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Cyberiade.it Anonymous Re · Guest

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2004/06/08/182731/NASA+previews+SATS
+programme.html notes in early August 2004 that:

"Still 10 months from a prototype, Belfort Instruments' low-cost
ceilometer will monitor ceiling height as well as visibility along the
approach path and is intended to provide small airports with improved
weather reporting. "The intent of the SATS (Small Aircraft
Transportation System) Lab is to integrate these technologies," says
McKinley."

Make that 24 months later and the question to be asked of Dr. John
McKinley, Director of the University Research Foundation (6411 Ivy Lane
Suite 110, Greenbelt, MD 20770, 301-345-8664), a member of the Maryland
Mid-Atlantic SATSlab, is where is Belfort's low cost ceiolometer as
promised?

SATS which is a partnership of NCAM, NASA & the FAA (http://ncam-
sats.org/MD.htm) gave Belfort Instrument Company (including Bruce R.
Robinson, Nicholas C. Kaufman and Mark W. Decker) monetary grants to
develop a low cost ceilometer, WHERE IS IT?

What happened to these American tax dollars?

Belfort Instrument Company does not possess the technical smarts or know-
how to produce a cutting-edge low cost laser ceilometer. That's exactly
why the last ceilometer (Model 7013C) that Belfort produced in the mid
1990s was retired in favor of a Vaisala as noted at:
http://www.arm.gov/instruments/instrument.php?id=blc

If Belfort ever again sells a laser ceilometer, it won't be a ceilometer
made by them! They will probably go buy the Eliasson ceilometer as found
at: http://www.eliasson.com/products/cbme40.htm and resell it at a
substantial mark-up for use on DigiWx AWOS, another aviation grade
weather station piece of shit.

Let the question be asked once again, what happened to the American tax
dollars given to Belfort as part of a grant from NASA to develop a low
cost ceilometer?