Mark James Boyd wrote:
Is it just me, or are the competition rules becoming more like a sports car
navigation rally instead of a race?

Bill Daniels



One wonders, if the rules committee is largely unchanged from
the year before, and they come up with new changes, aren't
they saying they were too stupid to get it right the previous
year? So why would they think they'd get it right the
following year?

If only it were that simple! Rules change for several reasons. For example:

1) new technology
2) the contestants change their minds about what they like
3) someone comes up with a new idea (often a pilot not on the committee)
4) a problem is discovered with a previous rule that wasn't discovered
in the initial, limited use

If it were just stupidity, we'd eventually get the right guys on the
committee, but my observation is changing the committee (which has
happened over the years) doesn't change the amount of complaining, but
just who is complaining.

The tasks we flew 30 and 40 years ago were dramatically different than
we fly now. Times change, people change, the rules change. It looks like
noise if you watch just the year-to-year changes, but if you look over a
period of several years, you can see significant changes related mostly
to the 4 points I listed.
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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA