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uAvionix skyBeacon: One User’s Experience

The material my shop had on the skyBeacon pointed potentially at a "Transponder Monitor Threshold" issue and directed us to a uAvionix video. Not wanting to make an adjustment to the system, hoping it would work, and then, potentially, make several not so cheap test flights before getting it right, I sent uAvionix an email describing the problem and attaching the performance report. Within two hours I was called by David Wagner, who had reviewed the report. In a wide-ranging conversation his bottom line was that the unit was fine, I just happened to live somewhere so far from good radar and ADS-B coverage that the percentage of my flight outside of coverage would generate a failure under the FAA's algorithm.

Rick Durden
Verified

In the last month I had a wingtip-mount uAvionix skyBeacon ADS-B Out universal access transmitter (UAT) installed on my family’s 1966 Cessna 182. On the subsequent flight to show that it met the performance requirements for the FAA’s ADS-B Out rebate program, it failed. That begat a frustrating process to figure out what was wrong and rectify it.

I’ll put the conclusion up front: There was nothing wrong with the skyBeacon and my shop installed it correctly. The problem proved to be a combination of living in an area of fringe ADS-B and radar coverage and how the FAA interprets ADS-B Out performance data.

Rick Durden

Senior Editor Rick Durden has written for Aviation Consumer since 1994 and specializes in aviation law. Rick is an active CFII and holds an ATP with type ratings in the Douglas DC-3 and Cessna Citation. He is the author of The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vols. 1 & 2.