On Oct 19, 1:17*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:
I'm not thrilled about the OLC changes; but I have a question: *How
much does the SSA (or do USA pilots) contribute to running the OLC -
in terms of $$ or equipment?

If its funded primarily by the Germans then we're kind of stuck with
their rules, since we're partying on their system. *We may not like
it, but its not "ours", so we can't control it or expect the owners to
necessarily accommodate our wishes. *:-/

--Noel
P.S. *I know that some of us have made donations to the OLC. *However,
$5 donations by a couple-hundred US pilots do not count much towards
the operating costs of the whole OLC system; especially given the
exchange rate the last couple of years!

Noel,

If you go to the OLC web site, on the right pane you will see
who pays the bills (and funds their retirements) over at OLC.
The sponsors. They are all there, Gold Sponsors, Silver Sponsors
etc. Each can be thousands of $$ a month. Your donations are
peanuts.

So, the rules are set simply based on: randomly at the whim of the
OLC if no sponsor cares, whatever a sponsor wants or, as Andreas
implied, the personal preference of an OLC principal and their
friends.

Do you see there a paying American sponsor that would care about the
15km rule? I don't.

Similarly, given this is a niche market owned by the OLC, which
has achieved critical mass, we can't expect any further
significant innovation from OLC. Why bother innovating or
improving? The pilots will still upload their flights, the sponsors
will still pay.

Unfortunately, if and when a potential competitor would enter the
arena with innovative solutions to the competitors needs, *then*
the OLC would just copy those quickly. So the new entrant would
have little chance for a little market. Looking forward and reasoning
backwards I don't expect any such competitor to bother. But who
knows, maybe? Open source project?

Until then, seems like we are stuck.

Regards,

David