Jan, I am not a salesman or spokesman for Flarm, nor an apologist for them, but I have been advocating its use in gliding, and GA more generally, because it is the only thing that does what it does. I also advocate PCAS where possible, for the same reason.
With those caveats, my understanding is as follows (and open to correction if anybody knows better).
Flarm presumably has intellectual property rights over its technology and algorithms.
GPS (or strictly GNSS, I believe) is free to use, courtesy of the USA.
Flarm has required free (not paid for) mandatory software updates every 3 years. I have had this done twice. The only paying for element was the first time I took it to the UK agent (fuel cost), and the second time I bought a lead so I could do it myself. The updates themselves are free. My understanding is that they want this done so that all units in use have the latest algorithms, and are mutually compatible.
Flarm (the original company) have licensed others – notably Butterfly who make Powerflarm – to use the same technology and algorithms. I expect they charge for it – why wouldn’t they?
If you want to invent your own, or persuade another company to enter the market with a competitive product, I don’t know how you can do that without reverse engineering to get compatibility with Flarm, which presumably would then invoke their IPR. If not compatible with Flarm, what use would two incompatible systems be?
It may not be an ideal free-for-all competitive market place, but in my view it is better than the alternative. We lost 20 people in 23 years of gliding collisions in the UK (including several power pilots who collided with gliders – most recently, 2009, Grob with cadet and instructor). Since Flarm (only partly taken up so far), no collisions with working Flarms in both.
I have tried to get Continental Europe data, but there is no authoritative source. Anecdotal evidence is that since Flarm came into Alpine glider flying, collisions have diminished. I have heard, worldwide, of only one case of two working Flarm-equipped gliders colliding. (But there may be more I have not heard of.)
I would be interested to learn of any better or more complete statistics.
In my opinion, ADS-B may be a long-term solution with wider compatibility, and may or may not eventually co-habit with Flarm, or merge into some sort of son-of-Flarm – but if we did nothing while waiting for that Nirvana, we would perhaps carry on killing 4 people every 5 years in gliding in the UK, and goodness knows how many more elsewhere. I was not prepared to wait for Nirvana.
Chris N.
Last edited by chrisN; 6th August 2011 at 23:49.