On Jun 10, 7:08*am, Scott Alexander
wrote:
I received an email stating that my diamond goal flight has been
rejected due to a typo on my igc declaration. *Despite the fact that
the security was good, all turnpoints rounded ok, and everything else
good, it's still rejected.

On the IGC declaration where it says "registered ID" *I typed in "SA"
because that is my paid-for registered contest ID. *Apparently I
should have typed in "N-2429". *So because of this, the flight doesn't
count.

I was also informed that on page 53 of the March 2010 Soaring
magazine, it says (in 8 point font) that you can no longer use your
register contest ID. *This really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to
me. *The glider type is in question, not the security, date or name
even though it's not a handicapped claim! *I only own one aircraft,
which can be easily verified through the FAA aircraft registry.

So now I am merely trying to figure out the best way to solve this
claim.

Does anyone have any suggestions of who I might contact to help get
this claim to pass? *I would really like to say I did a diamond flight
but unfortunately because of this new rule, I can't say I did a
diamond flight.

Scott

It is saddening to see an otherwise valid badge claim rejected because
of this IGC/FAI stupidity.

But I want to be fair to Judy and others involved in this from the SSA
side. And as I've pointed out to Scott before privately, this was not
just something buried in fine print in Soaring Magazine. Judy and
others have posted on r.a.s about this specific issue (e.g. here
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...e65a08771f765a)

And this is specifically clarified in the latest (2009 revised) Pilot
and OO Guide Section 6.3.c. Which unfortunately has the effect of
tying Judy's hands on this issue.

So your likely most effective line of attack here is to make your next
flight count, read the current (i.e. 2009 revised) sporting code and
guide carefully and do what Judy has advised clearly in the past --
*always* do a paper declaration after you make the electronic one so
that paper declaration will override the electronic one. Doing that
will normally cure this and several other common declaration problems.
I've recently helped one pilot with advice through to his diamonds and
he had gone through all sorts of similar frustrations before, but he
was recently saved by doing just that paper declaration.

And just so I don't look like I am defending the IGC on this... If the
goal of the IGC/FAI was to marginalize soaring badges, to make them
look like petty bureaucratic bull****, they are doing a bang-up job.
The role of badges will continue to wane, lots of local pilots seem to
have little interest in dealing with this anymore. And having a set of
badges to your name as proof of skill or accomplishment is replaced
for many people by a decent OLC ranking or at least some great OLC
flights. There is no proof that the pilot in the cockpit is who is
described in the IGC file header, and there is no proof that the
logger was installed in the glider claimed in the header, it all
relies on the OO being honest. So given that I cannot fathom why IGC
bureaucrats care whether the GLIDERID field in the header contains the
glider registration or a pilot specific contest ID. If they want to be
pedantic for world records then fine, but for badges this is just mind-
numbingly stupid bureaucracy.


Darryl