ELT Mission Procedures after SARSAT Turned Off??

[RADIOMAN015]

My best guess is we will do a lot more flying for ELT's that used to just require a run out to the local airport for a UDF team.  When an airliner reports hearing one lets say "at 37,000 ft passing 25 miles north of Jackson VOR"  I will probably try to get a Becker equipped aircraft up as high as possible and heading for Jackson.  There are at least 40 airports in a 50 mile radius of Jackson.  UDF/GT's alone will be hopeless, it's just too much area to cover on the ground in a reasonable amount of time.  We are also going to have to depend a lot more on the GA community and the ATC/FSS folks to get us PIREPS to help narrow it down without ending up with a bunch of folks out flying search patterns on their own.

Agree with your procedure BUT if there's bad, unflyable weather than we are really looking at significant use of ground resources.  Best bet is at least to find out what members are close to small airports, and perhaps some others (e.g. amateur radio operators, radio monitoring hobbyists, & small general aviation aircraft pilots/owners, that have an interest in this)  Basically it will be a matter of using a radio scanner/monitor (or aircraft receiver) to try to determine IF the signal is from that airport & than the UDF team can be dispatched with the professional DF gear.  IF it's not on an airport, than that's going to be VERY challenging!!! 

My understand is generally that commercial airline aircraft, are NOT monitoring 121.5 mhz when they start their descent into the destination airport, so ATC (approach/departure control) is going to have to specifically request aircraft to monitor.     

I think locally we are going to run some additional squadron exercises using various radio scanner/receivers to determine effectiveness in receiving the signals.
RM   

[SJFedor]

Another cute little thing would be to make our repeaters capable of listening in on 121.5. No idea if it's possible though, i'm rather ignorant when it comes to comm stuff. 

[Chief2009]

My guess is that the FAA will mandate 406 eventually....it will probably only happen after a high pofile crash where the 121.5 signal was working but no one heard it in time to actually help the victimns.   It is sad, but with the political opposition to mandating this safety item it seems that is going to be the only way to get everyone to change to 406.

I'm pretty sure groups like AOPA and EAA will lobby very hard against this one. Aren't 406 ELT's pretty expensive?

DN

[arajca]

Another cute little thing would be to make our repeaters capable of listening in on 121.5. No idea if it's possible though, i'm rather ignorant when it comes to comm stuff. 

Not really possible. Our repeaters work in a different band and use a different signalling technique (FM vs AM), and the antennas are tuned for the band the repeaters use.

[flynd94]

My best guess is we will do a lot more flying for ELT's that used to just require a run out to the local airport for a UDF team.  When an airliner reports hearing one lets say "at 37,000 ft passing 25 miles north of Jackson VOR"  I will probably try to get a Becker equipped aircraft up as high as possible and heading for Jackson.  There are at least 40 airports in a 50 mile radius of Jackson.  UDF/GT's alone will be hopeless, it's just too much area to cover on the ground in a reasonable amount of time.  We are also going to have to depend a lot more on the GA community and the ATC/FSS folks to get us PIREPS to help narrow it down without ending up with a bunch of folks out flying search patterns on their own.

Agree with your procedure BUT if there's bad, unflyable weather than we are really looking at significant use of ground resources.  Best bet is at least to find out what members are close to small airports, and perhaps some others (e.g. amateur radio operators, radio monitoring hobbyists, & small general aviation aircraft pilots/owners, that have an interest in this)  Basically it will be a matter of using a radio scanner/monitor (or aircraft receiver) to try to determine IF the signal is from that airport & than the UDF team can be dispatched with the professional DF gear.  IF it's not on an airport, than that's going to be VERY challenging!!! 

My understand is generally that commercial airline aircraft, are NOT monitoring 121.5 mhz when they start their descent into the destination airport, so ATC (approach/departure control) is going to have to specifically request aircraft to monitor.     

I think locally we are going to run some additional squadron exercises using various radio scanner/receivers to determine effectiveness in receiving the signals.
RM   

I would actually hazard to say that most (if not all airliners) aren't monitoring 121.5 at all.  Generally, we set COM2 to our local company freq, ARINC region freq or SELCAL freq.  The only time we tune up 121.5 is if ATC requests us to.  Its in most company Operation Spec's on what is supposed to be put in COM2.

I agree with an earlier poster, as an IC I never gave much credit to an airborne report unless they were down low.  Too much of a foot print if the report is from FL370.  I have given many an airborne report from the FL's when asked.

We the turn off of the COPAS/SARST system we will be a little busier and, it will take more resources to prosecute a mission.  Don't worry, 406 beacons or COPAS/SARSAT will be mandated/turned back on when someone dies with a old-generation beacon.  In aviation change is best done with blood, sad but, true.

