So easy to understand why Flarm would not sell into North America for so
many years...

At 22:18 22 February 2015, John Galloway wrote:
25,000 devices and rising rapidly is one heck of a "very niche
product" in a market comprising mainly gliding. Flarm, in all its
varied applications, must on of the most widely adopted proprietary
products in the history of gliding - I suspect it will be in the top
spot.

Flarm comprises a communication protocol as well as a glider
collision prediction algorithm. For a safety device it would be
bonkers not to have all units not using the most developed examples
of both - especially when updating the firmware is so simple. We in
Europe have been easily coping with Flarm mandatory and optional
updates for several.

John Galloway




At 20:24 22 February 2015, Mike Schumann wrote:


It is NOT impossible to design system upgrades so that they are
backward
co=
mpatible with older units that are still in use. It is probably much
more
=
convenient for FLARM to use this approach so they don't need to
deal with
t=
he complexity of having multiple different device versions that
need to
tal=
k to each other. These kind of shortcuts make one question
whether FLARM
r=
eally has the potential to be a VERY niche product for a small
subset of
th=
e aviation market.

Couple that with POWERFLARM's inability to see UAT equipped
ADS-B OUT
equip=
ped aircraft, either directly or via TIS-B retransmission from an
ADS-B
gro=
und station, raises some big questions on whether or not they
have really
t=
hought thru the whole collision avoidance picture in the US, where
the
thre=
at is not just other gliders, but also GA and airline traffic.