out on the short flight home from Horsham. The ADS-B Out part was all set up in the Garmin GTX 335A for us by Horsham, so all we had to do was turn it on. Easy. Just as well, because our old unit was the analogue, turn-the-dial type, but this new unit was all digital and we hadn’t really mastered it. The whole setup really did only require a bare minimum of knowledge to operate. If we had a problem, it would have been, well… a problem. There is something to be said for the old tactile units. On the other hand, the uAvionix pingUSB required a quick connection to our EFB – in this case OzRunways – which took about 3 minutes. That’s it. Never needs to be touched again.
Boom. There suddenly appeared a whole host of aircraft in the sky around us on the EFB map. We had always had the odd aircraft showing up because OzRunways shows other OzRunways aircraft, but this was some next level stuff. Suddenly we are seeing commercial flights chuffing overhead at 400 knots. Most importantly, our aircraft was there too, which means anyone running ADS-B In can see us. Plus, ATC now has a lot more info to work with. These are all good things.
We’ve only just started to figure this stuff out, so we will give you a longer-term test report soon. In the meantime, if you want some of this free government money, have a look at the ADS-B rebate. It’s a win-win.
