10 km's apart

Ian

10 km and Cots has just one thing in common. We glider pilots are so
keen to discuss technical topics, that really is not significant for the
survival of our beloved sport. As you, I am an engineer, but I have
realized that we engineers, and there are plenty of us in gliding, just
love to solve every poblem with a technical solution, even if the
optimal solution is not technical.

I mean, logger security, the distance between TP:s, GPS altitude or
pressure saltitude etc etc, which we spend so much time on, will we get
more new members if we use GPS altitude, skip the 10 km rule or allow COTS?

NO...... but it is is damn fun to discuss!

May be it is a bit annoying, but I support your proposals for free
flight for badges.

As always Ian, it is stimulating to debate with you.

Robert

Ian Strachan wrote:
In article , Robert Danewid
writes

Ian

I was present at the 1991 IGC meeting in Queeenstown, just a couple of
months after Rays flight, which he presented at the meeting. Perhaps I
was fouled again at an IGC meeting, but my impression was clearly that
to fly so long tasks we needed more TP:s.


OK, I was not at the meeting at Queenstown in New Zealand so I bow to
your memory.

We have seen all this stuff several times, I amquite sure that
eventually we will have COTS loggers apporved.


I fail to see what these issues of distance flying rules have to do with
the use or otherwise of COTS GPS units.

Could it be a fixation of yours, more appropriate for another thread on
newsgroup r.a.s.? Anyway as I am sure that you know, I and others are
working on rules that might be approved by IGC for the use of such COTS
GPS units for badge flights up to Diamonds. The "up to Diamonds"
IGC-approval level is currently used for the EW series of GPS flight
recorders which are recorder units that need a NMEA feed from specified
Garmin GPS receiver units.

Do you remember when we went from marking the TP:s with ground markers
to cameras?


Too right, in the mid-1960s I wrote the rules for and than ran a trial
of photographic evidence on behalf of the BGA at a competition at
Bicester in the UK. It was successful and I drafted the first BGA rules
for photographic evidence as a result. These included the use of Kodak
Instamatic cameras which were at the time simple and almost
glider-pilot-proof. I remember that at the Bicester trial, one guy with
a 35mm camera managed to fail to load the film properly and thought that
he had taken 24 or 36 pictures when in fact none were exposed because
the film was not winding on. And now we have 24 satellites whizzing
around giving position to 10 metres or so. Amazing!

BTW, it is more fun to debate with you Ian than to agree with you!


Ah, that explains it.

PS: what about my other points on no need for declarations for free
flights, and why not allow free flights for badge distance requirements
on the basis that proven distance is just that, a distance achievement?

In article , Robert Danewid
writes

snip

I support your proposals for free flight for badges.

OK, you national delegates that can make proposals to IGC, go for it!

As always Ian, it is stimulating to debate with you.

I am quite humbled by what you say. But debate is not as good as action
and decisions that enrich our sport.

--
Ian Strachan

Bentworth Hall West
Tel: +44 1420 564 195 Bentworth, Alton
Fax: +44 1420 563 140 Hampshire GU34 5LA, ENGLAND

I mean, logger security, the distance between TP:s, GPS altitude or
pressure saltitude etc etc, which we spend so much time on, will we get
more new members if we use GPS altitude, skip the 10 km rule or allow COTS?

NO...... but it is is damn fun to discuss!

Oh, I disagree. Allowing GPS altitude and COTS would have
given several pilots I know a lot more to talk about
to their friends after several flights, and some buttons and
pins to show off, and got them interacting with SSA for their
badges. Things that make soaring, and the recognition of
soaring achievements easier, help the sport. Maybe not in the
quick way of making droves of new members apply, but anything
that makes a part of aviation even marginally easier (nosewheel
vs. tailwheel is another example) does have some effect, though
it be hard to determine.
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Mark James Boyd wrote:

...anything that makes a part of aviation even marginally easier
(nosewheel vs. tailwheel is another example) does have some effect....

Now you've done it!

Nosewheels have definitely lowered the quality of the powered aviation
experience -- roughly to the same degree that rational competition and logging
rules _would_ do for the sport of soaring.



Jack