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Comment by LgWoodenBadger | Hacker News Reader

Within reason, which is why soldiers train with blank-firing adapters and blanks, and not live ordnance when simulating combat.

Turning ADS-B on/off likely has zero effect on the training/fighting relationship.

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The article says the reason is a bit different - that the route they were practicing is (in theory) sensitive information.

> But the Black Hawk did not operate with the technology because of the confidentiality of the mission for which the crew was practicing. That is because ADS-B Out positions can be obtained by anyone with an internet connection, making the system a potential risk to national security.

Seems like leaving it in listen-only mode would be wise, though.

They were coming back from Langley. I'm told it was just to "refuel."

On one hand, I've got a reputable news organization publishing an article with specific information from experts, pilots, etc.

On the other hand, I've got an internet rando who once told me to Google up MGTOW saying "I'm told".

Which one would you find credible?

It wasn't coming back from Langley. That's misinformation from people who don't know the subtleties of what's displayed by flight tracking sites. For more info see https://x.com/aeroscouting/status/1884983390392488306

The route is a public/known helicopter flight path. There's nothing secret about it.

Here's a map of the helicopter routes in the area. In this case, they were flying on route 4... https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3851p.ct004873/?r=0.67,0.258,0...

Yes, this group transports VIPs and sometimes does so in secret. This training flight was a "simple" check-ride for the pilot (simple in scare quotes because part of the ride was using the NVGs, which strikes me as fairly ridiculous in the DCA air space).

The route itself, sure.

When this specific helicopter/mission joins the route, how fast it goes, what callsign it uses, when it leaves the route, etc. may not be so public. Or at least be treated as "try not to make it unnecessarily public".

Overclassification is absolutely a thing, too. I recall when the Snowden NSA leaks came out, government employees were still forbidden from reading the documents, even if they were published in the newspapers. Pointless? Yes. But those were the rules.

Surely either you are training, or you are on a mission, but in that case you should be competent pilot.

training on a confidential mission is just inviting disaster

Training for a mission tends to mean pretending it's the real mission, as closely as possible. People fire off $100k missiles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrhybKEzb-0) so they know what it'll be like to do it in combat for real.

Competent people still make mistakes. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near DCA airspace, personally.

The ADSB is a simple switch. All it does is broadcast the position. It would have had zero impact on operational readiness. It’s not like they were actually flying “dark” - lights were on, they were in context with ATC, etc.

> Overclassification is absolutely a thing, too. I recall when the Snowden NSA leaks came out, government employees were still forbidden from reading the documents, even if they were published in the newspapers. Pointless? Yes. But those were the rules.

Not just government employees. I was at a defense contractor at the time, and we were also instructed to not read any of the documents online, even for people who were technically cleared to read them through proper channels.

Edit: misremembering, wasn't the Snowden leaks, it was some earlier set of leaks on WikiLeaks

Listen-only mode would be ADS-B In. Black Hawk's support ADS-B Out.

1. C-17 Globemaster III (transport)

2. C-130 Hercules (transport)

3. KC-135 Stratotanker (tanker)

4. KC-10 Extender (tanker)

5. P-8 Poseidon (maritime patrol/reconnaissance)

6. E-3 Sentry (AWACS)

7. E-8 Joint STARS (reconnaissance)

^ above have ADS-B In capability

This answer on Aviation Stack Exchange did some research into ADS-B statistics for military aircraft: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/107851/military...

TCAS (collision avoidance) can use Mode A/C/S however it depends on if the aircraft has the earlier or later model TCAS: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/90356/does-tcas...

They'll all have both in and out capability. (It's typically the same device.)

Military aircraft have permission from the FAA to turn off one, or both, for fairly obvious reasons. https://nbaa.org/aircraft-operations/communications-navigati...

I don't think the Black Hawk can support ADS-B In and usually its the surveillance type aircraft that carry it. I updated my post above. There is limited cockpit space in Black Hawks anyways. There might be a specific modernization occurring for a variant of UH-60 that has ADS-B IN, but vast majority do not.

Every aircraft in controlled airspace is required to have ADS-B transponders, and any aircraft with Out has In as well (In is the easy one; it just listens; you can even build your own with a Raspberry Pi - https://www.flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build/ and a $36 receiver https://flightaware.store/products/pro-stick). You can buy a portable ADS-B In receiver the size of a wallet for $400 and get traffic alerts on an iPad. https://flywithsentry.com/buy

My dad's little four seat hobby plane has both In/Out. You can track him on FlightAware as a result, because it's continually broadcasting its location; it's certainly not rare or sophisticated equipment.

Here's a military Blackhawk toodling around as we speak: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=ae27fc

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/blackhawk-ads-b-was-off-...

> The Army Black Hawk helicopter crew involved in the midair collision with an American Eagle CRJ700 last January at Reagan National Airport had turned off ADS-B because they were practicing a classified flight profile, according to a New York Times investigation.

We are both in agreement that ADS-B OUT is required. But, I am referring to ADS-B IN which most military aircraft do not have as a matter of practice. If ADS-B IN was running in addition to ADS-B OUT on both aircraft then it might have provided additional situational awareness assuming the Black Hawk pilot was operating the helicopter properly. The original comment was about putting the receiver in listening mode and that's simply not possible with the Black Hawk.

I have been running an ADS-B receiver at home for 6 years via PiAware along with an AIS receiver. So yes, low cost :)

It's really not that rare. Especially with stuff like ForeFlight.

https://download.aopa.org/advocacy/2019/dhowell_jking_DASC20...

> A majority of respondents had used ADS-B In, with 56% of respondents reported having experience with either an installed or portable system. Of the group who had experience with ADS-B In, 85% used portable systems and 30% used installed systems.

And that's in 2019.

No disagreement. ADS-B IN is just a feature that most military aircraft to include UH-60's (Black Hawk) do not have yet.

Sounds like they should sort it out before placing civilians in danger

In retrospect, it was a bad plan to let a young Captain who mostly served as a liaison in DC and not a helicopter pilot to train on that route. A simpler one where she could progressively train up to would have been wiser. She also should have listened to her more well seasoned Warrant Officer copilot. ADS-B In wouldn’t have addressed any of those problems

The route they were training for was to evac government personnel during an emergency (terrorism, incoming attack, etc.). ADS-B is live location whereas transponder is delayed. In a real scenario, you wouldn’t want to be transmitting live location, since whatever the emergency is likely involves targeting of VIP government personnel. But in training, that would not effect your training, since the ADS-B is for others benefit, and doesn’t change your situational awareness or capability.

edit: To add and make clear, the route will be known for a training or real situation, but it will be delayed. So for training, turning off the ADS-B does not protect the route information and that is why there is no reason to fly with it off for training.

If you train to turn the ADS-B on, there's a decent chance you'll turn it on during the real thing. That's the point of training.

You are insisting that this was a training thing. But realistically, military just doesn’t like to be tracked and would rather put everyone else at risk.

I’m not insisting - it’s stated in the article.

We shouldn’t take the article at face value. Reporters are lazy and don’t do in-depth reporting. It’s to drive clicks.

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