On Monday, January 12, 2015 at 2:42:33 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Monday, January 12, 2015 at 4:40:52 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
If you go back and look at pilot opinion polls from a few (6 - 10 iirc) years ago, you'll see multiple complaints about guys flying above cloud base.


Evan

Most of that is pre-start wispies. That's why we instituted the procedure for start height 500 feet below cloudbase. In my recollection it was not a complaint about serious cloud flying, i.e. gaining thousands of feet by going up inside cus.

John Cochrane

JJ reported knowing of 3 pilots icing up on a thunderstorm day. Not easy to do outside of clouds.
While we can expect (many/most?)pilots to have smart phones, some of which may have a app that could permit cloud flying for a short time, there is no justifiable reason to allow true AHRS equipment is contest sailplanes. The only reason to have that equipment is to cheat on the requirements of VFR flight that we all agree to abode by when we enter a contest.
Removing the express prohibition essentially says it is OK to make cloud flying a part of the sport.
If some foolish pilot wants to try to smart phone fly, they will likely scare themselves pretty quickly.
My bigger personal concern is the obvious extension to opening of the prohibition against information coming in on the phone. With better flight tracking, it is quite foreseeable that we will have crews watching tracks and performance of competitors and feeding that information to the pilot either by voice, or text. If you start late and your crew can tell you where the guys ahead of you are doing well, you have a huge advantage.
While true enforcement is not practical, retaining the existing philosophies and rules leaves and unsportsmanlike conduct penalty still available, if appropriate.
Availability of weather information is claimed to be a safety advantage, yet the last time this was polled(2013?) the strong majority of pilots said they wished to retain the current prohibition.
FWIW
UH


With JJ's help I took a look at the flights in question (thanks JJ!). There is some reason to believe that with advances in technology we will be able to detect, with increasingly reliability, egregious and/or repeated excursions into IFR-land. Steve's point about climbing up the face of a cu (I've done it myself) remains one of several complications that need to be considered.

More broadly, the RC, like King Canute, understands that we are kidding ourselves when we stand at the shore and command the incoming tide to retreat. Technology marches on relentlessly. Once it becomes affordable and pervasive we need to face that reality - and we have. Tasking contest organizers with onerous "stop and frisk" responsibilities has never been broadly practical so it is at best a fig leaf - and a wilting one at that.

The prohibitions on cheating by getting outside help and on busting FARs remain in place and violations should be handled in the harshest possible terms short of lethal injection. Means to improve detection of violations is in my view worthwhile. $50 cockpit video recorders anyone? They are out there.

9B