New Butterfly Vario

On Feb 15, 11:17*pm, Sean Fidler wrote:
Tom C-

So Flarm is good (I fully agree) and artificial horizons are bad? *Please allow me a brief moment to probe this statement. *How exactly would it be bad for an honest pilot (such as Kempton for example who very much accidentally flew into IMC) to have a quality artificial horizon instrument just in case? *Did you read this article? *Have you ever had to perform a benign spiral because, essentially, you’ve made a mistake and you were screwed? *Ever just had to ride it out and hope? *Have you ever practiced one? *A rule leaving the lives of honest pilots (many who may be newer, etc) to chance, at least to me, seems completely insane for a sport that is meant to be fun, enjoyable and of honest men.

What percentage of pilots do you, Tom C, feel would cheat if they had the opportunity to install a proper AH instrument? *Please weigh that with the rest of the honest, no cheater (your opinion of course) pilots who may, however slim the chance, benefit GREATLY from the artificial horizon instrument if they were allowed to include it as an everyday instrument and not have to turn it on, off, uninstall, install, etc for contests?

What is being demonstrated by those in support of the rule (as it stands at this moment) is that they are fierce competitors so deathly afraid that someone is going to be able to cheat “past” them that safety for any fair pilot is utterly outlawed to prevent it. *If you, (insert your name here new contest pilot) ever get caught making a mistake and flying into a cloud...be damned! *You careless *******! *It’s your fault for making that mistake. *Tough taffy. *But does this rule really prevent cloud flight if someone really wanted to? *Can all the instruments be policed? *At what cost to safety? *At what cost to contest attendance and enjoyment? *All because a few of you really competitive types (in control of the rules today) cant live with any chance that some crazy fool could cheat.

I won’t get into the fact that I (and a whole bunch of other pilots I know) have unknowingly been flying illegally with my Android phone all last summer ;-0! *See, nobody cares until you start getting close to them in the standings.
Tom K, I have to disagree that forcing pilots to go to Sears to get a throw away phone is smart, good or not irritating...but it comforts me that you recognized that under the current rules smartphones (65% market share and increasing about 10% per year) are illegal and pointed this out. *Maybe this should be for National contests only guys? *Would that be a fair compromise? *Should we really have this kind of rule in place for our little regional? *Please say no.

Whatever the result of your decision, I strongly suggest another SSA wide email from the rules committee specifically pointing out that as of today - any usage of an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Windows Phone (or PDA, most Tablets, etc) are absolutely illegal. *Then perhaps consider locking your doors and hiding under your desks for a few weeks and hunkering down tight. *Not sure if that would be a positive result. *“Any pilot attending a regional should go and get a throw away phone,” etc. *Yeah sure those cheap crapola throw away phones are going to work in BFE when you land out in the country somewhere. *But I digress.

Think about this carefully. *Do you really think that you’re going to be able to prevent any pilot truly intent on cheating via cloud flying if someone really wants to with today’s technology? *Are we going to randomly ransack everyone's cockpits on the grid assuming that any contraband found is a DSQ? *Throw the new guy out of regional who is caught with a smartphone in his pocket? *If yes, then what of the last 3 years? *Like baseball’s steroid investigations, should we hold investigations? *Subpoena phone records to ensure that data and calls did not occur during contest flights of the top pilots? *Confirm the device model of these calls? *Or are we just going to let that slide and start now that the butterfly vario is available? * Nobody is going to cloud fly let alone manage any level flight with an iPhone. *Now we have to tell all the pilots at the regional to go buy a dumb phone, program in some numbers, etc. *Seems paranoid to me at best.

I really hope for all of our sakes that an inadvertent flight into IMC fatal accident never happens, because if the lawyers get ahold of this thread while suing us we are probably going to get killed in court. *Absolutely killed. * That would not be fun to watch.

Sean,

The real issue is not the cheating. The real issue is that the
behavior (cloud flying) has in the past resulted in IMC mid-airs. As
Eric pointed out there have been no AH-preventable fatalities in his
memory, but there have been mid-airs as the result of cloud flying.
It's a matter of basing the rules on known facts rather than
speculation about situations that have not caused one contest
accident.

It is a real concern that technology advances are making this rule
extremely hard to enforce, and human nature being what it is we will
unfortunately likely see a repeat of IMC mid-airs as a result.

QT

John,

I respect your concerns. I really, really do.

But leveraging this rule against a couple yahoo's that might get killed via a midair collision while cloud-flying in an SSA sanctioned contest VS. the vast majority of glider pilots which might honestly benefit from this instrumentation if they accidentally needed to maintain straight and level flight in a cloud one day seems foolish at best. I again sight Kemptons experience. I ask you why do these instruments exists? Why do so many glider pilots use them? To Cheat?

It is illegal to be in the clouds in a glider, PERIOD. No pilot, contest or not, should be in a cloud (technically within 500 ft. of base) ever. Should the rules committee start encouraging protests when pilots witness other pilots within 500 ft. of cloud base? I have a great video camera...and while i am not the best pilot in the world I could leech these illegal cheaters really, really well ;-). Video evidence is stunning. Do we really want to go here?

Consider this... Does the FAA mandate removal of the the Artificial Horizon & turn and bank instruments from power aircraft when a non instrument rated pilot flies the aircraft? Would it be wise (for the same reasons you sight) to remove the gyro based instrumentation every time a non instrument rated pilot gets into the cockpit. Would this be an equally ironclad deterrent which ensures that non instrument rated pilots never get into a IMC? Hmmm?

Doesn't the occasional private pilot or even student accidentally fly into IMC accidentally? Is this how the FAA deals with this problem? Has a private pilot ever saved themselves after inadvertently entering IMC?

