Waypoints: Special-use airspace status on the fly

I gazed skyward, wondering what weather was in store for us on the next leg of our safari. The broken cloud layer suggested the trip may be more complicated than the CAVU leg 48 hours earlier that had brought us from Johannesburg to Ngala in northeastern South Africa, on the edge of the famed Kruger National Park.

With our morning safari and a spectacular bush breakfast behind us, we began to study the sky more intently. Our next leg to Polokwane in northern South Africa was a fuel stop and opportunity to clear customs out of South Africa before heading to our lodge at Mashatu in southern Botswana’s Limpopo Valley. The 140-nautical-mile leg would take just a little more than an hour in our Cessna 182s, but we approached it with some trepidation because of the unknown. A couple attempts at satellite calls to get updated weather info proved fruitless. Back in the States we would have had all sorts of weather products available to us—even in 2012 we were flying with satellite-delivered weather info in the cockpit. It would have been an easy trip on an IFR flight plan, but our temporary South African pilot certificates limited us to day VFR only. We three experienced pilots looked at each other and finally declared almost in unison, “Let’s give it a try. We can always come back here.”

The flight proved uneventful, although we did dodge some clouds and I even climbed up through a hole as the skies changed to something closer to scattered. The sky was clear when we touched down on Polokwane’s 8,400-foot-long runway. The weather throughout the rest of our weeklong trip through Botswana and Zambia was uneventful, but on each leg we pined for more information and realized how much we had come to rely on nearly universal cellular and Wi-Fi access, as well as in-cockpit weather.

A friend in New Zealand commented, “You guys are so far ahead of us, Tom. We can’t even get WX in the cockpit!”Fast forward to 2021, and now, in addition to SiriusXM satellite-delivered weather in the cockpit, we enjoy widespread access to in-cockpit data via ADS-B In—weather and traffic information. While I haven’t been back to southern Africa since 2012, I’m fairly certain not a lot has changed out in the bush, other than perhaps somewhat better cellular coverage.

We in the United States have access to inflight data that is the envy of the world—and it’s about to get better. I was particularly reminded about how good we have it when I posted on Facebook recently a link to a story from AOPA about the upcoming requirement that Congress imposed on the FAA to provide near-real-time status of special use airspace to pilots in the cockpit. Delivered via ADS-B In, and likely via SiriusXM satellite as well, the data is required to be in a format that makes it easy for manufacturers of electronic flight bags to absorb and display on moving maps. Upon reading the story, a friend in New Zealand commented, “You guys are so far ahead of us, Tom. We can’t even get WX in the cockpit!” This from a nation that has one of the most robust general aviation communities outside the States.

To better understand what SUA might look like in the cockpit, I contacted ForeFlight co-founder Tyson Weihs. He said he hopes the SUA information is delivered by a modernized TFR/notam system. With that, he said, EFB manufacturers would be able to display airspace one color when it is cold, another when it is about to go hot, and another when it is active—much as we see TFRs depicted now. The key to making that happen is a specific structure for the data and to provide metadata, such as controlling agency, associated frequencies, and times active, in a machine-readable format.

MITRE, a not-for-profit organization that conducts research for the FAA and other government agencies, estimates the change annually will save $100 million in fuel, 30 million nautical miles, 90,000 flight hours, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 300 million kilograms. Look for more information in the coming months.

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