Traffic Heads-up

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I just read a report that the FAA is shutting down and will have shut
down 2/3 of TIS stations by 2006. I used TIS once in my
brother-in-law's turbo 182 and thought it was pretty good except for
the 30 second delay. Sometimes it would show traffic that even ATC
said was non-existent or would drop aircraft out of the blue, but
overall I got the gist of who was around me. I used to have a surecheck
traffic-scope but it was stolen a couple months ago. (My insurance
covered it with NO deductible believe it or not) It worked great, but
now that I am empty handed again I was considering the TIS. "WAS"
considering. I talked to a guy over at Ryan who said he could get me a
system for $7K which I am considering, however I also heard Surecheck
is coming out with a portable 3-d traffic system too, so I am going to
wait a while. Ryan said that TIS is going to be obsolete in 2 years
simply because the FAA is out of cash to support it. Boy, won't that
make recent buyers happy.

[Darrel Toepfer]

wrote:

> I just read a report that the FAA is shutting down and will have shut
> down 2/3 of TIS stations by 2006. I used TIS once in my
> brother-in-law's turbo 182 and thought it was pretty good except for
> the 30 second delay. Sometimes it would show traffic that even ATC
> said was non-existent or would drop aircraft out of the blue, but
> overall I got the gist of who was around me. I used to have a surecheck
> traffic-scope but it was stolen a couple months ago. (My insurance
> covered it with NO deductible believe it or not) It worked great, but
> now that I am empty handed again I was considering the TIS. "WAS"
> considering. I talked to a guy over at Ryan who said he could get me a
> system for $7K which I am considering, however I also heard Surecheck
> is coming out with a portable 3-d traffic system too, so I am going to
> wait a while. Ryan said that TIS is going to be obsolete in 2 years
> simply because the FAA is out of cash to support it. Boy, won't that
> make recent buyers happy.

"Decommissioning of TIS stations " is a thread in rec.aviation.owning
that covered this issue extensively and the reasons behind it:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.aviation.owning/browse_thread/thread/2a053734e01d3f79/b53b402115f45d97?q=TIS+FAA+aviation&rnum=4#b53b402115f45d97

"Losing TIS Sites" thread in the same newsgroup gave the AOPA stance on
the issue:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.aviation.owning/browse_thread/thread/8e1fa0990c2797e8/d2f6b7c856163208?q=TIS+FAA+aviation&rnum=3#d2f6b7c856163208

Surecheck doesn't use TIS...

The FAA didn't spend the extra money on software compatability with the
new ASR-11 radar...


Doug Vetter Jun 22, 10:52 pm show options
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.owning
From: Doug Vetter > - Find messages by this author
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:52:27 -0400
Local: Wed,Jun 22 2005 10:52 pm
Subject: Re: Decommissioning of TIS stations
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Newps wrote:
> We have an ASR-11 and our mode S and TIS is fully functioning.

Interesting. According to my avionics rep, who spoke today with his
Garmin rep:

<quote>
= I just had a long talk with my Garmin rep. Here is what they have
= been told. The FAA is upgrading some of the ATC facility terminal
= radar from ARTS8 to ARTS11 systems (model numbers may be wrong,
= I think that is what he said). In any event, when the older ARTS8
= were being speced, the FAA wrote into the spec the ARTS8 must be
= TIS compliant. The contactor building the ARTS8 designed TIS into
= the system, and all was right with the world....

= When the new ARTS11 spec was written the FAA either forgot to add
= the TIS requirement, or thought no one was using it and omitted
= it intentionally. So you had the ARTS11 system designed without
= the TIS feature. So.... As the older systems were replaced by
= the newer systems, TIS got lost.

= My Garmin rep said the majority (of the 22 lost TIS sites) were
= the North West USA, one in Minnesota (or Michigan), one in Maine.
= He did not remember any in our area [Ed Note: NY/NJ/PA]. I asked
= him if this was the impending death of TIS, and he did not know.
= He did say the FAA was working off some bad data that was showing
= almost no one was using TIS. Garmin did compile data and sent
= to them on 330 sales (about 10k 330's to date). So we will see...
</quote>

If your the "Tailwind" from the other newsgroup, then you already knew
all of this...