You right Mark, but as I experienced other pilots in my club don't buy
these units just because they are not IGC accepted and compared to their
limited income it looks as luxury. They lose the special xc experience
what a GPS could provide and some of them will leave this sport sooner
or later. As I heard it's somehow same for other clubs as well. It's
hard to convince these pilots with limited income to buy a GPS just for
navigation, but if it's also for documentation than the number of users
could increase again. The value of a GPS is always underestimated unless
you once try it for real xc.
Before I started to use GPS all the xc flights was full of stress for
me. More then 50% of my effort was spent on navigation. But now I can
really focus on the soaring part, I have all the informations what are
requested for in-flight decisions. It's something really different (much
more fun) and something what could keep pilots at the airports.
Regards,

/Janos


Marc Ramsey wrote:
Mark James Boyd wrote:

It's that darned baro recalibration. I HATE that.
Beyond that I'd like to see COTS GPS used for badges so
they become ubiquitous in training aircraft.
Students could share flight info back and forth and O/Os don't have to
sit on the ground to note
when the glider landed for the Bronze badges (required for
entry in Sport's class contests).


There is no reason why COTS GPS can't be ubiquitous in your training
aircraft, right now. The track log functions work perfectly well,
whether or not you can use them to get an FAI badge. The US Bronze
badge rules are established by the SSA, so if you want to use COTS GPS
to document these flights, why don't you petition them?

Marc