An interesting trial flight attempt...

wrote:
Screw the FAA, and lawyers. Useless waste of carbon, most of the time.

The FAA doesn't really care if we put FLARM-like devices in our gliders.
The FCC doesn't care as long as they (properly) use an unlicensed
portion of the frequency spectrum. The lawyers will do what the lawyers
will do, but only if pilots, or their survivors, ask them to.

How about some smart person come up with a FLARM clone that will work
in the US (i.e. suitable frequencies), and would intergrate with the
FLARM display or software like MCU and SN10 that already support it.

There is nothing preventing anyone in the US from doing this, except
available money, time, minuscule market, etc. I (and others) could hack
together a prototype using off the shelf components in a few months, but
that would still be months of effort (and tens of thousands of dollars)
short of being a production device. Perhaps someone will be willing do
this all for the love of soaring (like the FLARM folks did), but they
certainly won't be doing to to make a profit. You got $50,000 to
$100,000? I can find someone to design it.

Make it portable so we can hide it from the feds. Keep it small and
unobtrusive. Stick it behind the panel, hook it up to your PDA or
computer, and bug all your glider buddies to get one. I bet if it was
priced right a lot of XC and racers would get one. I know I would.

Yes, we're talking a really hot market, maybe as much as 500 units over
the next 5 years. And, you can get those sales if it is priced "right"
in glider pilot terms, which means essentially no profit. I expect
someone will jump in there any day now...

Safety is always about what you do, not what someone else behind a desk
does...

Nobody is stopping you...


Marc