Approval document issued for IGC Position Recorder

On Feb 17, 6:02*am, soarpilot wrote:
On Feb 16, 4:53*am, Ian Strachan wrote:







Dear Friends,

I am pleased to announce that a new approval document for an IGC
Position Recorder has been issued by the Gliding Federation of
Australia for flights under its jurisdiction, after discussion with
the IGC GNSS Flight Recorder Approval Committee (GFAC). *The IGC
Position Recorder is a new category of recording device, introduced on
1 October 2009 with the latest update to the Sporting Code for
gliding.

The Australian Approval is dated 15 February 2010 and is for the
flyWithCE Recorder, manufactured by Uro Podlogar s.p., Ulica Lojzeta
Hrovata 9, 4000 Kranj, Slovenia (www.flyWithCE.com).

The Approval Document issued by the Gliding Federation of Australia
can be viewed at:

www.fai.org/gliding/position_recorders

under "The Gliding Federation of Australia"
and "Approval Document: flyWithCE".

------------------

Other National Gliding Authorities might look at the Position Recorder
approval documents that are available on the gliding/
position_recorders web site, and consider whether they wish to issue
their own versions.

The two existing approval documents for IGC Position Recorders a

1. *Fédération Française de Vol à Voile approval document (in French
and English) for Flarm-
equipped devices that have outputs in the IGC file format. *These
include:

* * *Ediatec ECW100,
* * *LXN Red Box Flarm and Mini Box Flarm,
* * *Swift Avionics MiniOz and OzFlarm,
* * *Swiss Flarm after 1 January 2005,
* * *Triadis Floice.

2. *Gliding Federation of Australia approval document for:
* * *miniOZ
* * *OzFlarm

------------------

These National Approval Documents were drawn up together with the IGC
GFA Committee, in accordance with Sporting Code rules that ask for
draft documents to be sent to GFAC so that approval documents can
follow a common format wherever possible (examples are on the gliding/
position_recorders web page), and also so that compliance with the
Sporting Code rules for IGC Position Recorders can be ensured. The
Sporting Code rules for IGC Position Recorders can be viewed
at:www.fai.org/gliding/system/files/SC3_refs_PR.pdf

Finally, as is stated on web pagewww.fai.org/gliding/GNSS, an IGC
Position Recorder is a stand-alone GPS unit (different from an IGC-
approved flight recorder) which may be used for position (Lat/Long)
evidence for silver and gold flights only, under special rules given
in the Appendix to Chapter 4 of Section 3 of the FAI Sporting Code.

Regards to all and good soaring in 2010,

----

Ian Strachan
Chairman IGC GFA Committee


One can only hope that these recorders come to somewhat of a realistic
price. *The retail of these units we must use is a rediculous sum to
pay for a piece of equipment so basic. *I can only hope some
electronics entrepeneur with the assets comes up with a piece of gear
that will undersale the fat cats, but who am I kidding? *Politics will
squash such a rebel.

Say what? This is a ~$120 or so device (assuming the W&W introductory
price). The IGC position recorder effort is an attempt to lower the
costs you are complaining about. Pilots always have the possibility of
putting together a PDA or PNA based system, including using free
software to act as flight recorders for OLC (but not badges/records).
Prices for those start ~$100 or so.

But given some of the limitations for badges and records, I suspect a
better answer for many clubs would be to share a full portable IGC
recorder for those attempts. And anybody who thinks they can design
and manufacture specialized devices for a small worldwide market, put
it though IGC certification, and do so more competitively than the
number of IGC flight recorder manufacturers out there - then do it!
You know, all that free market type stuff...

Darryl