Cost of flight loggers

Quoted from Tim Mara
" I'm sure nearly
every club has, someone who has an old barograph or camera they would
make
available for free to help them make the attempts.. would it be so
terrible
to let someone fly 5 hours in a club glider with a wind up barograph
as
proof of their accomplishment? Would anyone feel cheated because they
didn't
have to buy the badge with a $1000 logger? "

Tim, the same can be said for a IGC Logger, surely someone in your
club has a Colibri or EW or LX20 the could let you borrow! No
difference! " 2 of our wealthier clubmembers bought Colibri`s as
backup and make those available to someone who needs a logger for a
badge.

Bob

actually....no.....in our smallish club with 20 or so members I know of only
one data-logger equipped glider (LX21) and it can't easily be just carried
along in any glider since it still requires external power connection and
the owner has the antenna more or less permanently mounted.....moving it
would not be a spur of the moment thing...and besides, if it's there the
owners there and wants to fly his glider (or he would stay home) and it runs
GPS data to his PDA ......we do however have at least 2-3 Replogel
barographs always on hand and nearly every other private owned glider (we
have at last count 14 gliders in the club all but 2 privately owned) has a
(I think we have 7 with this) PDA set-up with FlywithCE Navigator and simple
GPS (non-IGC type)....
so....loaning a logger isn't for us an option but loaning a PDA with GPS or
a Barograph is.....or would be unless these are not acceptable...
and in a situation like our club (many small clubs are just the same) not
many really care that much about badges beyond ABC and Silver and no one
here really has any interest in trying to set world records... but take away
any incentive to do the minor badges goes against trying to train new glider
pilots and give them some encouragement to try to step away from the home
field... there is a certain amount of bragging among students and new pilots
competing for these badges....but none of them would pay $1000 just to get
one line of print in Soaring magazine.
tim
" wrote in message
...
Quoted from Tim Mara
" I'm sure nearly
every club has, someone who has an old barograph or camera they would
make
available for free to help them make the attempts.. would it be so
terrible
to let someone fly 5 hours in a club glider with a wind up barograph
as
proof of their accomplishment? Would anyone feel cheated because they
didn't
have to buy the badge with a $1000 logger? "

Tim, the same can be said for a IGC Logger, surely someone in your
club has a Colibri or EW or LX20 the could let you borrow! No
difference! " 2 of our wealthier clubmembers bought Colibri`s as
backup and make those available to someone who needs a logger for a
badge.

Bob

On Feb 14, 10:36*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
actually....no.....in our smallish club with 20 or so members I know of only
one data-logger equipped glider (LX21) and it can't easily be just carried
along in any glider since it still requires external power connection and
the owner has the antenna more or less permanently mounted.....moving it
would not be a spur of the moment thing...and besides, if it's there the
owners there and wants to fly his glider (or he would stay home) and it runs
GPS data to his PDA

Another key point that Tim raises. It's hard to explain to someone
who might be part of a large club that there are literally scores of
clubs out there without a single IGC approved logger in the existing
fleet. It's not as if rich members are out there being selfish;
there just isn't a single one in the fleet of either club-owned or
private ships. Couple that with the issue than many of the units are
installed in the panel or in other semi-permanent settings, it does
become an issue for those "grass roots" organizations which we need to
encourage to grow to the next level.