On 2/15/2012 2:33 PM, RAS56 wrote:
It blows my mind that an attitude exists in competition soaring that
because a small minority of competition pilots will cheat, the other 99%
will have to carry the burden of their lack of integrity by disabling an
obvious safety feature.

We've had this rule for at least 35 years, and this is the first time I
can remember a discussion over it. Really, in USA contests, it is NOT
"an obvious safety feature". Obviously, some people wish to have it, and
people with a lot of power time seem feel naked without it, but it would
not have prevented a single fatality in the 35+ years I've been in the
sport.

We seem to be down to "I want it because I want it", not because there
are any cases to point to where it would have helped. That's not
inherently a bad reason, so maybe we should talk about how to allow the
"emergency" use of all these devices, while still discouraging it by
some inspection and by culture.

Walmart phones with prepaid service hours - about $25 when I bought one
last year. That's a throwaway price compared to contest costs and
sailplane expenses; of course, you could save it for the next contest.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)