On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 2:24:44 PM UTC-6, Mike Schumann wrote:
On Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 12:36:15 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Any device used for collision avoidance will have some of its critical capabilities dependent on both aircraft in a potential collision situation having the same algorithms on board or chaos (or worse) might ensue. Making the update mandatory and taking non-updated units out of service is the only way to ensure safe and reliable performance of the entire system.

You might quibble a bit about the lead time, but updating the firmware is really not very complicated. I tried a different firmware version (or different config file) practically every day at the 15m nationals last year as I was trying to work out a PCAS problem and a interface issue with my LX 9000. All you need is the firmware and a memory stick.

It's not that hard.

It will all work out in the end.

Remain calm.

9B

It is NOT impossible to design system upgrades so that they are backward compatible 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 the complexity of having multiple different device versions that need to talk to each other. These kind of shortcuts make one question whether FLARM really has the potential to be a VERY niche product for a small subset of the aviation market.

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

I wish the Messr. Schumann and Suppards would just join hands and walk away, far away from this forum. Maybe they can entertain each other with their nonsense.