[PHall]

The cost of the 406 beacons will probably come down when they become mandatory since the manufacturers will be selling a lot more of them.
More sales usually results in lower unit costs, usually....

[nesagsar]

This means that ground teams will have to train even more in ground navigation, not a bad idea. Ideally (and sometimes nescesarily) a ground team should be able to find a target without aerial assistance.

[Al Sayre]

Another cute little thing would be to make our repeaters capable of listening in on 121.5. No idea if it's possible though, i'm rather ignorant when it comes to comm stuff. 

Not really possible. Our repeaters work in a different band and use a different signalling technique (FM vs AM), and the antennas are tuned for the band the repeaters use.

Not just that, but NHQ is in the process of issuing new repeaters.  Two of the caveats to get them is that only people authorized by NHQ can work on them (kind of like Aircraft Consolidated Maintenance) and no modifications to the repeaters...

[JoeTomasone]

Another cute little thing would be to make our repeaters capable of listening in on 121.5. No idea if it's possible though, i'm rather ignorant when it comes to comm stuff. 

Not really possible. Our repeaters work in a different band and use a different signalling technique (FM vs AM), and the antennas are tuned for the band the repeaters use.

Antennas know nothing about FM vs. AM.   The antenna itself would work (as the frequencies are not significantly different and reception is much less critical of antenna length than transmission is - think "police scanner" here and how many bands it can receive), however the duplexer (a device that allows you to use the same antenna for simultaneous transmission/reception without damaging the receiver) is tuned to precisely the receive frequency, and thus would filter out all other signals.   

Of course, nothing prevents mounting some sort of monitoring device at the repeater location.....

[lordmonar]

Anyone know what the story is on airliners and other non-GA aircraft?  What about military, local govs, etc?  And for the love of all that is Holy, please tell me CAP's pretty far along in upgrading to 406 MHz? 

We are upgrading.....I think as the planes go in for annual they are getting the 406 IIFC.  Either way the money is there and we are changing.  Don't know the status of the fleet though.

[es_g0d]

406 beacons (FAA TSO 126) are NOT mandatory, nor are they likely to become so in the United States anytime soon.  The AOPA and other organizations are generally opposed to such a mandatory requirement, and they often state the high cost of the unit as a contributing factor.

Canada has elected to make 406 ELTs mandatory in the future (I do not know the date offhand).

I agree that economies of scale will bring the price down.  I would expect to see benefits of the mandatory-in-Canada rule has been in effect for some time.

Personally, I'd like to see a two-pronged solution to get more 406 equipment into the field.  First, no new installations of TSO 91 ELTs (the standard 121.5 and 243.0 MHz ELTs) should be permitted after a reasonable date.  That will at least start the clock ticking down so that as equipment fails it will be replaced with 406 ELTs.  Second, strong encouragement should be given to the carriage of 406-enabled PLBs.  I won't detail how I think that should happen as it would involve more regulation.

The end result of the discontinuance of 121.5/243.0 monitoring is that you are going to see fewer missions in the field.  We will likely have a drop in membership as well.  The upside is that when you actually DO have a mission that you ought to be more likely to be helping during and actual incident instead of a false alarm.

Good luck and good hunting,
-Scott
www.CAP-ES.net

[RiverAux]

and they often state the high cost of the unit as a contributing factor.

I supose the high cost to the government of looking for a missing airplane without a 406 beacon is irrelevant to them....

[es_g0d]

In the minds of most aircraft owners, it is irrelevent to them!  If you spread the risk across the entire poplulation, maybe they have a point that the cost is unbearable at the individual level.  The FAA response will invariably be "Nexgen ADS-B will solve the problem," because that's the panacea.

The bottom line -- as we all know -- is that the United States is returning to the early 70s in terms of SAR response for most GA aircraft, and that will result in lives needlessly lost.

Good luck and good hunting,
-Scott
www.CAP-ES.net

[RiverAux]

You know, some states have their own law requiring ELTs on aircraft.....an enterprising person might get the state requirements changed to 406s...

[Stonewall]

Someone should have attended my class tonight... 

[RocketPropelled]

The bottom line -- as we all know -- is that the United States is returning to the early 70s in terms of SAR response for most GA aircraft, and that will result in lives needlessly lost.

Which is why I've been advising pilot groups to please, please, if possible, file and fly IFR; or file a VFR flight plan and get flight following if workload allows.

At least then it will slightly accelerate the alerting process should something bad happen.

[es_g0d]

Please forgive, but I made an observation today.

The planned end-of-broadcast for analog television signals is 17 Feb 2009.  The planned monitoring of 121.5/243.0 MHz is 1 Feb 2009.

Sadly, the change that will cause greater concern, panic, and ACTION is the one affecting "the boob tube."

Good luck and good hunting,
-Scott
www.CAP-ES.net