Flying USA – August 2019

64 | AUGUST 2019 FLYINGMAG.COM

TECHNICALITIES FLYING Opinion

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THE BEACON’S TALE

I FINALLY COME TO GRIPS WITH ADS-B

By Peter Garrison

B

etween an inherent

tendency to procras-

tinate, an expectation of

lowering prices and a faint

hope that the 2020 dead-

line would—like an afford-

able substitute for leaded

avgas—quietly recede into

the indefinite future, I did

nothing about ADS-B Out

until late this past year. By

then, it appeared that the

deadline was inexorable and

the hoped-for $49.95 solu-

tion was not at hand. I began

to consult Google for help.

Airplane ownership is

incompatible with my job

description of ink-stained

wretch. Only because I

built my airplane myself—

having designed it on the

backs of used sheets of

paper and equipping it with

an engine, instruments and

avionics from another era

(my airspeed indicator once

graced a DC-4)—do I have

an airplane at all.

Thus, frugality was of

the essence.

A vast and world-altering

edifice—advertising—has

been erected upon the

mental processes of shop-

pers, yet they remain

mysterious. I will there-

fore not try to retrieve the

sequence of steps that led

me to a company impracti-

cally named uAvionix. For

some time, I could not fig-

ure out how to pronounce

its name. The initial u, if

you looked closely at some

versions of the logo, was

really the Greek letter

standing for “micro.” So

was it “you-avionics,” as in

YouTube—or “micro-avion-

ics” or “mew-avionics” or

“moo-avionics”?

Wel l , it d id n’t mat t er.

The important thing about

this outfit was they offered

a product that, at least

in principle, required no

modification of the aircraft

wiring whatsoever. All you

had to do was unscrew your

tail nav light and screw on

their gadget in its place.

Unsurprisingly, it is called

a tailBeacon. (They have

a wingtip version as well,

but I don’t use a standard

wingtip nav-light mount.)

So I paid my $1,600

and, a couple of days later,

received a tiny box. Inside

was a sort of finned taillight

under whose plastic lens

nestled a high-intensity

LED and a jewellike cir-

cuit board. This evidently

contained an ADS-B trans-

mitter, GPS, Wi-Fi receiv-

er-transmitter and some

mysterious mechanism

for telepathically commu-

nicating with my existing

transponder.

It took about 30 minutes

to install.

Two questions immedi-

ately pop into the mind of

anyone confronted with

this gadget. One is: Won’t

someone steal it? The

other is: How does it syn-

chronize with the existing

transponder?

The tiny uAvionix tailBeacon ADS-B unit on my airplane.