Mode S. Dutch debacle.

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Check out this link…

http://www.ais-netherlands.nl/aim/mi…9-04-en-GB.pdf.

…and the following comment…

“….VFR traffic under the Schiphol TMA had been instructed to switch off transponders because of constant TCAS alerts, but recently the Dutch government decreed that all traffic above 800 feet should switch on Mode S everywhere.

On the first sunny weekend following the decree Schiphol was swamped with a blizzard of Mode-S returns. ATC tuned the text size down to the minimum but still couldn’t see approaching CAT clearly. All VFR traffic was banned from a huge swathe of airspace around Schiphol as a result. Ary Stiger of AOPA-Netherlands is meeting the Dutch CAA and Schiphol ATC on Tuesday to start sorting out the mess.

AOPA has been warning for years that busy airspace would not bear the weight of Mode S, and controllers have said they would be forced to tune out Mode-S returns because of clutter (thus incidentally rendering the whole exercise futile for GA). For some reason Schiphol wasn’t able to tune out Mode S when it happened, we don’t know why yet.

The Schiphol issue was discussed today at the IAOPA-Europe regional meeting in Friedrichshafen. The UK CAA is aware of it, and has been preparing the ground for a couple of weeks for a change of heart on Mode-S; it is unlikely it will be adopted universally in the UK….”

:confused: