On Aug 10, 12:21*am, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 8/9/2010 11:22 AM, Mike Schumann wrote:

Maybe the best solution is for the SSA to buy 50 basic FLARM boxes and
rent them out to contests to use in the short term and wait for the
FAA and the market to sort things out over the next 20 years.

I think this might be a good solution for contests for the next couple
of years. Flarm (the company) might be willing to sell or lease them
cheaply to SSA as a marketing ploy. Someone has to ask them about the
cost, then the contest committee needs to poll the pilots to determine
the level of support for the idea. This could be started now to have
ready in time for at least the National contests, and maybe several of
the big Regionals.

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

There is something to be said for this. The peak number of planes
flying contests at one time this year (or at least registered) was on
May 15th,
when there were 37 at R9 South and 47 at R2 Mifflin. If this unit is
like
other Flarms it also works as an IGC logger (I don't see it on the
web
description however). If each unit rented out 20 times over a 5 year
span at $100 plus shipping (if it survived that long!) it would pay
for itself.

On the other hand we didn't do anything like that when we introduced
igc recorders to contest flying, even though there was a steep price
to pay for them, and even though there was a big improvement in
task calling and flight scoring available from using them. Those 50
units would represent an $80K outlay, plus the administrative cost
of keeping track of them, getting them fixed when they break, etc.

-- Matt