Coalition Enters Discussion on FCC, FAA Proposed Radio Altimeter Mandates The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) has joined with an industrywide coalition to ensure the industry’s views are clearly detailed with regard to a proposed federal mandate requiring installation of new radio altimeters on tens of thousands of aircraft and helicopters. A radio altimeter (RA) provides real-time height-above-terrain altitude data that supports critical flight-crew decisions and operations, while also feeding key data to numerous safety-critical aircraft systems. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed expanding wireless telecommunications into the Upper C-band (3.98-4.2 GHz), a portion of the frequency spectrum used by altimeters for safety-data transmission.
