On Jun 11, 5:48*am, Ian Strachan wrote:
On Jun 10, 6:51*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:

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

I fail to understand the above comment, and the many attacks on FAI
and IGC that pepper this thread. *Aside from commonsense, which
suggests that the critical point is: "was the glider in question
positively identified in the pre-flight declaration", *the current
Sporting Code says, about glider ID in a pre-flight declaration:

4.2.1c. Glider type, and its registration or serial number or unique
NAC-assigned contest number.

This is a pretty wide definition, the intention (as I understand it,
the Code is not my area within IGC), that's GPS recorders, as you
know) is simply to positively identify the glider to which the
declaration refers.

It is then up to the National gliding authority to interpret the above
in a reasonable way, with knowledge of the circumstances that pertain
(in the case on Glider IDs) in the country concerned. *Then there is
the OO concerned, was he or she positive about which glider was
referred to in the declaration, if so, this evidence can be put
forward to the NAC.

Or perhaps I'm missing something?

My glider BGA Competition ID is "60", and I am sure that, if I were to
make a claim, the BGA would accept that, as they have in the past when
I was young enough to make claims for records in the UK.

It's rainy and dull here at the moment, but that's typical weather
this side of the pond! *They say that it will be a 500k day tomorrow,
but I am not sure that I believe it.

Ian Strachan
Lasham Gliding Centre, UK

Ian

So tp bring your comments back to relevance to the problem we are
having in the USA, your interpretation as somebody working within the
IGC on flight recorders for a long time is that SC3 4.2.1c. "unique
NAC assigned contest ID" would indeed be met by the SSA issued contest
ID that is issued to a pilot? I understand that is probably just your
personal opinion, but could you please confirm this is in fact the
IGC's position. I presume that is a quick question for you to have
answered definitively. Also if that is so could you suggest to the
IGC they remove what would then appear to be incorrect and confusing
information in SC3c 6.3c where it says "Not all NACs issue competition
numbers or require them to be unique to a glider – the glider
registration or its serial number must then be used."

The issue has previously been described on r.a.s. by the SSA's rule
committee chairman when this issue first came up in the USA. See the
comments by Papa3 in
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...0ce781c3ef5314

And to avoid trouble linking to that for non Google users I'll include
the guts of the post here...

The catch is that 4.2.1.c refers to a "unique NAC-Assigned contest
number." The SSA (and several other large NACs) do not assign a
unique contest number to an aircraft; rather, the contest number is
assigned to the pilot. In the context of the rule, the
interpretation handed down by the IGC is that "unique" refers to the
combination of the contest number and aircraft. The IGC folks were
very clear that the situation in the US is such that the competition
number would not meet the requirements. We tried very hard to explain
the impact of this situation, but we ultimately were asked to concede
the point.

Regards,

Erik Mann
Chair, SSA FAI Badge & Record Committee

Either the SSA is seriously confused or the IGC easily deserves the
criticism in this thread.

Thanks


Darryl