The ability to efficiently tax was obviously (to me and many others) a major motivation for the ADS-OUT mandate in busy areas of the US. Otherwise Mode C was fine for ATC and Mode S was never mandated (or particularly widespread).
Another way this is implemented is by local governments (typically at the county level) establishing which planes are “habitually based” within their area, to collect the typical 1% per year property tax generally applicable to aircraft.
A third way is when a resident of another state buys and bases their aircraft in e.g. Oregon, a state with no sales tax or equivalent. If that aircraft enters the state of residence of the owner (e.g. California) during the year after purchase required to be exempt, and it’s a valuable enough plane, it’s now very easy to know and to act on the info.
Obviously landing fees are very rare in the US, I’ve only ever paid them at one airport and will never fly to e.g. Santa Monica where the Vector System is in use. However one can easily imagine government looking forward to an ability to tax unattended airports or any airport, without adding the Euro-style high cost of collection. I think that is exactly what has now happened in US areas with enough traffic volume to generate meaningful additional tax revenue. One step at a time, get the pilots to pay for your taxation infrastructure themselves, then in time the pieces of puzzle are all in place and the trap is complete.
Being based at KSMO I know the system well. The addition of ADS-B is relatively new (at least AFAICT), it’s been going for years via OCR of the airplane’s registration. We operate a fleet of four airplanes from there and the system seems to be about 95% accurate. Not that I liked it….
I thought the US ADS-B mandate had a way of emitting ADS-B anonymously – in other words, without registration detail. In which case, that would completely defeat using ADS-B to go after people for landing fees.
A good point. UAT has anonymous mode and the FAA now has PIA which allows 1090ES aircraft to use a Mode S Address that is not linked to any public information, like the N number.
Yep, UAT anonymous mode was the compromise required to stop mandatory ADS-B going down in flames like mandatory Mode S did previously in the US. However all UAT systems must by regulation start up with anonymous mode off and you are prohibited from using it when on any kind of flight plan or when using ATC. Why do you think Flight Following is promoted so much? Also, as time goes slowly on, few people when replacing a transponder will retain Mode C + UAT, and essentially zero new aircraft will be built that way.
The PIA was another compromise forced into existence by pilots and owners, with the same intent to prevent tracking of aircraft. As implemented by FAA, it answers the mail while being completely impractical for anybody that doesn’t have a flight department to maintain it.
Politics is the art of compromise, with the emphasis on art. Moving towards an objective is incremental.
