uncertified GPS for ADS-B out

Saturday 28th Jan 2017 was another non flying day due to the British weather, however our plane was being serviced in the morning by Gary of Airmasters and Simon and I were fitting an uncertified GPS to our C42. The mod is quite cheap and easy to do, I have published a how to under the projects part of the Clearprop website here. We did run into one problem which was with the power supply we used gave out a lot of interference and this was changed for a different model which seems clean.

We have always been aware of the NATS trials, but the majority of the group didn’t want to take part in the trial, however now with the BMAA handling the certification under TIL 118 (which is free at the time of writing) and having spoken to NATS at the flying show in December we thought it’s time to do our bit and raise our visibility to other air traffic. NATS who were very keen to promote doing this told us that it would give US and UK military aircraft visibility of our position directly to the pilots, we have a lot of military airbases near to us so this is a big plus!

The advantages of adding ADS-B out is that it is visible to the many emerging traffic systems such as Pilotaware, TCAS & Flam,  it also gives ATC more information about your position even when not on primary radar.

A recent visit from a Tornado pilot confirmed that adding this enables our exact position to be seen by the RAF jets.

So at an all in cost of £45.00 and a weight penalty of just 92 grams the question really is why wouldn’t you do it!

The noise power supply was a CPT 12V to 5V

Without the supply being switched on the airband looked like the below picture

Airband with the supply switched on!

 

The clean Power supply is pictured below

A full write up will follow soon, but in the first 4 flights since fitting it is looking good with even the entire flight being recorded on FR24 from takeoff to landing!