Cheap GPS Loggers for FAI Badges - Status?

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In article , stephanevdv
writes

I'm new on this forum, and this thread has captured my attention because
the theme is really popular in the gliding world. So I'll try to give
my opinion on a number of posts I read.

Welcome to the wonderful world of RAS!

It always strikes me as odd that we fumbled with cameras and expensive
barographs, plus the problems of sealing them and finding an Official
Observer, for all these years without complaining, and that the whole
gliding world now seems to resent the approved loggers just for being
more costly than the typical off-the-shelf GPS. My barograph cost me
about half the price of my Volkslogger, but with the 20 years
difference in time, even with modest inflation rates, I think the price
is not that far off.

And indeed, finding an OO is still often the hardest part of the
administrative burden. Luckily it's only necessary for badge flights,
if you are using an approved FR.

I don't now if you have decentralized contests in Oz, like the OLC in
Europe. For this kind of flights, who are certainly as interesting as
badge flights, the use of an approved FR allows one to be completely
free of paperwork and OO's. In most European countries, this freedom
has done much more for the generalization of cross-country flying than
the badge system itself.

In Flanders (Belgium) where I live, when I come home, I download my
flight from the logger, upload it to the Flemish contest website, the
program checks the validity and respect of airspace, calculates the
points and classifies it in the correct class. Done! I can check in
real time how I did in comparison with others today.

An interesting point. While there has been considerable discussion about
the use of Pressure Altitude Vs GPS Altitude, the vertical limits of
Airspace are expressed in terms of Pressure Altitude, which is unlikely
to change any time soon.

---snip--------------
I agree that the "data security" aspect seems a bit overdone at IGC,
It may seem that way, but one objective is to avoid having the revise
the level on an annual basis, which could imply annual updates to
recorders at the owners expense. Better to set it higher and wait for
technology to catch up.

but that's no reason to be verbally aggressive against the people who
developed the norms: they are not "self-appointed geeks", as one writer
put it. Geeks they may be, I don't know them personally, but as so
often in gliding, they probably are the people who volunteered to do
the job. Having been rather active as volunteer for lots of little and
bigger jobs on club, regional and national level, it strikes me that
there are very few people who agree to spend much time in doing things
like studying lots of documents, participating in conferences,
workshops, meetings... instead of flying. But when decisions are made
by these few (always the same, hence the accusation of "oligarchy",
"self-appointed", etc.), lots of people start to question them. I don't
think that's fair.

There is much truth on what you say.

I sure as hell don't agree with everything IGC decides, but I write to
my delegate, assemble petitions, etc., if I think it's really worth it.
Just discussing it on a forum doesn't help. So if you want to get
cheaper GPS units to be used for badge flights, you'll have to do some
serious lobbying work. And prepare yourself to become OO, because
you'll find your club needs more of them. I don't now how it works in
other countries, but here it means passing an examination and following
an (almost) annual refresher course.

Considering the issue of COTS units, almost all of the invective has
been directed against the Flight Recorder Specification which currently
prohibits them.

However, I am of the opinion that changing the Specification is not the
correct route to take. The specification should remain 'as is' for
approved units above whatever level is deemed the appropriate ceiling
for COTS.

To change the specification to allow COTS also implies that each
Make/model has to be submitted for approval, which would be an
impossible task.

What needs to be changed is the wording in the Sporting Code to allow
COTS to be use up to a specific level (e.g. Gold C) and an approved
Flight Recorder thereafter.

So! Now you have another pianist to shoot at. Fire away!


Join the club!

Best regards,

Tim Newport-Peace

"Indecision is the Key to Flexibility."