On Jun 11, 3:55*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Jun 11, 12:11*pm, bildan wrote:





On Jun 10, 8:54*pm, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Jun 10, 6:28*pm, Frank wrote:

On Jun 10, 6:43*pm, Scott Alexander
wrote:

SSA contest numbers are unique but they are assigned to a person not a
sailplane. Maybe that is the rub.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes I own the rights to SA my contest ID. *But suppose my friend let
me use his Discus to do the flight, it wouldn't have made a flip of
difference of the validity of the flight. *Again, the only problem
here is that I typed in SA vs. N-2429. *So therefor it makes the whole
entire claim Invalid.

I appreciate the fact that we have dedicated people in this sport who
are going provide checks and balances to badges and record claims.. *I
really do appreciate them. *It would take the fun out of soaring if
somebody set a record using an engine. *But this is overkill.

I got a few emails today on an appeal process. *Hopefully this will
get overturned. *Diamonds don't grow on trees down here in
Memphis....doing the flight again in a club class glider would call
for some more good luck.

I too lost a 500K flight recently due to the same sort of nonsense. *I
have been at many SSA sessions where everyone at the table wrings
their hands and says "we aren't getting new people into the sport" and
"our membership is decreasing - what can we do to bring in new
members?". *Meanwhile, back at SSA headquarters, badge and record
flights are being rejected right and left for no good reason, thereby
alienating the members we do have. *I personally no longer give a
rat's ass about badge and record flights because you have to take two
lawyers and an accountant along with you on the flight, and I only
have a single-place glider.

TA

Frank,

I don't think it is the SSA. It is the IGC. The SSA is following the
IGC rules as clarified in painful detail to them by the IGC. If the
SSA decides to just ignore the IGC rules then I could see the final
outcome would be to lose FAI record and badge setting authority. I
agree it's worth identifying the jackass responsible for this, but I
don't think it is the SSA.

Darryl

Darryl,

You have my sympathy but you're in good company - hundreds if not
thousands of pilots have had badge claims denied over the years
because of a paperwork glitch. * It pays to read the rules - and have
a good OO looking over your shoulder as you fill out the forms.

It happened to me. *I flew an 300 km out and return but got credit for
Gold Distance and not Diamond Goal because the start and finish were 1
km apart - not the same point - my bad. *I didn't complain, I just
cleared the memory of the Volkslogger and flew another 300 km O&R for
Diamond Goal. *Both flights were a lot of fun so I didn't have much to
complain about.

Bill D

I don't need your sympathy. I've never had a badge claim rejected, but
I've come close more than once. And As I've suggested here Scott's
most effective resolution of this problem is to go do the flight again
properly.

As somebody's who has worked to locally promote badge flights, given
local seminars/talks on badges, helped explain the common traps and
helped mentor a few people through badges, worked with local clubs/
FBOs etc to make sure they are clear on the exact GLIDERID/Contest ID
issue discussed here, etc... I'll restate my points on this...

1. The sporting code _is_ clear. You do have to read it a few times.

2. The SSA has communicated this issue fairly well.

3. While Scott has my sympathy, I really don't care about the impact
on an individual badge claim.

4. I do care on the net overall affect of this particularly pedantic
rule and the impact on lots of Scott's and others trying for their
badges. Especially combined with -
a) A long running tradition in the USA of entering the SSA Contest
number as the GLIDERID
b) Confusing software UI and documentation from IGC flight recorder
vendors that state "contest ID" when it means "GLIDER ID".
c) The complete pedantic nature of this actual rule interpretation,
and its non-impact of this on anything important.

Here is the minimal solution I would like for the USA: *have the OO
just be able to document (post-badge application on inquiry from the
SSA if needed) that in cases where a valid SSA contest ID was entered
for that pilot instead of the N-number what the actual glider N-number
was. Of course this is perfectly easily handled today by doing a paper
declaration after the electronic one. As has been suggested on r.a.s
many times. So while I'm complaining about the IGC interpretation of
this rule I'm equally complaining about pilots who cannot get basic
stuff like this right _and_ also choose to not do a paper declaration.
The suggestion for doing a paper declaration has been around for ages,
it covers a lot of possible sins, so it's not a new thing. The OO in
this case really let the pilot down.

Darryl- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Responding here completely in an unofficial capacity, Darryl has
really done a wonderful job in this thread of getting to the essence
of the issue. In years past (pre 1995), a "declaration" was a
piece of paper with crystal clear instructions. At least here in the
US, the "identifying information" including Pilot, Crew Member,
Sailplane Model and Registration,and Barograph Serial Number (i.e.
the parts of the declaration that DON'T impact the TASK) were rarely
if ever entered erroneously. 99% of claims here in the US were done
against a simple form that made it (almost) impossible to get this
stuff wrong.

Fast forward to 2010, and we have PDAs running various software
(Winpilot, Seeyou, FlywithCE, Glide Naviator, MyCousinBobsMovingMap)
all trying to interface to dozens of FRs (old CAI, Newer CAI,
Volksloggers, Colibris, EWs, etc.) . Not to mention laptops that
aren't talking to older, serial-based devices, newer devices with SD
cards and inscrutable boot sequences, etc. The problem is that the
technology and the rules have diverged. And, the more we've tried to
get prescriptive in the declaration, the more chances we've created
for pilots to get it wrong.

Anyway, I'm certainly hopeful that we'll find some common sense fixes
to the rash of issues we're seeing.

P3