Still seems interesting to me that the same Garmin GPS sources used by Garmin's competing products, are magically not good enough when plugged into a competitor's product.
Almost like someone got paid off to make sure they couldn't be used.
Especially considering Garmin was very late to market with their product at the same price point.
But without knowing who talks to whom and who knows each other, that just sounds like conspiracy theory stuff.
Problem is, it's probably true and probably only took a phone call.
"Can you somehow stop them from using our GPS? How are they allowed to do that? Our new transponder is behind schedule."
It's sure suspicious anyway.
It's not like transmitting the "3" has been proven to harm real safety in any way. FAA didn't bother to even attempt to prove that.
The whole thing could have just as easily been handled by an AD that said "We see its transmitting a 3 and we don't like that, but it causes no real problem. Must be fixed by 2020."
The dramatic "raid" and what not, don't appear to have been necessary at all. A little extra drama to drive purchases to others? A little kick to the face for following the spec and still having a "stealth" mode. Embarrassed some folks that the spec allows that?
All sorts of entertainment going on here if any of that is true. And a bit hard to believe what they found, a single bit twiddle in an unsecured message stream, even from experimental aircraft, is any real threat to the NAS as they say, or worth as much drama as they've made it out to be so far.
I mean I know sometimes government inspectors like to flex muscles to look cool, but this one is a bit over the top.
"We found you were plugging in some great GPS units that we love, and claiming your GPS source was accurate! Damn you people! We're raiding your facilities!"
LOL. WTF.