From: burke@tss.com (Jim Burke)
Subject: Transponder problems / great flight
Reply-To: burke@tss.com (Jim Burke)
Organization: Teknekron Software Systems. Inc.
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 18:55:19 GMT

Okay, I'll show my ignorance here about something I should know.  I could
look it up tonight when I get home, but it might be of general interest
anyway.  What do you do when, just after takeoff, ATC informs you that your
transponder is giving them no reading at all and you are inside the 30nm
radius of a TCA primary airport?  This happened during my flight to Reno
yesterday.  Otherwise, it was a wonderful flight but more about that later.

Took off from Palo Alto, about 15nm south-east of San Francisco (SFO).
Over the Dumbarton bridge (a common departure route from Palo Alto) ATC
informs me that they don't have my transponder signal and that they don't even
have much of a primary on me.  I reset the transponder and idented - still
no readout.  At this point I had to decide what to do.  I was flying to
Reno, which is inside an ARSA so I'm going to need a transponder on the
other end, as well as getting back into Palo Alto.  I seem to recall that 
you can make arrangements ahead of time to fly with an inoperative xponder,
but I don't recall the details on doing that (I'll be looking that up as
well).  Anyway, I decide that it will be a big pain, and possibly not
possible, to continue to Reno and back later yesterday evening so I told
ATC I would have to return to the airport.  They told me to make right
traffic for 30 and then they immediately came back and said "hold on, wait
a second, okay we're getting it now.  Must have just taken a while to
warm up".  Okay, I'm relieved that I can continue so I decide to take my
chances that the xponder will hold out.  Everything is fine when I get
to Reno, I punch in my squawk code and ATC has radar contact.  Leaving
Reno yesterday evening I notice as I'm taking off that the xponder again
isn't blinking as it should.  ATC doesn't mention it, however, and by
the time the tower hands me off to departure, it starts to blink regularly.
Departure has radar contact, so the return in uneventful.  

So, my question is this:  what was actually required if the xponder hadn't
started to work when I was leaving Palo Alto?  Am I required to return?
Could I get into the ARSA at Reno with an inop xponder?  What about flying
back?  

As far as the flight, Sunday was about as perfect a day as you can imagine
for flying.  The air was perfectly smooth from takeoff to landing, including
over the Sierra.  Visibility was good with a little haze over the central
valley, but all in all conditions were great.  No clouds at all.  We flew
over Tahoe, across the lake, and through Spooner pass for the magnificent
view. It doesn't get much more spectacular than that. 
It was so nice, with almost no wind, that we stayed a little later in Reno
and flew back at night.  Normally, I would be concerned flying through the
mountains at night but with no wind and no clouds (high cirrus at 25000)
it was a simple thing to follow I-80 at 10,500 across the mountains.  And
the off-shore flow eliminated the marine layer from the Bay area.  It's
been a while since I've had such a perfect flying day.

-- 

	Jim Burke	"Life is uncertain - eat dessert first!"
	Teknekron Software Systems		... burke@tss.com
  	phone:(415) 617-2432			... uunet!tekbspa!burke
Newsgroups: rec.aviation