"Mike Borgelt" wrote...
Great. What you mean is that any manufacturer could be screwed around
by the GFAC as there is no publicly stated, openly available policy.
It has happened before.

Clearly, the requirements will be somewhere in the continuum between
Diamond-level and all flights approval. What isn't clear (in my opinion,
anyway) is exactly where those requirements should ultimately be positioned.
Discussions with those seeking to gain approval in this category is one way
this positioning could be determined.

Writing a specification around one manufacturer's product, approving
that product and others from the same manufacturer and then changing
the rules for new entrants into the market to make it more difficult
and expensive for them while still leaving the old rules for the
original manufacturer's products would be not only considered
unethical in Australia but most likely illegal. The ACCC does have
teeth and uses them regularly.

I see flight recorders from 5 different manufacturers which received all
flights approval under the original specification. All of those recorders
will be reduced to badge/diploma approval as of 1 January 2004 (with one
possible exception, which is under review). All manufacturers who submitted
new models after the change were required to have them meet the new
requirements for full approval, including those who had older models
approved under the old requirements. The recorders approved since the
requirement change are, almost universally, lower in price than those that
were approved under the earlier requirements. I still fail to see your
point.

Marc