It is believed that Airservices Australia and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority will announce as early as next week that the deadline for ADS-B fitment in private IFR aircraft will be pushed out to match the US date of 2020.
The deadline was set to be 2 February 2017, which has been the subject of intense lobbying in Canberra, particularly by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and high-profile activist Dick Smith because it was thought Australian owners would be paying too much for the equipment.
It was also considered that Australia's avionics engineers would be unable to equip the entire IFR fleet in time to meet the February deadline.
The new deadline will likely come with some restrictions. Sources indicate that it will apply only to aircraft not in commercial operations, but it is unclear if that will include aircraft with flying schools. Most probably, aircraft operating on the extended deadline will not be able to fly in Class C airspace, but may be able to use Class D to make regional towers and capital city secondary airports available to them.
Should the new deadline be brought in, CASA is likely to issue exemptions to current regulations rather than try to amend the existing legislation.
Industry experts are divided on what the impact of the impending announcement. Whereas AOPA is hailing the news as a major victory, avionics manufacturers have indicated that they don't expect to be dropping prices as the USA mandate gets closer, as has been thought by many in the Australian general aviation community.
As late as this week, manufacturers have also expressed to Australian Flying that they believed Australian owners would be better off fitting ADS-B sooner rather than later to avoid an expected rush of demand in 2020.
Until this week, CASA has strenously resisted any form of deadline rollback, most recently in Senate estimates when Senator Nick Xenophon challenged Acting Director of Aviation Safety Shane Carmody on the matter. Carmody replied that there was no indication ADS-B units would be cheaper as the US mandate approached.