On Jan 26, 10:05*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
[snip] The big
push to get deposits and orders even before there is any sense of an
approval for it's use and the dangling of small discounts "by now and save"
is for lack of a better term, a lot like a late night infomercial selling
wonder products"..[snip]
Tim

Deposits? I don't believe USA PowerFLARM dealers are requiring
deposits. I have a PowerFLARM brick on order and my dealer (Williams
Soaring) made absolutely clear that they were not requiring/accepting
deposits. I don't believe other dealers are requiring deposits and I
would be dissapointed if they are.

I think that FLARM, Butterfly and their USA distributors and dealers
are handling this in a very sensible way. Offering a reasonable
discount to early adopters to encourage adoption and encouraging
pooling of purchases to encourage adoption in specific areas since
percentage adoption in any area is important to the effectiveness of
the technology. And the 300+ (I've lost track of the latest stated
number of orders) orders so far in the USA seem to say that quite a
few glider pilots agree. Given the product capabilities, R&D,
certification and other costs involved in this these units already
seem reasonably priced. Yes we'll all like a mythical $500 collision
avoidance product that works well but there is just no way I ever see
that happening.

Darryl

[apologies if this reposts twice Google Groups seems to have a hiccup
this morning)]