Cost for new UAT ADS-B Out Avioncis

Finally the work of the past few weeks is producing some fruit. This first post will look at the equipment (and its cost, of course) required to achieve ADS-B Out capability as required by the FAA ADS-B Out rule. For now, I will focus solely on new ADS-B equipment - upgrades to already existing equipment will be covered in a separate post.

Tangent: It turns out that figuring out how much it costs to become ADS-B Out rule compliant is not as simple as it sounds. Given all the different equipment currently on the market, I ended up getting hundreds of different combinations between avionics types, manufacturers and certification standards. In fact, there was such a wealth of information that I will add a specific page on this blog that will list all the available avionics, their prices and how the can be upgraded, how the interact with others, etc. Here I will only present an approximate cost for each component.

On to the important stuff: As mentioned before, a UAT ADS-B Out installation needs three components: a WAAS enabled GPS, a UAT Transponder and an Antenna Diplexer.


To buy new equipment, the prices for 2010 are as follows:

GPS Unit: $8,500 (e.g. G400W, panel mount, installed)
UAT ADS-B Transponder: $3,000 (e.g. FreeFlight Systems RANGR Transmitter, includes $1000 for installation)
Antenna Diplexer: $1000 (FAA Quote, installed)

Total Cost for UAT ADS-B Out Installation: $12,500


There are two caveats with this number. First, comparing this number to a similar cost analysis I did last year, the price has reduced by 50%. The main driver on this is the dropped requirement for Antenna Diversity and the publication of the final rule. After the publication, multiple manufacturers announced the development of these units resulting in increased competition.
Second, some manufacturers have announced the development of integrated avioncis (i. e. GPS bundled with ADS-B transmitter). Those units are expected to decrease the cost even further.