regulatory | Canadian ADS-B Out SKIES Magazine 58 skiesmag.com Northern NextGen? nless one has been flying without a radio in NORDO state for the last few years, most operators know that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast Out (ADS-B Out) mandate clock is ticking. Still controversial, and bigger than anything like it in the past, the FAA’s rule goes into effect in less than two years, with a deadline of Jan. 1, 2020. U.S. ADS-B Out, the first chapter of FAA NextGen, practically affects every user of U.S. airspace at midnight on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. It’s the FAA’s successor to tracking aircraft (and separating them) by radar. By the time this Skies arrives on your U doorstep, around 460 working days will remain in the belated rush to equip aircraft with the necessary avionics. The bow wave of inquiries hit the avionics shops and OEMs by the end of 2017, yet generally for all sectors of aviation (commercial, biz av, GA), compliance remains well short of the needed pace of installations. The FAA will not postpone the compliance date. The next two years are going to be very interesting. CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE Let’s switch to a Canadian frequency. Where are we with Canadian ADS-B Out deployment? Where are we going and how are we going to get there? Nav Canada has already been providing surveillance separation in certain airspace using ADS-B Out technology since 2009. Early deployment started for ADS-B equipped aircraft in the Hudson Bay airspace, allowing for five-mile separation for the heavy Europe-West Coast traffic. That was followed by more ground stations to expand coverage to Eastern Canada and four more ground stations in Greenland in 2012, which added ADS-B surveillance over a portion of the North Atlantic Track system. ADS-B equipped operators in this airspace today have the potential for preferred routes, speeds and altitudes, and corresponding reductions in fuel consumption. Air navigation service providers (ANSPs) are motivated to adopt ADS-B