Comment Re:It's been a lot longer than 2007 (Score 1) 218
In addition, STUFF BREAKS. Your UAS that depends on ADS-B for sense-and-avoid isn't going to see that Bonanza with a transponder failure.
So, require every plane to have 2 of them then, with independent everything. Require them to have fallback to a non-GPS satellite positioning system as well.
And that's all irrelevant anyway, as there is never going to be a requirement (at least probably not in my lifetime) for manned aircraft to have an ADS-B transponder anywhere they don't already need a Mode C transponder. That will never fly, pun intended. The vast majority of private pilots will never need ADS-B out, as they don't fly where it matters. There are huge swaths of airspace you can fly in WITHOUT A RADIO, much less a transponder. This is a matter of philosophy: the airspace of the United States belongs to the people, and they should have free use of it. The FAA is only supposed to provide the minimum amount of regulation and oversight to keep everyone safe.
The problem is that this kind of mindset keeps general aviation (and aviation in general) stuck in the 20s. Why do aircraft spin on turn to final? Well, for starters, because there IS a turn to final - something completely unnecessary if you have the ability to do a precision approach to any runway with an RNAV with traffic awareness.
Of course, it is a sword that cuts both ways, because legally right now you can fly an unmanned drone anywhere in the US, commercial or not, monitored or not. Cite a law or regulation that says otherwise (hint, you can't, which is why a Federal court ruled against the FAA recently in the only case to go to a ruling that I'm aware of) - no, advisory circulars are not laws or regulations.
Sure, we could make it cheaper by cutting out certification requirements, but that goes back to my original statement: We'd have to accept lower safety levels.
Or we could just have the government bless a reference design and sell it for cost, with the manufacturer having no liability for failure (responsibility for quality would rest with the FAA), and other manufacturers would be able to freely manufacture the same design at any price they wish, with no liability as long as they conform to the reference.
The problem with aviation is that the regulations GREATLY lag technology, and the certification requirements drive everybody to openly avoid modernization. Then everything gets grandfathered in, so procedures have to assume that there is a piper cub with no electrical system nearby all the time.
I don't mean to pick on collision avoidance and ADS-B in particular. Problems like this exist all over the aviation industry, especially in general aviation. Cars have had FADEC and automatic transmissions for decades now, the typical training aircraft that costs $100/hr to operate lacks both (indeed even fairly expensive new piston aircraft still tend to lack them).
Sometimes I think the solution to the aviation problem isn't to think about how to allow drones to safely operate in a world of piloted aircraft, but rather to to think about how to allow passenger-carrying aircraft to safely operate in a world of drones.