Graeme Cant wrote:
flying_monkey wrote:
At least that shows to the FAA that we ARE
governing ourselves. "

But you AREN'T governing yourself. That's what they do in UK and OZ and
(a little) NZ. YOU'RE governed by the FAA. Just like instructors in
172s and bizjets and 747 ATPs.

If you bust a rule, the FAA will come after the individual pilot. It's
a matter between him and the FAA. Airline pilots bust altitudes every
day but nobody blames it on the entire profession. It's an individual
and his own licence.

Group punishment is a very 1940s concept. I don't believe the FAA is
seriously into it - but you know your own country best.

This thorny thread has implications elsewhere in the U.S. (e.g., how to
treat contest flight records with apparent airspace violations, the
current answer being a huge penalty--i.e., negative score for the day).
I agree with those who urge caution before accusing someone without
having all the facts. I also agree there's risk in trying to act as an
enforcement mechanism when, in fact, we are not self governing.

There's greater risk, however, in doing nothing. Do not misunderstand.
I'm not advocating vigilante-style, do-it-yourself
denouncement/enforcement, particularly on RAS. Several years ago, I
actually had one self-described instrument of justice tell me in a
private email that he didn't care whether the facts supported his
loudly and frequently expressed views that a certain pilot was a crook:
he just KNEW he was right.

But as Doug Haluza has noted regarding the OLC, there are mechanisms
for reporting incidents that might be of concern to all of us. The
"Safety Box" at U.S. contests is another. A private word with the pilot
is yet another, if undertaken in the proper spirit.

With the advent of GPS flight recorders, the details of our flights are
now quite public. The OLC is just one way. Many U.S. national and
regional contests publish all flight traces. Other local and regional
season-long contests have Web sites where pilots post their logs, as do
local soaring clubs.

And if it's easy for us to run those records through SeeYou to check
for airspace infringement, don't think the Feds aren't doing it also. I
was on the grid at the U.S. Std. Class Nationals in Uvalde, TX a few
weeks ago when two gentlemen approached me asking for contest
headquarters. Turns out one of them had read a contest report on the
Internet about a minor problem with a towplane due to a maintenance
lapse and they had flown in to investigate...the following day. One of
them returned later and we chatted for quite a while. He was a nice,
extremely knowledgeable soaring enthusiast. He's owned at least three
high-performance gliders and currently flies a state-of-the-art
motorglider. He didn't seem like a steely-eyed, narrow-minded
bureaucrat obsessed with running errant pilots to ground and punishing
them for minor violations. For better or worse, his attitude was well
within the laissez-faire-to-vengeful-regulator spectrum displayed in
this thread. But with his Federal hat on, he was intent on finding out
what--and who--had gone wrong the previous day in a situation where
most of us would have just shaken our heads and rolled our eyes at the
mechanic's goof.

So I don't think it's inappropriate for any of us who spots what may be
a significant FAR violation to take some action. Whether that's
contacting the pilot in question or referring it to another
soaring-related entity, I frankly haven't gone through a disciplined
thought process. I suspect it would depend on the circumstances. For
what it's worth, I've done it once, and in a fashion that I think
neither threatened nor alienated the pilot in question.

The consequences of not taking action could be nothing...or very
severe. It's almost irrelevant whether the FAA is full of bureaucrats
who enjoy group punishment. They exist. There are also quite a few
enlightened people who don't get paid for exercising judgment and
giving us a break, but do so anyway. They're there at all levels. The
SSA, in particular, has worked very hard over the years to build
relationships with FAA officials to preserve the rights we have. While
the results aren't always widely publicized (trumpeting a big "win"
against the regulators is counterproductive), we've all benefited.

Yet, as I said, that's irrelevant. Should a glider encounter an
airliner or any other IFR aircraft above 18,000 (or in other controlled
airspace) with newsworthy consequences, we'll all be at the mercy not
just of reactionary FAA officials but of citizens' and industry trade
groups and--especially--politicians...who are VERY into group
punishment--especially if the group is too small to be politically
influential--if it will garner publicity, money, and/or votes. Read SSA
Executive Director Dennis Wright's column in the August SOARING about
the 1978 San Diego midair between a small plane and an airliner. Those
of us who lived through the subsequent NPRM 78-19 and threat to soaring
in this country will never forget the sense of outrage and incredulity
at the proposed airspace grab...that would have done nothing to address
the accident that sparked it.

So although I would suggest not airing it on RAS next time, don't sit
idly by if you see something that looks illegal any more than I hope
you wouldn't stay silent if you saw something dangerous. They're often
the same but something illegal--even if not apparently dangerous--can
have much more far-reaching consequences to all of us.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"