At 15:17 04 November 2015, krasw wrote:
That is valid question. One would think that nothing can be more retarded
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han EASA regulating general aviation and gliding in particular. But then
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u insert national authorities who interpret these EASA regulations and
all
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bets are off in general retardiness.


One of the few sensible things that EASA licencing did prompt was the
introduction of a formal "cloud flying rating / certificate" in the UK.
This is relatively simple to get & covers the basics you need for flying a
glider in a fair weather cumulus or descending through a wave gap and
teaches you a standard set of recovery actions if things get out of hand.

Mind you our terrain is a lot more forgiving than the continental US - and
gliding out to lower ground (or even the coast!) is normally an option from
most wave climbs.

Several people at our club use the Kanardia A/H, which seems to work very
well in a glider environment. Power consumption is low enough I have mine
on from launch.

Of course we no doubt persevere with other retarded stuff :-)