Hi nimbusgb schrieb:

At the time that flight recorders were just getting going a LOT of
consultation was done and many, many hours were spent by people like
Tim for zero reward apart from delivering an acceptable methodology
for improving and simplifying the flight verification procedures. At
the time Cambridge were the only manufacturers of any sort of flight
recorder following their early demos in Sweden in 93 and New Zealand
in 95. Even they did not get things all their way in the ensuing
regulation changes. In this day and age and the track record of
American companies it still surprises me that they didn't tie the
whole idea up in patents which might have had us paying 5 times the
current price for flight recorders today.

There where other companies arrount, that did flight recording with GPS
for quite a long time, at the time CAI promoted the flight recording for
documentation in central competitions. So there was no way to
patent it.