Chris Reed wrote:
Ian wrote:

OK, let's introduce an inverse-speed condition. Silver distance to be
done in no less than two hours, gold five, diamond seven. No dawdling
allowed. It would mean that good days were no advantage.

Hmm. I may have to work on this a bit.

Think you might need to. I flew my Gold distance in over 6 hours, but on
a day when the club pundit decided it wasn't worth a launch. I reckon I
earned it properly! Haven't yet managed Diamond, but in my Open Cirrus
in the UK I don't expect to take less than seven hours if I ever do
manage it.

And what about Silver in a K8 into any kind of a headwind?

I believe you misunderstood the proposal. It would be a *minimum* time,
not a maximum. In other words, doing your Silver distance in an hour would
not qualify, but doing it in three hours would.

My experience of talking to pilots who are trying for their Silver
distance is that the hard part is leaving gliding range of the home
airfield. I guess the exception might be flying somewhere you can take
one climb overhead, and the rest is final glide, but that doesn't happen
in my part of the world. The main barrier for Silver is psychological,
not ability or glider performance.

I would tend to agree. I haven't done my Silver yet but I did an
unrecorded flight which would have qualified, in under two hours, in a
1-26. I see no reason why that shouldn't count!

I think the sensible thing to do would be to change the distance based on
the L/D of the glider flown. We already change it based on the release
altitude, so this wouldn't be too different. It does seem a bit unfair to
give someone a Silver badge for a 50km flight in an Antares (no offense
YO!) while requiring those same 50km for a 1-26.

On the other hand, life isn't fair. There are always a lot of factors
outside of the pilot. You might have a better glider, you might have a
better day, you might be flying in a better region, etc. What next,
compensate the distance based on the average thermal strength that day?
Require a longer flight if it's taken downwind instead of upwind?
Different badge requirements for each part of the world?

Ultimately the challenges will always be different. When I get a properly
documented Silver distance flight in a 1-26 I know it'll mean a lot more
than having done the same thing in high-performance glass. In the end I
prefer that over a handicap designed to make sure the glass pilot has just
as hard of a time as me.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software