On 4/3/2013 10:12 PM, Ramy wrote:
So Bob, I must ask, do you fly XC without cell phone?

I did until the end of 2009, when I (temporarily?) "retired" from active
PIC-ing. Should I unretire, I don't plan to change this particular approach.

If so, whatever will
be your good reasons to never carry a cell phone, I wouldn't blame anyone
who will leave you to hitchhike back from a landout in the middle of
nowhere...

Nor would I blame anyone for declining to retrieve me...whether or not I had a
cell phone. :-) Seriously, I *have* hitchhiked back (though long ago). I've
also dodged being out overnight by about 45 seconds and a bit of luck (last
vehicle - between then and buttoning up the glider/trailer - to go by the
stretch of road on which I was walking to an [abandoned, in the event]
farmhouse two miles away). I once found a (working!) phone on a rotating hatch
in a quonset hut hangar at an (essentially) abandoned-for-the-weekend airport
several miles from town on an evening with winds strong enough to cause a
blowing-dust-induced fatal "fog-collision chain-reaction" accident on an
interstate not terribly distant from my landing site...and nearly got
hypothermia on a 90+-degree evening from wind chill that same evening. I've
had a "Twilight Zone" experience while begging use of a phone at the nearest -
& only - house between me and my launch airport a mere 10 or so road miles
distant.

I considered these - and all my other - mini-adventures part of the "charm of
the soaring/landout experience." In fact, some of my most rapid ascents of the
XC learning curve came while in remote fields, waiting for (with one
exception) my pickup crew; only once did I ever set out with a
pre-arranged/formal crew. Of course, I've also retrieved many more folks than
I've had to impose upon others, which may or may not have helped me recruit
those ad-hoc crews. Retrievals, too, were always (generally, wry chuckle)
great and grand fun.


Some technologies, like cell phone and spot are a must in anyone's landout
kit. Flying cross country without them is foolish.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I've retrieved with the aid of Spot
& GPS-es...and in those cases never set out without having a pretty decent
written description of how to get to "wherever"...just like in the days before
those technologies existed. Simple prudence, from my perspective.

I've also been at the field when a pilot failed to return (more than one,
sadly) in pre-Spot days. In only one case would Spot have saved much
time...and in that one the PIC (fortunately?) happened to have been killed on
impact; we found him around 10AM the next day.

As for cell phones, while my soaring experience doesn't include your
particular neck of the woods (eastern Sierras, Great Basin, etc.) it *does*
include much of the eastern Rockies and neighboring Great Plains...which are
well known for - um, "spotty" cell phone coverage. IOW, the reality for my
neck of the woods is cell phones are far from a panacea. Personally, I prefer
the aggravation of the known devil (i.e. fending for myself with ground-based
technologies - feet, landlines, etc.) to the dodgy, irritating (when they work
poorly or not at all) unknown ones of dropped/scratchy/one-sided/etc. cell
phone calls, which mostly serve to raise both parties' blood pressures due to
the aggravation of failed promise.

From my perspective, those devices and technologies do indeed have
"convenience potential" and arguably "life-saving potential" but they are no
substitute for pilot prudence, common sense, "adequate preparation
beforehand," etc. In life-threatening terms, I never worried about my friends
when they were out XC soaring, any more than I worried about myself when I was
out XC soaring. Have I encountered soaring pilots I DO actively worry about
(independent of the technology they bring to the table)? Darn tootin'! But in
every case their technology had/has essentially nothing to do with my worry
(I'll resist the obvious snarky comment about any tendency they might have had
to inappropriately use such technology...as in, making a phone call *before*
they've actually landed out).

Obviously, YMMV!

Bob - lemme write your retrieval directions down - W.