It was a big day in aviation. There was one last niggly item that was preventing the Cessna from becoming fully operational, and that was the ADS-B device. This things reports data to the FAA and it became mandatory the first of this year. I had installed a device to comply, but kept getting failures. The FAA can generate a report of performance as soon as you get back on the ground.

I searched for a long time to find the problem, and finally yesterday came up with the solution. The device is programmed from a smartphone. There is a catch, in order to set the sensitivity parameter the gadget has to be getting a signal from the transponder and that means the transponder must be getting interrogated by radar. Fortunately, in front of the hangar the transponder is getting lit by some radar. Once that was going, all it took was setting the parameter and we were good to go.

The weather was hot and hazy. I guess that Sahara sand storm or something. Anyway, we headed out over the bay and flew around. Then we contacted Ellington Field for a transponder check which was satisfactory. Upon returning to the airport I accessed the ADS-B report for the flight and we got high marks. That was a relief. Life is good.