On Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 8:56:06 AM UTC-7, wrote:

One thing hasn't changed: I'm still clearly in the "limit FLARM to safety" camp. But as I consider the small fields at the Elmira Nationals and the shorter current entry lists for my two favorite fall contests (New Castle and Fairfield), I wonder if making it easier for pilots to compete is something we should at least consider as a valid parameter.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

I have been away from soaring for almost 13 years, just started soaring again this last March. I was pleasantly surprised how the instrumentation has changed, including PF and unpleasantly surprised that two of my favorite places to fly were shut down and now where I do fly from only a hand full of pilots fly on any given weekend instead of the 20 plus. Just a thought but Chip has an important point, making it easier to to compete. I know there is another thread on this matter, but the cream always raises to the top, stealth mode or not, GPS or not. Maybe the rules committee should consider in the rules process anything that induces more pilots to fly competitions and thus fly with great pilots, learning from them. This way we feed and seed our sport.

I wonder when do we hit critical mass on the downside, where glider ports cannot make enough to stay in business, contests only have a few pilots and manufacturers move on to making other things.