TRANSPONDER - STBY or AUTO?

[falconvalley]

It's always amusing to watch a pilot with the old dial transponder spin the numbers in. If they're really slow, you can watch the numbers change on the scope.

LOL that's awesome. I've always wondered what that looked like on the controllers' end.

 

[matteo]

so how should we teach our students to operate transponders? a couple of us at my flight school have difference of opinions. some say we should leave them on alt all the time, out of sight, out of mind so you wont forget to switch to alt... some say that's a bad habit and you can forget to squawk the right code if you always leave it on alt?

any thoughts?

 

[Bumblebee]

so how should we teach our students to operate transponders? a couple of us at my flight school have difference of opinions. some say we should leave them on alt all the time, out of sight, out of mind so you wont forget to switch to alt... some say that's a bad habit and you can forget to squawk the right code if you always leave it on alt?

any thoughts?

sure . . .to those who believe that leaving the transponder on all the time to avoid forgetting it (even though it's on the checklist) I would submit that you should leave your strobes and landing lights on all the time as well, along with keeping the mixture in a rich setting. These all occur at the same time, at the same point in the checklist. If they forget to do the alt setting, they are not reading the checklist prior to takeoff and may miss these items also.
If this works logically then you have your answer.
respectfully submitted,
Dale

 

[Chief Captain]

We operate the B767/200-300 and the transponder utilizes a NUMBER PAD entry sytem which is similiar to a phone and upon receipt of sqwauk code we punch in the S code, it's NOT a DIAL switch that would inadvertently transmit a distress or emergency signal as we are toggling thru the various numbers etc.

I'm pretty sure that those newer boxes have a delay built in when the new code is entered. Just keep it in AUTO, and enter the new code, and after a delay (~5s) it starts to reply with this new code. There's no real reason to go STBY, as if you enter an incomplete code, it will revert to the last valid code.