The SSA-OLC

Hi Yuliy,

Please see my notes below.

Paul Remde

"Yuliy Gerchikov"
and_.hope.it.travel wrote
in message ...
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.

- I feel that we are probably very much alike. A wise person (Bob Wander)
once told me that glider pilots are passionate about their sport. That is
good! However, people who are passionate about something often have very
strong opinions about all things relating to it. I have found that to be
very true in many things related to soaring - especially soaring club
policies, and now the 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.

- I must respectfully disagree with your logic. The OLC has long been
setup so that pilots can submit any flight they want to, but they have
always been encoraged to only submit flights that do not include violations
of airspace or any other rules of the local flying environment. The premise
has always been that any other pilot could make a report to the OLC if a
flight was unfair or unsafe or illegal. This has not changed. As the OLC
grew, they realized that they would benefit from having local experts help
support it in each country - hence the creation of the SSA supported version
of the OLC. There have been tremendouse benefits to doing this. Doug and
others have worked hard to explain the OLC to US participants and support
pilots when there are issues uploading flight logs. The benefit to US
glider pilots has been immense.

Then we (the SSA-OLC members) received a few reports of pilots that were
flying outside what was considered good sportsmanship. I can't speak for
the other SSA-OLC members, but I personally was concerned about this. If a
group of pilots starts breaking rules to win, then many other pilots will
feel that the competition is unfair and will stop competing. It is a
priveledge to compete and there are rules (both OLC and FAA). If you break
the rules we (the soaring community) don't want your flight listed with
ours. You have then lost the priveledge to compete. You are not banned
forever, but those flights that are in question are not welcome in our (the
soaring community's) competition.

I personally am extremely concerned that flights that break FARs make me
personally look bad. Let me give an example. If a particular glider
pilot here in MN was repeatedly flying into Class B airspace (this is
completely hypothetical) and the FAA noticed it, they would think that
glider pilots in general, at least those here in MN, don't seem to have any
regard for the FAA or the FARs. The many glider pilots that do adhere to
the FARs would be very frustrated. If we confronted the pilot about this
and he/she would not change his ways we (MN soaring pilots, or soaring club
members, or commercial operations) would stop offering him/her aerotows.
Now let me extend that logic to the OLC. Not only are a few pilots making
flights that could make us soaring pilots look bad, but they are posting
evidence of this on a public forum (the OLC) so that the entire world can
see it. I can sincerely say that makes me extremely angry. I think we are
very lucky to have nearly free access to most of the airspace over the USA.
I do NOT want to lose that priveledge.

The OLC organizers in Germany probably don't know the details of US rules
and regulations and probably have no interest in learning about them. They
assume that any pilot that receives feedback about a questionable flight
will remove their flight to avoid the embarassment of having it known that
they flew outside the government established rules and regulations. The
SSA-OLC was not formed to be a policing body. It was formed to be a helping
and supportive body. But then we received word from other pilots of flights
that were "questionable" in one way or another. To be honest, at that point
I lost interest in the details. I just wanted the pilots to quietly remove
the flights so we could move one. Unfortunately, that is not how it worked
out. The glider pilots that reported the issues expected the SSA-OLC to do
something about it. In my opinion, the US soaring community (at least those
that fly in the OLC) expected the SSA-OLC to do something about it. I will
not get into debate about how long past sunset or how far into restricted
airspace a pilot went. I just want the flights removed from the fun and
informal contest that (in my opinion) belongs to all glider pilots and
represents all glider pilots.


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.

- I disagree. See my note above.


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?

See my note above.


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.

- The contest of other pilot reporting questionable flights has been a part
of the OLC from the start.


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.

- I can see that you are passionate about this and I must respectfully
disagree. I am not trying to be condescending. I am being sincere.


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.

- I understand that.


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.

- You don't know them very well.


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