On Thursday, April 4, 2013 9:54:04 AM UTC-5, BobW wrote:
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.

Personal experience getting retrieved by Bob.

I flew 237 miles downwind and within 30 minutes Bob arrived at the airport. There was no intelligible 2 way communication between the two of us for at least the last 1:00 or 1:30 of the flight. Occasionally he would hear a garble from me (when I was at the top of a thermal) and occasionally I would hear a garble from him (when he was cresting a hill and I happened to be high). I didn't call him after landing since he doesn't have a cell phone. I did call our pre-arranged call-back number but of course he didn't call them because he hadn't stopped yet.

Read more about it in the Feb. 2012 Soaring

Tony - Bob can crew for me anytime - C.