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by rohit89
5306 days ago
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> TCAS isn't all it's cracked up to be. First of all, it only works if the other plane has a transponder (there are still plenty of light civil aircraft out there with no transponders). Why hasn't it been made mandatory that all aircrafts should have a standardized transponder ? It scares me a bit that, at the end of the day, we rely on pilots avoiding collisions by sight. |
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In some parts of the world, it may be. For example, I don't know if Europe allows for aircraft without transponders. Even in the U.S. you must have a transponder to enter certain types of airspace (e.g. the airspace around major airports). As far as I know, no matter where you are in the world, you must have a transponder to fly IFR.
Installing a transponder is a non-trivial expense, especially in older aircraft (which are the aircraft most likely to not have transponders). For a lot of small aircraft in the U.S. this would represent an unnecessary burden on the owners. For example, crop dusters: they typically fly around low and slow in areas with very little traffic, under day VFR conditions, so they have no need to interact with ATC and therefore no real use for a transponder.
>It scares me a bit that, at the end of the day, we rely on pilots avoiding collisions by sight.
We don't rely solely on this: we have transponders (with TCAS in some cases), ATC radar, and (in some cases) airborne radar. All of these tools help us to avoid collisions. Unfortunately, none of them are 100% effective, and in most of the situations where they all fail, the good old Mark I Eyeball usually saves the day. See-and-avoid isn't perfect, either (if it was, we'd never have midairs), but it is still the most effective tool available for avoiding an impending collision.