Is MLAT useless now that ADSB is required?

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

What purpose does MLAT serve for FlightAware now that ADSB is required, except to capture Super Cubs without a battery?

It seems a relic of the past.

2

In the US it is only mandatory where Mode C was. There are plenty of locations that don’t require ADS-B.

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4

I reread this Where is ADS-B Out Required? - AOPA

But the percentage of planes who ONLY go there is really small.

5

Still useful in areas experiencing GNSS interference/denial. Mostly exercises in US airspace.

6

How much do the GPS notams (military exercises) affect FlightAware? The ground radius are small.

7

The impact at altitude can be hundreds of miles in radius, impacting many flights through it.

8

Also useful for:

  • the 94% of the land area of the Earth that isn’t the US where there are different ADS-B requirements
  • areas without UAT receiver coverage
  • handling aircraft with transponder faults
9

FlightAware has a partnership/data feed with Aerion right? That gets rid of the ground interference problem in US/Canadian airspace for airplanes with antenna diversity.

The rest of the world, I understand. But for the US, that’s lot of bandwidth and compute to be saved, assuming FlightAware agrees that WAAS has integrity.

10

Space-based ADS-B doesn’t help if the aircraft itself doesn’t have a good GPS position available. The interference is on the GPS band, not the ADS-B band.

11

You guys are the experts, but the airplanes with antenna diversity have an antenna on the ceiling that would block ground based jamming wouldn’t it?

Never mind, I just thought about it, GPS antennas are on the top of the fuselage as a requirement to talk to the satellites. If a NOTAM is required then it must be possible to overcome the fuselage blocking the ground.

12

We’re not all in the US rolleyes

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