On Jun 13, 5:50*am, Andy wrote:
On Jun 12, 8:55*am, Frank wrote:

*I could care
less if a badge award says 'FAI' or 'SSA' - does anyone else in the
U.S.?

It may nor be as simple as that. The involved NAC may not just be the
NAC of the country where the flight is made. *It is quite common for
pilots to visit other countries and to make badge and record flights
while away from home.

In my case all my soaring badges were earned in US because that is
where I was resident. *As required by the SSA forms at that time I
declared my nationality as British and all my badges are recorded in
the UK register.

In this case both SSA and BGA would have to have been satisfied that
my claims met all applicable rules.

That brings me to the subject of a Unique Contest Number. There can be
no such thing in any country or assigned by any NAC. *The NAC will
only have control over Contest Numbers issued in its own country and
to gliders operating under its control. *Say, for example BGA issues a
"unique" number to a glider and the owner brings that glider to US for
a visit to make a badge or record attempt. *The number is no longer
unique since that same number may also have been issued by SSA.

Unless the movement of gliders between countries is made illegal there
can be no such thing as a "unique NAC-assigned contest number". *If
the use of contest number is invalid in US it should also be invalid
in all counties for exactly the same reason - that it cannot be known
to be unique.

Given that some (perhaps all if you consider export) countries allow
the registration number to change during the life of an aircraft, the
only unique number associated with any glider is the manufacturer's
serial number.

Andy

This post repeatedly implies the SSA issues contest IDs to gliders.
Can we please get the basic facts right -- the root issue here is the
SSA does *not* issue contest IDs to gliders, they are issued to
pilots. At any time the FAA issued N-number is a unique, and a BGA
issued contest ID for a glider is unique as well - within the coverage
of the BGA/NAC. It is pretty clear when the sporting code says things
like a "unique NAC assigned Contest ID" it means within the area of
responsibility of that NAC and unique at any point in time. We have a
real, practical issues with the sporting code, flight recorders, and
contest IDs in the USA, and the issues at hand are not really helped
by trying to invent other problems that do not exist.

I suspect folks suggesting the SSA goes it's own way on badges do not
think accomodating foreign badge applicants is an issue. And one
solution would be to to offer you a SSA badge if you wanted a sensible
level of rules, maybe the option of an FAI badge if you want to follow
the sporting code, deal with flight recorder silliness issues exactly,
etc.