The SSA-OLC

Paul,

I refuse to take offense at your post .

I am glad that you feel as strongly about the OLC as I do. I too am very
sorry (or even "sick" as you've put it) to see fun being taken out of OLC.
So, you see, we are fundamentally in agreement: we both care about the OLC
and miss the good old days when life was good for all.

The only substantial difference of opinions between us is, of course, who's
fault it is. For the sake of simplification (and at the risk of
oversimplification), let's say that you are blaming me, and I am blaming you
for taking fun out of OLC. So let us be logical for a minute at look at it
calmly:

1. How could I alone (or "a tiny fraction of the pilots" as it's been put
before) substantially affect the quality of the experience for the rest of
the OLC citizens? In comparison, you as a member of the SSA-OLC controlling
body, have much more influence than I do.

2. My presence on the OLC-US before the SSA-OLC era somehow did not "take
fun out of it". I used to enjoy OLC as much as you or the next guy did. It
suddenly changed when the SSA came into the picture.

So with those two facts in mind ((1) you have much more influence than I do,
and (2) it was still fun even with me on it before you came as part of SSA),
please come again: why do you blame me for the recent changes? A little bit
of shooting the messenger, perhaps?

There is, of course, the third possibility -- that it is neither my nor your
fault, but instead just a problem of growth and popularity. As OLC gets
exposed to more and more pilots (or is it the other way around?), there is a
growing number of vigilant citizens there who, for competitive, personal,
ideological or who-knows-what-other reasons, find it appropriate to
scrutinize other peoples' traces and report them.

Having said this, I am going to turn around and (in line with the more usual
mode of interaction in these threads) throw all dogs back at you. It was
your job that you willingly took upon yourself to handle all the growth and
popularity problems of the OLC-US -- and so far it's been my opinion that
you were mishandling them badly by encouraging the above mentioned behavior.

Please replace all occurrences of "you" with "SSA-OLC committee" in the
above as my assurance that none of this is meant to be personal.

Now, the fact that you recognize the meaning of the open forum -- and
actually like it -- puts you way ahead of some of your colleagues from
SSA-OLC committee.

Thank you.
--
Yuliy


"Paul Remde" wrote in message
news:ZNPSg.75569$aJ.40945@attbi_s21...
Hi Yuliy,

Congratulations on taking the fun out of the OLC. Congratulations on
making some very helpful volunteers very frustrated. Congratulations on
discouraging cross country flight.

I for one am a big fan of the OLC and I love to promote cross-country
flight.

I would not be in the least bit sorry if I never read any more postings
from you, but it is an open forum and I like that about it.

Paul Remde

"Yuliy Gerchikov" wrote
in message ...
KM,

Good points and observations,

"KM" wrote in message
ups.com...

I am new to the R.A.S

I too am new to the RAS (first post in 2001) and, according to some of
the loudest proponents of SSA-OLC, should not be allowed to state my
opinions here. But I'll venture some anyway ...before SSA takes over
R.A.S and turns it into SSA-RAS with its own policies and politics.

we have a active Yahoo group
where pilots post flights during the season.

Oh Horrors! You mean, you can post your flights, and no one will be
scrutinizing them for FAR violations? No one will be "guarding" the
community from the "bad apples"? No one will imply, without bothering
themselves with facts, that some pilots "consistently fly outside the
rules"? No one will tell you what you can or can't post there? No one
will tell you which flights you can or can't look at and learn from?
Wow... what a reckless concept. We haven't seen anything so disturbingly
lax here on OLC since the sanitation of traces started under SSA rule.
Certainly your Yahoo group is an unfortunate oversight on the SSA's part.
Good thing you have mentioned it here, so it can be looked at and fixed
soon. What is the URL?

This is not a contest, just
a way to report on the local happenings.

Aha! That must be it. Obviously, the reason SSA-OLC has to be so
different is the "C" in its name.

judging by the gist of
most of the comments on the "Sunset" thread the SSA OLC is not for
educational purposes, but much more of a hard core contest.

Here is the paradox. For educational purposes is, indeed, how most people
use OLC -- but those who own it now in the US insist on running it as a
hard core contest.

How did the SSA get a
monopoly on the OLC in the US,

Beats me!

and why did they change its intent?

Oh, this one is simple. Because they care about us -- what we say, what
we see, how we look to the feds. It's the Serve and Protect thing, you
see.

Another thing I found during my research on the SSA website was a memo
regarding FARs.It started out with "The SSA is not out to interpret or
enforce FARs"

Interesting finding -- especially considering how easily some SSA
officials pronounce certain pilots and flights to be "in violation of
FARs".

Now let me state that I fly for a living, and I
have every motivation BOTH from a monitary standpoint and a safety
standpoint to follow the regs, but lets say my flight recorder does
something stupid and now I have the same outfit that I pay dues to
HELPING the FAA come after me?Bizarre

If you fly for a living, then you certainly, definitely, absolutely,
positively NEVER EVER want to post any flights that have ANY chance or
breaking ANY rules. Did you get it? Not even the slightest possibility of
violation. The rest of the flights you can post -- just make absolutely
sure that even with the ever-increasing level of scrutiny no one will
ever find (or suggest) and "report" any violations in them.

For example, you definitely don't want to post any ridge flights, because
most of them *provably* violate FAR 91.119(c) -- even though this
violation is not (yet?) in the SSA's "no-no list" and is inexplicably
"OK" for SSA-OLC. You also don't want to post any flights that look like
running the cloud streets (easily recognizable by high-speed flat "tops"
and little or no thermalling for extended periods of time), because
somebody may report you, alleging cloud clearance violations. For the
same reason do not post any wave flights on days when medium to high RH
was observed at your flight altitudes.

This list, of course, can go on and on, depending on how picky,
knowledgeable and motivated our volunteer "inspectors" are. Everything
else you can post ...well, *somewhat* confidently. If you feel lucky.

if a pilot were to post an ocasional short flight,
say 2 to 3 hundred miles about once a week, is he gonna get laughed at?

That's a new definition of "short" to me! In fact, posting "2 to 3
hundred miles about once a week" will put you high enough on the score
sheet to attract a lot of attention -- and scrutiny -- to your flights.
So keep in mind what you might not want to post.

is there a way to bypass the SSA-OLC (and forgo all the
politics and flaming), and just post to the OLC in Germany?

One would wish... Alas, there is no such way. The SSA, as you correctly
pointed above, has a monopoly on OLC in this country. Every flight flown
entirely within US borders must be submitted to SSA-OLC -- or not at all.

K. Urban
--
Yuliy