Position Recorders, Accuracy, and Badge altitude gains

On Tuesday, May 29, 2012 2:52:24 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sunday, May 27, 2012 4:44:25 PM UTC-4, Tony wrote:
Leah and I are down here at Chilhowee for a VSA rally and had an enjoyable flight in the Ka7 today attempting a silver altitude gain for the highly sought after VSA Silver Coin. Unfortunately by the time we were hot, tired, hungry, in pain, and had to pee we hadn't quite made the gain. I found the trace for my FlywithCE interesting though. We released about 2400 MSL and I soon remembered that I hadn't turned on the FlywithCE. So I turned it on at about 3000 I think. Check out the trace: http://www.onlinecontest..org/olc-2....l?dsId=2421969

It seems that the FlywithCE was trying to insist that I had started on the ground, then realized that wasn't right, and attempted to correct for it by jumping the altitude up about 3000 feet. If it had just recorded the actual altitude it would've been fine. I would've had a trace starting in mid-air, right where I turned on the recorder.

The IGC decided that position recorders like the FlywithCE will be allowed for Silver and Gold altitude gain after this fall. Would I be able to claim this obviously bogus trace for Silver Altitude? (evil grin). I suspect this is a problem associated with not turning the thing on until mid flight but dang shouldn't it just record what the actual position is???

When your observer goes to fill out the badge application, he or she has to make some statements as to how the flight log was controlled. It would seem reasonable to expect this might include noting that the logger was not only properly installed, but on.
Try again Tony
UH

Hank,

Not sure if it wasn't clear in the original post but I wasn't attempting an actual badge flight on this flight. Of course on an official badge flight the OO would ensure the logger is turned on before takeoff. And of course any official claim would be denied if the logger wasn't turned on before takeoff. I'm just trying to understand why the logger made this wacky error, and it seems to me that being turned on after takeoff shouldn't be a valid reason for that.