Why so expensive (flight recorders)

There where other companies around, 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.

That never seemed to stop an American company before!

On Feb 28, 1:51 am, nimbusgb wrote:
There where other companies around, 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.

That never seemed to stop an American company before!

Nor a British one... http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/06/37095

:-)

On Feb 28, 1:15*am, wrote:
Let's see:
1) IGC Flight recorders are expensive because the market is small
2) No manufacturer is making any profit, some have left the business
(and their customers)
3) The market is almost saturated
4) If COTS receivers are accepted, half (or more) of the shrinking
market evaporates

Guess what will happen to the price of IGC approved flight recorders.

Beware of the law of unintended consequences.

What do you mean "unintended" :-)

One of the points that I've stressed all along is that we need to work
on an approach to de-risk our current reliance on what has been a
cottage industry. The fact that an increasing number of people are
finding an outlet for their competitive spirit in the form of the OLC
is a strong indicator that the "market" will dictate where we are
going. The fact that OLC pilots and competition pilots in many
countries (e.g. in the US up to the national level) can already
compete using COTS recorders means that they are here to stay. At
the same time, there are new manufucturers of IGC-approved loggers
coming on line with much greater resources (i.e. not reliant on the
relatively small gliding market) who have much lower cost
structures.

I'm sure many people know that Cambridge has been barely limping along
for years now (what was the last major product release?), and if they
couldn't survive, what leads you to believe that the others are far
behind?

P3

On Feb 25, 7:47*am, "PCool" wrote:
Thanks Marc,

is it correct to say that the Pressure Altitude is an altitude calculated
starting from a pressure value, following a sort-of a rule as for ICAO-ISA ?
I guess official IGC loggers read the exact pressure as garmins and suunto
watches (!) and then they apply some calculations and name this result as
"altitude".
Do they do this without looking at what the GPS say?? Not even for an hint?

What is the formula used by all IGC loggers for doing this, then?

It's beyond my comprehension why if we are talking about pressure which is
always measured in the same way (right?) then this value has different
meanings and cannot be simply converted like with QNE-QNH-QFE.
ICAO-ISA is sort of a more complicated QNE, right? (question!)

On garmins you have a pressure sensor just like on a Colibrì, then this
sensor is used to compensate the gps and vice-versa, according to the patent
they have registered. By the way Marc could you understand anything useful
out of it?

After 4 years there are again the same questions on this matter so I guess
it's not very clear to everybody (me too).

thanks!
Paolo

"Marc Ramsey" ha scritto nel . prodigy.net...





Once again, pressure altitude and GPS altitude measure two different
things using the same units. *Because we like to fly when there is a
non-standard temperature lapse rate, there is almost always noticeable
pressure altitude error above a few thousand feet AGL. *If an optical
start gate is showing the actual heights, most gliders will appear to be
starting high, since the altimeters are reading low, and the validity of
the start is determined from the recorded pressure altitude. *Those pilots
who are recording only GPS altitude (GPS handhelds, etc.) need to be
careful, as they start will be scored based on actual height, which means
they have to start lower. *They need to be watching the GPS display,
rather then the altimeter, when they are flirting with the top of the
start cylinder.

Do the experts maintain that GPS altitude is bad because (a) it
DOESN'T have the errors inherent in pressure altitude or (b) because
its precision isn't good enough? It seems like I've seen both
positions on this forum.

As you know, experts generally maintain whatever favors their position.
Look at it this way, GPS altitude is more accurate at measuring actual
height, pressure altitude is more accurate at measuring, well, pressure
altitude. *Since one function of the flight recorder is to detect and
penalize airspace incursions, pressure altitude will continue to be a
consideration, no matter what else happens. *Some of the other air sports,
like ballooning, have already switched over to using actual height, they
use sounding data and software to convert to/from pressure altitude as
needed.

Marc- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I think that to a large degree, the requirement to use pressure
altitude may be related to the reason the FAA insists on using it for
altitude deconfliction. Pretty much every plane out there has a
pressure altimeter.
I wonder if the GPS altitude anomolies are related to antenna position
while circling? That, IMO, would be valid. Otherwise, GPS, even
relatively low end GPS yields vastly more consistant altitudes than
pressure sensors.

I saw somewhere that the IGC was meeting from the 29th to the 1st.
Have they released any ino on what was decided yet?

Pete