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will remain charged with enough
power to transmit at full power
for greater than 24 hours when
activated. Importantly, this also
means that a PLB is portable, and
can be carried upon the pilot’s body.
The PLB stays with the pilot rather
than with the aircraft, enabling he
or she to transmit an emergency
signal and active location, even in an
emergency ditching in water.
“A tracking system such as
Spidertracks relies on the power
supply of the aircraft which may
or may not survive an impact.
The aircraft’s electrical system
may indeed be the cause of the
emergency to begin with. Without
power at altitude, the aircraft may
travel a significant distance from
the last location transmission
before eventually coming to
ground. In this case the exact
location would be very difficult
to determine. Other tracking
systems utilise domestic AA-style
batteries. Once depleted, these
units are rendered useless.”
Changes to the satellite
constellations are keeping the
PLB manufacturers busy at the
moment as new technologies
come into play.
“Currently the COSPAS
SARSAT system utilises
low-altitude Earth orbiting
satellites (LEOSAR) along with
geostationary satellites (GEOSAR)
to relay transmissions from
emergency beacons. The system
is highly reliable, but as with all
technologies has limitations that
can be improved upon. As a result,
COSPAS SARSAT is working with
the USA, European Commission
and Russian Federation to develop
the medium-altitude Earth
orbit navigation satellite system
(MEOSAR). Essentially, 406MHz
instruments have been added to
each party’s MEOSAR satellites
resulting in enhanced reliability,
redundancy and availability.
“This development will enable
the system to send a confirmation
to the beacon holder that an
alert has been received, and that
assistance is on its way. One of the
most common questions I am asked
about PLBs is ‘why don’t you add
a confirmation message to your
PLBs so that people know the
message got through?’ Once the
MEOSAR system is active, we will
be able to implement such a feature
plus additional enhancements
providing our customers greater
peace of mind.”
“The PLB stays with the pilot
rather than with the aircraft ...” AIRSERVICES AUSTRALIA