ADS Rebate Validation Flight?

sourdough44

En-Route
Joined
Feb 20, 2011
Messages
3,119
Location
Wisconsin
Display Name

Display name:
WI Flyer
I may do my ‘validation flight’ in the next few days. Yes, I’ve read the ‘circular’, or whatever it’s called.

Any tips to streamline? My plan was to get with approach, climb, maneuver, turn, 360’s, & find a point to criss-cross over. Don’t want to do it 3 times to qualify.

This is a Stratus ESGi transponder.
 
Last edited:
If you have a skybeacon, start up (or at least turn on master and nav lights) and sit still for 5 minutes. If you move too soon, the software updates can still be running causing a few seconds of NIC failure on the report causing a failure of the flight.
 
We ended up making two flights. On the first one, we called Approach on the radio and asked for an ADS-B validation flight, and the controller didn't seem to know what that meant, and sent us off beyond the lateral boundaries of the Charlie. My PIC chose to not attempt to clarify with the controller.

For the second one, I called the TRACON on the phone first, just to see if there was any special procedure they wanted, someplace they'd want us to be. They said, "No, just call us on the radio!" So again, I called them on the radio and this time made it clear that I wanted to do maneuvering "inside or above the lateral boundaries of the Charlie". There was still some back-and-forth with the controller about what airspace exactly I needed to be in, but I just tried to explain clearly what I needed. They pointed out a lake landmark, which would keep me out of the way of the jets, and said, do your maneuvering there.

(The 10,000-ft rule doesn't apply in Alaska, so we had to use our local Charlie.)
 
I just did mine on Sunday. No special maneuvers, just straight and level and level standard-rate (approximately) turns above a Class C. Passed on first attempt.

ATC knows nothing about ADS-B validation, there is no reason to tell them. I told them I would be maneuvering above the Class C and requested traffic advisories.
 
I followed what the"circular" recommended, climbing turns crossed my path once etc. stayed up and in the mode c veil of our class B for about 45 mins. Passed no problem .
I also heard atc doesn't know what ads-b validation flight is.
 
I simply flew above a Charley for thirty five minutes to ensure that I exceeded 30 minutes. I did almost no maneuvers. Your code numbers and order of doing things on the website is important.
 
When my ADS-B box was installed two years ago, they only counted time in "Rule Airspace", with one exception.

For my first test flight I doodled around for about an hour near Kelso WA, in an area with radar coverage. I did all the recommended maneuvers. But I got a 'fail' because I was not in FAR 91.225 airspace long enough. It only credited me with eleven minutes, which was likely only the time I was below the floor of the PDX Class C in the process of departing from and returning to home base of KVUO.





A day or two later I went back up, and this time told ATC what I was doing, got flight following, and drew squiggles in the sky over the top of the Class C, which is "Rule Airspace". This time it passed.





On both trips, FAA's "Performance Monitor" credited the time I was below the Class C, which technically is not "Rule Airspace"; but none of my time outside the lateral limit of the Class C was counted.
 
Yes. My tip: fail to meet the minimum requirements twice and they’ll have a human look at it and determine if it’s good enough. Don’t do it on purpose, but that’s what’ll happen after 2 fails.
 
FD40C2CD-A38E-4278-8FF2-803603A06571.png Ok guys, I went for a post annual flight, testing things out. I show 25:36 minutes in ‘rule airspace’, so I guess this won’t qualify. The email said wait & they may manually approve the validation flight.

I was cruising in and above Class C, just not for over the 30 minutes. Anyway, all else tested good. I have until Aug 15th or so to get it done. I may not fly again until I head towards RIPON.
 
Just email them at the address on the email with the gairs report and ask them to review it. If they don’t find any problems they will approve the rebate.

Otherwise, you can just fly inside the Mode C veil or any other rule airspace and fly for 30 minutes. You don’t even need to talk to ATC at all.
 
I’ll maybe try that. I did have flight following, mostly to check out my new transponder. That and the rest of the post annual flight checked fine. If I have to I can do another flight, even just tooling around on my own.
 
