FLARM Technology for the US Gliding Community

On 9/17/2010 12:58 PM, John Smith wrote:
Eric Greenwell wrote:
I'm not sure they would consider this, as the problem isn't the FCC
but definitely their fear of those insane US liability lawsuits.

Do you know this from speaking with a principal in the Flarm company? Or
is that an assumption?

I know it from "second hand direct information", from knowing how
European people in general think about the USA liability insanity, and
last but not least the FLARM people say so on their faq page (only
available in German): www.flarm.com/support/faq/index.html

Besides, do you think they would go through the paperwork to have the
device approved by the FCC equivalents in many countries, but would
recoil at the idea to do it for the USA?

My guesses: Perhaps the North America market was thought to be too small
and the FCC licensing too expensive; perhaps in the Euro zone, they did
not have to contend with "many countries"; licensing in at least one
country (Australia), was not done by Flarm.


If "insane US liability lawsuits" are a problem, how will they avoid
the problem for PowerFlarm?

No idea. But they are not that small startup company anymore but have
had a couple of years now to sort things out and have maybe found a
way to avoid the risk.


So, perhaps the problem is not USA and Canada's "insane liability laws",
but Flarm's understanding of them. It would be interesting to know
Flarm's reasoning and how it's changed over the years so that they are
now entering the market here.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (netto to net to email me)