Today I placed an order for what probably is the largest purchase in monetary terms that I have ever placed by credit card over the Internet. And I am P.Oed.
In 1973 I briefed our AFROTC class on a new FAA requirement. In Oct 1972 Hale Boggs, a powerful Democrat congressman, disappeared on a flight over AK. As a result of this, the US Congress passed a law requiring the installation of an Emergency Locator Transmitter in all US aircraft, the exception being training aircraft that will not venture further than 20 miles from their home base and jets. Costing in the $100 range, ELTS ere designed to transmit beeping signals on 121.5 and 243.0 MHZ when activated either manually or by a sufficient impact force. The Cessna 310 that vanished with Congressman Boggs was required to have an ELT but no signals were heard and the NTSB concluded that an ELT was not on board. Upset by the loss of their colleague, Congress mandated that virtually all US light aircraft be equipped with ELT's.
Soon after, the FAA discovered that activations of ELTs were very common; a typical month saw 500 reported. almost all of these were accidental, the result of maintenance activity or hard landings. And most genuine crashes occurred on or very close to airports, where an ELT was no help in locating the wreck. The launch of SARSAT payloads on TIROS NOAA and Soviet weather satellites in the early 1980's helped identify emitting ELT locations but also made sorting out the false activations even more difficult.
Often ELTS, even when activated, were of little help in finding crash sites. For example, when a rental Cessna 150 disappeared on a flight from our airport several years back the area where it went down was first located by IDing which cell tower could find the pilot's cellphone. The ELT signal was not found until an aircraft flew in the vicinity of that cell tower. A friend of mine, a pilot for the Sheriff's Dept, says that he has been on a number of lost aircraft searches but has never seen an ELT signal be of any use in finding a crashed aircraft.
Unwilling to notify Congress that the millions of dollars imposed on the private sector by their angst over the loss of their friend were mostly wasted, the FAA needed to do something to lift the burden of responding to all those unnecessary signals. So, first the 121.5/243 monitoring capability was deleted from the later SARSAT payloads and was replaced by the monitoring of a new frequency, 406 MHZ. The ELTs equipped with 406 MHZ would have to include coded signals that gave the aircraft N-number, which would not really help find lost aircraft but would enable those responsible to be identified and fined. The 121.5/243 units would be phased out.
The General Aviation community howled over this action. Not only did ELTs already have to be procured, installed, maintained, the batteries replaced periodically and annual tests accomplished, but now the old ones would have to be tossed out and new much more expensive units procured and installed. The FAA responded that if one of the older units was installed it could be retained and meet the basic requirement, but new production aircraft had to employ the new 406 MHZ units. That mortified the Gen Av community a bit - but then the FCC ordered that the older units could no longer be manufactured, meaning that eventually new ones would have to be procured and installed as the old ones wore out.
The newer units are also required to have a a warning light on the instrument panel, along with an Off Switch to arm and disarm the ELT, as well as an an audio alarm to indicate if it has been activated, making installation a lot more challenging than the old ones, which could be just strapped down in the aft area of the cockpit or baggage compartment.
The new ELT I finally selected to replace the old failed one cost me about $850; the battery has to replaced NLT 5 years, at a cost of about $250. The old one it is replacing cost about $150 new and had a battery that had to be relaced every 2 years at a cost of $40. And once again, this increased cost is due to the FAA trying to get out from under the burden of dealing with a requirement imposed by Congress, not for increased safety. Personal locator beacons capable of not only signaling the SARSAT birds but also supplying GPS position information at the same time are available for only $250 - $400, but that will not meet the FAA requirement.
So, I am P.Oed.