On Saturday, November 17, 2012 5:00:04 PM UTC-8, John Galloway wrote:
Swiss Flarm is commercial enterprise that has given us a

tremendously useful instrument and code to aid see and

avoid and reduce collisions between gliders.



The appropriate primary instruments to aid SAR are

ELTs/PLBs and, to a lesser extent, SPOT. IMHO it is

irresponsible to fly XC without a locator beacon - especially

over difficult terrain.



If the Swiss Flarm company have been able to assist

efforts to locate downed pilots who don't have, or haven't

been able to operate, an emergency locator beacon of

some sort then surely that is to be applauded rather than

to be taken as grounds for (to me paranoid seeming)

complaints that they exercise their right to protect their

intellectual property and also to prioritise where they direct

their resources?



John Galloway















At 22:27 17 November 2012, Don Johnstone wrote:

At 08:59 17 November 2012,

wrote:

On Saturday, November 17, 2012 6:38:38 AM UTC+1,

FLARM wrote:

What you are suggesting is that when an aircraft is

missing, anyone

shoul=

d be able to fire up their own homebuilt LFLA analysis

tool with whatever

d=

ata they have, then call SAR authorities to give them

directions?=20

=20

They would file that call with the calls from fortune-

tellers and other

n=

utters.



How sad you don't answer any of my questions. All this

new post does is

rep=

eat how stupid the rest of the world must be compared

to you, that nobody

e=

lse will ever be clever enough to analyse LFLA as good

as you do. That's

no=

t a good starting point for a serious discussion.



Why don't you publish your analysis tool under a free

license? That not

onl=

y allows authorities to respond faster to urgent

situations withou

having

=

to wait for you to wake up, but will also allow others to

improve it,

inste=

ad of starting from scratch. You do want to improve

response times an

SAR

=

quality, don't you?



Because they are Swiss, they hide things like terrorists

bank accounts an

such. It would also appear they hide information which

could save a life a

well, why am I not surprised.







Exactly, well said (although for most uses I'd put a SPOT first).

And the hypothetical scenario about missing/downed pilots is just alarmist claptrap. And should a pilot me down/missing in the USA and analysis of Flarm data could possibly help I don't expect there would be any waiting for offices in Europe (or the USA) to open. Enough people in the USA know how to reach Flarm employees and executives, and I expect there would be a tremendously quick response from those folks.

Its amazing how some folks feel its necessary to attack a company that has done, and continues to do, a huge service to the worldwide glider community..

Darryl