New Butterfly Vario

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:01:01 -0800, Mike wrote:

On Feb 13, 3:22Â*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:
Brad -

Here's the catch though: Â*You'd still be illegal to fly because you use
LK8000 or XCSoar. Â*Since they have AH functions that you cannot
"safety-wire" in the off position, you can't use them. Â*Sorry! No
contest-flying for you! Â*Not until you buy a dedicated flight computer
for a couple-thousand-dollars! Â*Oh, and if you buy a nice cell-phone,
you cannot fly with it. Â*Sorry, gotta hike to a farmer's house in the
middle of nowhere to make a call and get retrieved!

How do these things improve safety or help increase participation? They
don't - THAT'S the insanity of this rule. Â*Its much, much larger than
the half-dozen idiots in the country who'd kill themselves trying to
cloud-fly simply because they have an AH in the cockpit.

The sport and its rule-makers _must_ adjust to modern realities or the
sport is going to continue to die. Â*In some ways they're doing great
things; but in others they're falling flat on their face. Â*Adjusting to
modern society _doesn't_ mean you have to support million-dollar
thermal-detectors; but it _does_ mean the application of common-
sense!! Â*Skew the rules towards the greater common good; _don't_ skew
the rules and everyone's equipment out of fear that a teeny fraction of
individuals will cheat.

Anyone willing to cheat to cloud-fly is also willing to be a big dick
at their next contest and protest everyone who flies with a smart-
phone. Â*I'd LOVE to see the fallout from *that* event!

--Noel

XCSoar has an artificial horizon? I did not know that.

Same comment from me re LK8000.

From a cloud flying POV it does nothing that's not duplicated by a
compass.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |