Posted for "Alan K. Adamson" <aadamson@highrf.com>:

 So here's a couple of thots on this topic.
 
 A) John, I somehow get confused each time I read your, what I would call
 negative (at least against the concept of D2A changing horses and against
 Pinpoint) comments.  You have a 420 and a Chelton right?  And you are given
 the option of staying with what you have, or switching to the pinpoint
 right?  So, based upon your comments, you have the best of both worlds and
 simply have to make a decision.  Perhaps your negative comments, telegraph
 what that decision will be? :)
 
 B) as it relates to why D2A did what they did, they must have had very good
 reason after all this is going to cost them some pretty big money.
 
 C) (warning all conjecture on my part) Would it surprise anyone to think
 that maybe there is/was a contract in place between D2A and Xbow?  Would it
 further surprise anyone to think that that contract may have had an
 exclusivity clause in it?  Further, would it be a surprise to think that in
 order for D2A to find an "alternative" to Xbow and the 42x, they would have
 had to do it very carefully and the "new" company may have had to be
 "cloaked" in order to protect themselves and D2A from the above exclusivity
 issues?
 
 D) Think about it - To think that a "new" ARHS would just "show up" all of a
 sudden and to have "roots in Military, Commercial....".  Just isn't
 plausible.  Lead times on enclosure design, electrical design, software
 development, etc are measured in years around these types of things.  Based
 upon this, the pinpoint design has been around for lots longer than the few
 weeks since it's public debut.   I suspect this (pinpoint) is a  "well
 respected" company that has been around for some time, and most like
 provides commercial certified systems to the likes of Boeing, Airbus, etc.
 But in order to provide product and avoid litigation, created a subsidiary
 to do so for D2A. (remember, I'm just speculating)
 
 E) As for the GADAHRS, yes I do believe a new acronym is needed.  The Xbow
 is just that an "altitude and heading reference system".  This new one
 combines that with an Air data computer (it takes Pitot/Static where the
 Xbow does not).  This means that the Pinpoint has the ability to provide a
 much better, and more accurate position solution than the xbow, it also has
 the ability to internally "fail over" to other internal algorithms if it
 detects "out of norm" conditions.  I also believe that the external
 Magnetometer is a much better solution than the "built in" version of the
 Xbow.  From the little prelim wiring information that I've been provided as
 I work on my wiring and panel design.  It also appears that the MSU
 (magnetometer) and the GADAHRS both require 5a fused inputs and that the
 AHRS can support dual inputs and may have the ability to "fail over" from
 one buss to another if an electrical failure were to occur.
 
 Just my .02,
 Alan
 
[the xbow 500-222 accepts airspeed data from CFS v4.1 or higher
via rs232 -Rob]