The use of blind flying instruments used to be an easy rule to police
in times gone by. There were only a few choices AH, T&B and the Bohli
compass come to mind.

As I understand it, the objective of the no blind flying instruments
rule is to prevent contestants making high climbs in cloud that would
allow them to fly around or through large areas of less or non
soarable conditions affording those pilots an advantage over those who
do not have the skills and or the instrumentation. It has been
mentioned a number of times that it is possible to cloud climb without
an AH or T&B using the information one receives from a GPS display. So
if you have the mind to cheat you just need to perfect the skills and
go ahead and do it. There are other cloud flying situations that we
would maybe deem to be ok rules wise, e.g. penetrating a cloud layer
that we have risen above in wave and have flown over to reach a
turnpoint but must now descend through because we have left the source
of lift that got us to this point and have no other option. So going
up in cloud is not sanctioned but maybe going down or through is ok in
some situations.


The posts citing sportsmanship and current trends in technology when
considered together suggest to me we should accept the inevitable
advances of technology and work on our code of conduct. It seems that
it would be reasonably easy to spot a cheater if all we are concerned
with is an unfair advantage gained from a cloud climb. If a particular
competitor hands in logs that show heights that are inconsistent with
everyone else's then that competitor could be asked to explain how he
achieved this miracle to a jury of his peers. How you deal with a jury
decision that does not accept the pilot's explanation depends on the
severity of the infraction and the desire to prevent this behaviour.
Policing this activity need add no extra burden on contest organizers.
Logs are readily available to all contestants, you can't get a better
police force than the interested parties. They fly in the same air as
the potential cheater and can best assess the validity of that pilot's
story.

If the objective is to disuade cloud climbs, banning instruments won't
stop that, I personally know pilots who have achieved cloud climbs
using only ASI and vario, it's possible. How many pilots do you
believe would be willing to look their fellow competitors in the eye
and bare faced lie about their miserable attempt at gaining
recognition. Hardly seems worth all the fuss and bother to even make a
rule to cover the situation.