I'm hoping to do my validation flight very soon; the preliminary PAPR I requested after a short routine flight showed that all was well. Based on this thread and the FAA guidelines, 30 minutes in rule airspace with some gentle maneuvering seems like all that is required, but I found this in the Appareo FAQ:

"I keep failing my Air on Ground part of the FAA Public ADS-B Performance Report (PAPR).
To avoid failing this part of the test, Appareo recommends using ground mode before takeoff and after landing."

Additionally, my A&P said that I had to land to a full stop, remain stationary for 15 seconds, and then take off again at our class C airport as part of the flight. The Gleim website says, "The validation process can be done during a routine flight as long as certain criteria are met. The flight must include a minimum of 30 consecutive minutes within the airspace requiring ADS-B, with at least 10 minutes of maneuvering." The Gleim sentence strikes me as ambiguous... are there other "certain requirements," or is the 30 minutes in C/10 minutes maneuvering the "certain requirements?" I can't find anything specific on the FAA site other than the 30-minutes-within-rule-airspace requirement. As usual, I can't seem to find a clear answer.

IS there a ground component, or is it really just make contact w/ approach, go fly for at least 30 minutes w/in Charlie (or Bravo, or above 10,000)while doing at least 10 minutes of maneuvering, then go home and request your PAPR?
 
Mu first flight was totally in a Class C over one of the closed runways-up and down, turns in both directions. I failed. My second flight was on my return from refueling. I climbed to 10500 and flew a straight line for 30 minutes back to base. I passed. Skybeacon.
 
My A&P said that I had to land to a full stop, remain stationary for 15 seconds, and then take off again at our class C airport as part of the flight.

No you don't.

MThe Gleim website says, "The validation process can be done during a routine flight as long as certain criteria are met.

The "certain criteria" are a segue to the criteria listed in the following sentence.
 
Hey, somebody is ‘from the FAA and are here to help me’. They did a manual intervention & ‘passed’ my validation flight. I was about 4 minutes short on the ‘rule airspace’ time requirement.

I think it only counted my time in & above the MKE Class C, even though the flight was over 50 minutes. I’ll have to give them a ‘thanks’ at Oshkosh, didn’t really want to do another flight unless necessary.

I did send a stand alone email to the ‘ads help link’, after that, they quickly approved. I guess no more sneaking around the USA, big brother will be watching.
 
Hey, somebody is ‘from the FAA and are here to help me’. They did a manual intervention & ‘passed’ my validation flight. I was about 4 minutes short on the ‘rule airspace’ time requirement.

I think it only counted my time in & above the MKE Class C, even though the flight was over 50 minutes. I’ll have to give them a ‘thanks’ at Oshkosh, didn’t really want to do another flight unless necessary.

I did send a stand alone email to the ‘ads help link’, after that, they quickly approved. I guess no more sneaking around the USA, big brother will be watching.

I’ve talked to multiple people stewing over a failure and told them to email, and they have all been passed manually. Same deal as yours, a few minutes here or there or some signal the thing is sending that’s not compatible with their test software that they have no contractor or budget to update.

If there’s not something significantly wrong the manual override folks get it done.
 
I just had a Garmin GTX335 installed and went for my first flight today. I spent about 40 minutes in the mode-c veil of a nearby class B. When I got home I checked and found that I passed all criteria. Nice to have that done!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I just had a Garmin GTX335 installed and went for my first flight today. I spent about 40 minutes in the mode-c veil of a nearby class B. When I got home I checked and found that I passed all criteria. Nice to have that done!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That’s how ours went but we needed an e-mail also. Plenty of time in controlled airspace on the way home from the shop. Haha. Easy button.
 
I just got my rebate validation flight done (30 minutes in Charlie w/ the helpful controllers at KSYR plus an additional 10 minutes just for surety), PAPR and PASS reports requested and received, application submitted, and accepted yesterday! Should have the check in 4-6 weeks. Couldn't be happier. Got a little frustrated with the application procedure because I had the reservation code but not the "incentive code" and couldn't figure out where to get it. Just in case I'm not the only idiot on this board (sure would like some company), the mistake I made at first was requesting the PAPR report from here .. https://adsbperformance.faa.gov/paprrequest.aspx

You get the report, but not the pass/fail sheet with the incentive code. If you're applying for the rebate check, you need to use this to request your report....

https://adsbrebate.faa.gov/PAPRRequest.aspx

That's the website that was correctly listed on the reservation code email I had saved and printed months ago, but I was too lazy to type it in and just googled "FAA PAPR report"... that brings up the first site above. Nope... gotta use the one that starts with adsrebate.faa.gov ..

