Technology Analysis

The U.S. government spends billions on GPS. Yet to fly a GPS approach, Ive got to hand over $500 bucks a year to a private company to buy data they got free from public documents. It doesnt seem fair.

And judging by the sales of IFR databases for GPS receivers, many owners are voting-or more accurately not voting-with their checkbooks and passing up regular database revisions. Database costs have recently come down a bit but they still arent exactly cheap.

Interestingly, a court skirmish between the National Basketball Association and some media interests may have long-term implications for the GPS database business.

The issues are all wrapped up in the finer points of cop…

I read Bill Kellys Duct Dreams in the May 1997 issue of Aviation Consumer with interest and sympathy. His disappointment in the performance of the Auriga Phoenix is similar to many tales of dashed ducted-fan expectations I have heard over time.

I think that much of that disappointment is based on an imperfect understanding of ducted-fan design. So, the question is whether a ducted-fan aircraft could be competitive with a conventional design?

While I am not familiar with the Auriga design, I have had the good fortune to be associated with Rhein-Flugzeugbau, GMBH (RFB) in Germany during the development of the Fanstar ducted-fan program during the 1980s.

I was chairman and…

Datalink this, datalink that, hardware, software, service providers, subscriptions, bit charges, message costs. Holy cow, is this beginning to sound sort of familiar?

Datalink is a generic term that has come to represent text and data services delivered into the cockpit. If you think of it as Internet in the sky, youve got the concept.

For a potential buyer, there are three distinct issues involved; the services provided, the link medium and the airborne hardware. Right now, the industry is in its infancy, funded by various groups with differing agendas, not the least of which is the government.

In other words, none of this stuff is resolved to the extent that you can make re…