Firstly, it's impossible to keep glider pilots away from or out of clouds even in contests. Let's be honest here - we all fly into wispies and under the higher convex cloudbase of strong growing cumuli that requires us to lose some visibility as we depart through the lower cloud wall. As a colleague said: "it's a good job clouds aren't shown on igc files"!

For those of us who learned to fly in countries where cloud flying is legal (and often required), this is no big deal. My first training was done in a gyro-equipped two-seater and my first glider (Jantar-1) had a gyro turn and bank that I occasionally used. One of my UK colleagues opined that Americans were pussies being so afraid of clouds! However, I know many cross-country colleagues here in the USA who are definitely not pussies!

However, rules are rules! I try and stay mostly away from clouds when on task and I know most others do too. For contests where I fly, I could very likely interpret an igc file that showed any useful use of lift inside clouds. Climb rate typically increases dramatically inside active clouds (don't ask me how I know!) and we generally know where cloudbase is on a given task. I've seen no evidence of that to date.

As a final note, I have observed that the really good and fast pilots don't need clouds to win. They are just good and don't need to cheat.

I support the rule change.

Mike