But... anyway... that journey is now over except for receiving and cashing the check. NEXT project! :)
 
See message #3.

Don't make this difficult!!!!!!!!!!!

This is good advice. From experience, exceed the requirements. Fly for 35-40 minutes in rule airspace and a few extra maneuvers. My first test failed for slightly missing the minimums in the FAA test perspective. Start the clock with your first clearing turn, make a few circles fly maneuvering around, finish with a turn.

My 2nd test was successful at ~2000' under SFO's mode C veil. I was guaranteed to be see 100% of the time. My first test visibility was lost for a portion of it, shorting by 3 minutes causing the first test's fail.

The 2nd test was coupled with a practice trip to a local airport.
Screen-Shot-2019-01-17-at-9.55.01-AM-1024x571.png
 
Last edited:
I don't think maneuvering is really important in terms of the rebate validation flight, and in fact I've seen several articles cautioning against steep turns or other-than-basic maneuvers where an airframe surface might shadow your gps antenna. When I did my validation flight, I just flew back and forth along the southern shore of a lake that was w/in the SYR class C. Only "maneuvers" were gentle standard-rate 180degree course reversals and slight redirections and altitude adjustments as requested by ATC. I've been wrong before, but I think "30 minutes in rule airspace" is really the only guideline you must satisfy.

My guess, @NordicDave .. is that you MAY have failed the first time by maneuvering too much.
 
Not to argue, but I didn't do a single 360, but did descend from 3500 to 3000 at my request.. clouds were getting a little low for comfort.
 
My guess, @NordicDave .. is that you MAY have failed the first time by maneuvering too much.

You actually can't maneuver too much unless we're talking about aerobatics. The FAA team told me specifically I didn't maneuver enough and recommended more turns, plus I was a couple of minutes short. The above post was my successful acceptance flight. 30º circles are terrific.
 
You actually can't maneuver too much unless we're talking about aerobatics. The FAA team told me specifically I didn't maneuver enough and recommended more turns, plus I was a couple of minutes short. The above post was my successful acceptance flight. 30º circles are terrific.

Just going by what I did during my successful flight, I'd bet that the "couple of minutes short" had a lot more to do with not passing than the "didn't maneuver enough" part. In any case, glad to hear you got it done!
 
Just going by what I did during my successful flight, I'd bet that the "couple of minutes short" had a lot more to do with not passing than the "didn't maneuver enough" part. In any case, glad to hear you got it done!

I spoke with the rebate team by phone and they specifically said to maneuver more. Originally I did a couple of winding S turns and a circle, and they suggested circles with no more than 30 degree bank.

I OD’d on turns to overly make sure.
 
This is good advice. From experience, exceed the requirements. Fly for 35-40 minutes in rule airspace and a few extra maneuvers. My first test failed for slightly missing the minimums in the FAA test perspective. Start the clock with your first clearing turn, make a few circles fly maneuvering around, finish with a turn.

My 2nd test was successful at ~2000' under SFO's mode C veil. I was guaranteed to be see 100% of the time. My first test visibility was lost for a portion of it, shorting by 3 minutes causing the first test's fail.

The 2nd test was coupled with a practice trip to a local airport.
Screen-Shot-2019-01-17-at-9.55.01-AM-1024x571.png

Wow! That is almost exactly the route I flew on my Airplane-Instrument checkride!

I don't remember much of what we did, but I remember the route very well...
 
The funny thing about all this “acceptance” is that someone’s antenna is going to come loose or a power transistor blow in one of these things, and it’s just going to fail later.

With it being mandated that ADSB NOT be used for primary traffic separation AT all, I wonder why anybody even cares if they’re working or not.

All you’re ever going to hear about from a controller or anyone else, is if the transponder fails. Radar isn’t going anywhere for a long time and a new standard that’s NOT ADSB. LOL.

So silly. But yay for $500 back for flying in circles. Hahaha.
 
Wow! That is almost exactly the route I flew on my Airplane-Instrument checkride!

I don't remember much of what we did, but I remember the route very well...

That's freek'in awesome. Thanks for sharing IK04.
 
Back
Top