I have been saying that the opinion poll is often designed to "steer" its readers towards particular responses for years now.

But, I have another, broader question.

Why do we mindlessly waste our time every year squabbling about US rules and opinion polls when we could simply "put the US rules out to pasture" and rejoin the international FAI system? Why is it "religion" that we continue forward with US rules? Why are US rules so important? Should we at least be considering FAI? At least asking the opinion of all our US contest pilots?

Of course, using US rules requires us to also develop and maintain our own custom scoring software tools? The truth is that Winscore is barely supportable. If our single developer, for whatever reason, suddenly quits supporting it we are in deep trouble. Winscore is a hard program to learn and few can use it effectively.

One the other hand, a proven international soaring rule system, called FAI, exists. The FAI rule system is used by most countries and the vast majority of total soaring contest worldwide, including the WGC, use the FAI rules.. By leaving US rules behind (out there somewhere, happily eating fresh grass in a lovely pasture) we would save ourselves tremendous amounts of mind-numbing debate, significant volunteer effort (rules committee) and simultaneously rejoin the world soaring community in a common, familiar and effective soaring rule system (and ranking system).

So, what is the TRUE, measured value of carrying on with our own custom "US only" soaring rule system?

What advantage do we "enjoy?" because we have our own unique rule system? What is the "return on investment" vs. the "cost" of further supporting US rules (and being isolated)?

Measurements. Do the US rules result in increased contest participation in the USA vs. other nations which use FAI? Easier contest administration? Increased safety? Better racing? Improved competition skills development? How about US international competitiveness? Junior interest? I don't see any of those measures showing any measurable improvement for the USA. In fact, relative to Europe , US soaring has fallen well behind in many of those measurements when compared to FAI countries since the US changed to US rules? Have they not? Who can prove me wrong? Data? Where are we better off?

Again, what is the TRUE value in maintaining our own unique US soaring competition rules? Why are we the only country that has its own unique rules? Why is the question of adopting FAI never part of the US rules committee's discussions (or our comedy relief opinion poll) or just in regular, broader discussions?

Are the US RC members expected to be open-minded and creative thinkers looking for the best general direction or are they US rule "church" arbiters dedicated only to the continuation of the US rules (and destroyers of any other ideas)?

What measured facts make carrying on with US Rules so critical? What would the result of a return to FAI be (the same rules used by all other soaring countries)? These are simple, basic, sensible and fundamental questions that, in my opinion, should be asked regularly by the SSA in general. Yet they NEVER are asked, formally or informally.

Is this discussion blasphemy? If so, why is that blasphemy?

Wouldn't the effort spent supporting the US rules committee be better spent on other SSA priorities? Surely we have more critical objectives? Hard things like finding ways to get more families, children and youth pilots interested in soaring. Or like youth soaring competition development. Or growing contest participation. Etc.

And yes, the question on Flarm is fairly obvious.

But more important that predictable stuff, the US rules, and its annual opinion poll have become a big yawn. As if this yearly tuning exercise is going to yield a big break-thru. What is the goal of all this US rules drudgery? What do we expect to happen? A sudden turn around in participation? Not likely. We need some big thinkers. We need some new ideas. At least we need some different voices at the table. It's getting really old.

To that point, both Michael Westbrook and I (both current US team members and both significantly younger than the average US RC member) had our US RC nominations "thrown out" by our "wise and powerful" regional directors. We were therefore not included on the current US RC election ballot. Non "good old boys" need not apply I guess...