Potential $300 increase in contest fees?

While I agree with Lane that such a rule would be too heavy handed an
approach, I can certainly understand its utility on a couple of broad
fronts:

1. I think that soaring contests are too often too insular. At too
many contests you see the same old faces and no new ones. Putting in
place measures that encourage pilots to bring crew would increase
exposure of the sport to new pilots and also to not-yet pilots.

2. I can certainly agree that contests with a high percentage of
crewless pilots can be a pain. Most such pilots do indeed take
reasonable precautions to ensure that their crewlessness does not
adversely affect other pilots or the contest as a whole. However, it
doesn't take much bad luck or bad weather for things to go to worms in
a hurry.

3. Despite protestations to the contrary, I persist in the conviction
that crewless pilots typically don't bring their full game to a
contest. The measure of conservativity required to compete on that
basis denies everybody the kind of contest experience they could be
getting. I've seen time and again how one hot competitor will inspire
everybody to bring it up a notch, and that is less likely to happen
where the majority are tiptoeing between aeroretrive opportunities.

Thanks, Bob K.