Does anyone still fly with a Mode A transponder?

Dav8or

Dav8or

Final Approach
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Jan 6, 2007
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Discovery Bay, CA
Display Name
Dave
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C83 Byron, CA
There are lots of NORDO planes, nearly everybody else has Mode C and more and more are getting Mode S, but are there any of us out there still buzzing around with Mode A?
 
Dav8or said:
There are lots of NORDO planes, nearly everybody else has Mode C and more and more are getting Mode S, but are there any of us out there still buzzing around with Mode A?
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Most Mode-A-only transponders that were ever sold probably had their cavity tubes wear out and were scrapped aeons ago.
 
I don't know if there are any viable MODE A ONLY transponders out there, those probably also only have 64 codes rather than 4096. THere's really nothing magic about the transponder being able to respond to mode C interrogations other than it has to have an encoder connected to it. Back when I learned to fly in 1981, all our aircraft had mode A/C transponders, but none of them had encoders (DEN was only a Group II TCA at the time)
 
I've been asked to turn off Mode C when the encoder wasn't reflecting my true altitude. In essence I was using Mode A for that flight. So, "yes", it happens now and then. Now, the box was not pure Mode A, but... :D
 
Not a Mode A-only transponder, but I was flying Mode A without an encoder for several months after buying my current plane. Builder didn't need no steenkin Mode C...
 
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