Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) is now an everyday term and a familiar technology across the world. As mandated equipage dates edge closer, operators are experiencing the advantages of ADS-B, via Air Traffic Control’s (ATC) ability to monitor and direct air traffic within areas previously not covered by traditional radar.

Ryanair, Europe’s favourite low fares airline, today (8 May) announced the deployment of GlobalBeacon, a live flight monitoring platform that combines FlightAware’s data processing capabilities and web-interface with global flight tracking coverage from Aireon.

A time line from the past to the future runs through the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) North Atlantic Communications Center at Ballygirreen, a townland on the Shannon Estuary in western Ireland.  Originally known as Shannon Aeradio, the station dates to 1936, when a transmitter hut, a receiver hut and a short-wave radio direction-finding hut were built to provide communications by Morse code with flying boats crossing the North Atlantic Ocean between Ireland and Newfoundland, Canada.

A satellite-based air traffic surveillance system that went live this month over the North Atlantic will track the position of planes every eight seconds, which analysts, air traffic control entities and the company that developed the system say is likely to be transformational for passenger aviation.