3 January 2007
Just before Christmas the CAA published an initial reaction to the results of its consultation on Mode S (actually on ‘Proposal to Amend the Air Navigation Order 2005 for the Purpose of Improving the Technical Interoperability of all Aircraft in UK Airspace’). The consultation took place over the summer, and got 3,000 replies, many of them from GA pilots and industry figures.
It’s a heavy reading – the full document (‘Summary of Responses’) is <a href=’http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/810/Summary%20of%20Responses%20Document.pdf’ target=’_blank’>147 pages long</a>, while the document containing the CAA’s responses to the points raised (‘Response to Consultees’) is <a href=’http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/810/Response%20to%20Consultees.pdf’ target=’_blank’>19 pages long</a>. Both are in .pdf format.
If you want a quick look at the main document, you could go to page 9 of the larger pdf document (confusingly, it has the page number 6 printed on it) where you’ll see a set of graphs. These show, among other things, that the favoured option is to ‘Do nothing’ and that only one percent of those who responded approve of the fitting of Mode S to all aircraft. A whopping 90 percent disagreed strongly with the proposal.
The CAA answers in the 19-page document reveal little that is new.
So what direction will the Mode S issue now take? The opinion of many is that the consultation has not proved anything specific, and that it will simply lead to… more consultation. The other options are that the CAA could go ahead and implement Mode S in either for everybody, or with exceptions (neither of which would be acceptable to many pilots); or the CAA could drop the whole issue.
As we’ve documented recently, the vibes coming from CAA House and government are mixed: we’ll have to wait and see.
