With the mix of ADSB/Capstone/Chelton and transponders out here, it's kinda messy when you come up against the heavies with TCAS. The TCAS has no idea you're out there when you're on the 'stone, and vice versa. All TCAS sees is transpoders. All us Capstone guys are on the same page, and a great read it is, with the traffic and terrain display on either the Garmin or the Chelton unit. It'll be nice when the push comes for a complete transition over to ADSB (a 10 year plan? can't remember).
Anchorage pipes in the transponder aircraft into the ADSB fliers through the use of ground based transmitters. That was a mess while they sorted out those that were flying both with transponders AND the captstone units. Double vision on the screen was crazy! That's been tempered down from what I understand, I never get that far north anymore to see how it is now.
The answer to most questions from 'experienced' aviation folks, coming up to raise an eyebrow at those of us flying every day in AK, is that it's different, for a lot of reasons. Don't just assume something's wrong just because it's different. The exemptions and exceptions in the regs up here are enough to make an initial/new hire class pretty interesting!
Fly safe,
Ronin
