Mode-S ADS-B

[pacallen]

The only thing is that there shouldnt be any planes on the ground being displayed.  The system works by basically 'stealing' the information from a radar facility.  Therefore, it would not be able to pick up any planes on the ground as they would not be visible to the radar facility.  I believe it is rated to work above 500 AGL, even though radar would pick up airplanes below that. 

Very cool though to see the planes lined up for final, I have never seen that from the airplane before.

As long as the plane is being picked up by a radar facility, the ADS broadcast will transmit the locations of transponder equipped planes squawking alt, regardless if they are on the ground or not. Most of the time, however, they aren't picked up because they are below radar coverage.

ADS-B and Mode S transponders are fantastic (though its coverage is a bit spotty further away from radar facilities, especially down low)! It's almost unnerving how much traffic goes unnoticed during normal VFR flight!

[Casper87]

How will Mode-S help ATC??

BMT

I've read that some facilities in the UK have secondary radar that interrogates mode-s.  Things like the assigned altitude entered into by the autopilot, magnetic heading and indicated airspeed can be displayed in the data tag. Neat stuff, but nothing you can't live without.

Correct. Only LTC have it at the moment, as far as I know. Mode S will give all sorts of info including displaying the callsign of the aircraft independant of SSR code/callsign conversion, as long as the Mode S is set up correctly.
To be fair, more level busts have been prevented thanks to the SFL being displayed to the controllers.

C