Interesting thing with transponders

On Mar 6, 8:01*am, "Wayne Paul" wrote:
I find the assertion that military aircraft do not have transponders humorous. *Wasn't it the military that developed the system back in WWII? *Isn't our current system a direct descendant of the original IFF (http://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/Identi..._friend_or_foe) and still uses to original coding system? ("Squawk 1200, etc.)

BTW, I am alive today because of the refusal to allow the USS Long Beach to blindly fire on an aircraft from which it was not receiving a transponder signal. *The aircraft in question turned out to be my A-6A Intruder with an inoperative transponder.

"brian whatcott" wrote in ...

BT wrote:
/snip/
"Transport" military aircraft may or may not have TCAS, it depends on
their vintage, and they do not have an air to air radar to "ping" a
transponder.
" Heavy Bomber" military aircraft may not have TCAS, it depends on their
vintage, and they do not have an air to air radar to "ping" a
transponder.
/snip/

BT "retired military aviator" and one time ATC controller.

I know the C-5 has TCAS. It uses squitter mode and interrogates
transponders.
The KC-135 has TCAS. I am almost certain it too interrogates.
*(I should know this, but I did not update the transponder model for
the KC-135 simulators, and cannot recall. Military aircraft are subject
to continuous performance updates.)

Brian W

You're lucky. I was on the heavy cruiser USS St. Paul watching when
the missile cruiser USS Canberra blasted an AD5 Skyraider out of the
sky with a missile because of an inoperative transponder. The 4-man
A5 crew was lost.

Back to the basic transponder discussion.

It's obvious the US air traffic control system is based on a military
command structure. All information is kicked up the chain of command
for a decision while the ops people at the bottom wait for an answer.
The oxymoron "Military Intelligence" applies.

In a similar way, information on potential air-to-air conflicts is
collected at a 'control center' then, if the situation is deemed
important, the pilots of the conflicted aircraft are notified. The
system assumes a perfect two-way information flow. When closing
speeds exceed 1000 kts, this is a profoundly stupid situation.

I can see no reason why a bunch of civil servants in a concrete bunker
need to know about a potential conflict hundreds of miles away. The
people who need to know are the pilots involved. The pilots have the
most at risk and are the only people in a position to use the
information to save themselves and their passengers. "Controllers"
can talk all they want but the flight paths won't diverge until the
pilots hands move the controls. This is why FLARM and TCAS are so
successful.

It's clear to anyone who understands ADS-B that it undermines the
'central control' idea by providing timely information to pilots thus
putting ground jobs at risk. The painfully slow adoption of ADS-B is
best seen as a labor relations issue.