I notice from the brief minutes of the FAI meeting in Lausanne that a
proposal to use Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) flight recorders was not
accepted. In other words, the widely available, cheap units are again
rejected in favor of expensive, proprietary units. I'd like to know the
following:

1. Specifically, what were the voting results on this? Exactly who (names
and countries please) voted for and against the proposal?

2. On what grounds was the proposal rejected?

3. What are the chances of this proposal being made acceptable?

I had proposed at some length to one of the well known names in this
"debate" that the use of COTS units for badges and records below the level
of national (e.g. State records here in the US) is a no-brainer. Without
going into detail, the crux of my argument was that these units are no less
secure than the existing alternative (camera and barograph). Since the
COTS units are becoming widely available and reliable, what possible reason
can there be to prohibit their use? I can certainly understand a higher
level of security for national or world records where there might be some
slim chance that these results could drive monetary gain (ie. the incentive
to cheat might be higher), but for a Silver Badge ... get real!

In the business world, we're (sometimes) smart enough to run cost/benefit
analyses on these sorts of things. This situation strikes me as very
similar to a consulting engagement we did with a very large insurance
company. The old guard insisted on a process of denying all claims in a
certain category due to a preconceived notion that it would prevent fraud
and abuse. Upon review, it was discovered that the cost of manually
reviewing and responding to the tens of thousands of complaints from policy
holders cost several hundred times the amount (in the order of tens of
millions of $$) above and beyond the few documented abuses. It still took a
lot of convincing and a couple of firings to get the policy changed.

Speaking of firing, I would recommend that others who feel this is
ridiculous bombard your national FAI representative with calls for change.
Specifically, I would suggest we try to recall those individuals (or at
least not renew their terms) who have been so obstinate in this regard.

Power to the people!



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