On Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 11:56:24 AM UTC-7, Darryl Ramm wrote:
What I said was all the Mitre salesmanship and pro UAT-hype from folks like
Bernald and you have not resulted in anything at all of use/benefit to the
soaring community. Is that clear enough? And yes I know, the reasons why
that is will be entirely somebody else's fault...

Darryl, there was a lot of interesting discussion going on in ancient times (you know, before PowerFlarm, 8 or 9 years ago). As I remember it, Bernald was pushing UAT back then because there was a lot of concern about the possibility of glider vs. airliner collisions, and at the time, UAT seemed like it was going to be a good way of getting gliders, ultralights, balloons, etc., integrated into the air traffic system at low cost and with minimal power consumption. The icing on the cake was the Mitre UAT ADS-B out prototypes, that were basically built using $100 or so worth of cellphone chipsets and COTS GPS modules, and could run all day on a few AA cells. I know Mike was involved in the successful testing of these units in gliders and powered aircraft in the Virginia area (if I remember correctly). This was a promising technology with a lot of support even from groups within the FAA, with the end goal being pervasive use of UAT-based ADS-B technology in UAVs, general aviation, and gliders. The general understanding at the time was that these units would eliminate the need for transponders for general aviation. But, one should never underestimate the capability of the FAA to create a steaming pile out of a nice clean solution.

I also remember that it was Bernald who introduced Urs to various parties in the US soaring community (myself included), with the explicit intent of bring Flarm into this country. In particular I was present at a number of informal discussions that took place around the '08 SSA convention that were set up by Bernald, which (again, if I remember correctly) led to the notion of PowerFlarm, the Flarm loaner/rental program, and other such things. It's funny how you've now decided that he is nothing more than a misguided salesman.

Marc