Honest pilots make mistakes. The dishonest illegal pilots who goes into the clouds intentionally are not a concern of this discussion. They are on their own. Just as a pilot who flies inverted thru the open hangar should not be a concern of our contest rules committee. Those acts are completely illegal and outside of the area with which we can control.

So lets PLEASE stop worrying about 2 idiots who might cheat and the honest guy who might die in a potentially preventable accident.

The use of blind flying instruments used to be an easy rule to police
in times gone by. There were only a few choices AH, T&B and the Bohli
compass come to mind.

As I understand it, the objective of the no blind flying instruments
rule is to prevent contestants making high climbs in cloud that would
allow them to fly around or through large areas of less or non
soarable conditions affording those pilots an advantage over those who
do not have the skills and or the instrumentation. It has been
mentioned a number of times that it is possible to cloud climb without
an AH or T&B using the information one receives from a GPS display. So
if you have the mind to cheat you just need to perfect the skills and
go ahead and do it. There are other cloud flying situations that we
would maybe deem to be ok rules wise, e.g. penetrating a cloud layer
that we have risen above in wave and have flown over to reach a
turnpoint but must now descend through because we have left the source
of lift that got us to this point and have no other option. So going
up in cloud is not sanctioned but maybe going down or through is ok in
some situations.


The posts citing sportsmanship and current trends in technology when
considered together suggest to me we should accept the inevitable
advances of technology and work on our code of conduct. It seems that
it would be reasonably easy to spot a cheater if all we are concerned
with is an unfair advantage gained from a cloud climb. If a particular
competitor hands in logs that show heights that are inconsistent with
everyone else's then that competitor could be asked to explain how he
achieved this miracle to a jury of his peers. How you deal with a jury
decision that does not accept the pilot's explanation depends on the
severity of the infraction and the desire to prevent this behaviour.
Policing this activity need add no extra burden on contest organizers.
Logs are readily available to all contestants, you can't get a better
police force than the interested parties. They fly in the same air as
the potential cheater and can best assess the validity of that pilot's
story.

If the objective is to disuade cloud climbs, banning instruments won't
stop that, I personally know pilots who have achieved cloud climbs
using only ASI and vario, it's possible. How many pilots do you
believe would be willing to look their fellow competitors in the eye
and bare faced lie about their miserable attempt at gaining
recognition. Hardly seems worth all the fuss and bother to even make a
rule to cover the situation.

On 2/16/2012 9:55 AM, Sean Fidler wrote:
John,

I respect your concerns. I really, really do.

I'm still trying to understand why this is such an important safety
issue to you. So far, your concern seems to be based entirely on the
possibility of it happening, as you haven't shown how it would have made
contests safer in the past. It doesn't seem like it's something we need
to speculate about, with a rule that's been in force for 40 years or so.
There should be plenty of incidents to talk about if the danger is as
high as you claim.

Please humor me on these questions:

Have you ever been sucked into a cloud during a contest, or do you know
someone that has?

Was there an incident that occurred outside of contest that made you
think getting near clouds was so dangerous, you'd rather sit on the
ground than fly without an AH?

Why do you think no one teaches students about using an AH, and why the
FAA doesn't require it to get a license?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

Have you ever been sucked into a cloud during a contest, or do you know
someone that has?
NOT I BUT YES I KNOW SEVERAL OTHERS WHO HAVE. I ALSO KNOW ALOT OF PRIVATE POWER PILOTS WHO HAVE MADE THE SAME ERROR. IN GLIDERS, KEMPTON, AND 3 OTHERS I WILL NOT NAME. ONE LITERALLY THOUGHT HE WAS WITHOUT WINGS FOR SEVERAL MOMENTS AND TOO HIS SURPRISE THEY WERE STILL THERE (SOUNDS LIKE FUN TO ME).. I AM NEW TO THE HIGH LEVELS OF THIS SPORT BUT I HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE MORE WHO HAVE MADE THIS ERROR. I DONT BELIEVE EVERYONE IS LIKE KEMPTON AND WRITES ARTICLES ABOUT IT. I BELIEVE THE AH WOULD HELP FAR MORE THAN WOULD EVER CONSIDER CHEATING BY THIS MEANS.

Was there an incident that occurred outside of contest that made you
think getting near clouds was so dangerous, you'd rather sit on the
ground than fly without an AH?
I AM AN INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT, I GET IT. I FEEL THAT THE TECHNOLOGY IS A SAFETY MEASURE AND NO MATTER HOW SLIGHT THE CHANCE IT IS RIDICULOUS TO START HAVING PEOPLE DEBILITATING INSTRUMENTS TO REMOVE THE TECHNOLOGY AS IT CAN BE A LIFE SAVER TO A PILOT WHO MIGHT NEED IT. SIMPLE FACT.

I WILL FLY WITHIN THE RULES, ULTIMATELY. I AM NO WAY AM CONSIDERING NOT FLYING. END EVEN THOUGH SOME PERHAPS DISLIKE ME KNOW FOR ARGUING THIS TOPIC, I THINK ITS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO STAY WITH.

Why do you think no one teaches students about using an AH, and why the
FAA doesn't require it to get a license?
DONT CARE AND BECAUSE WE ARE LAZY IN GENERAL AS AN INDUSTRY. I FEEL MOST CONTEST PILOTS ARE GOOD "HHOONNEESSTT" PILOTS EASILY CAPABLE OF MAINTAINING LEVEL FLIGHT WITH A GOOD AH OR T&B IF THEY HAPPENED TO GET PULLED IN, RATHER THAN PULLING THERE WINGS OFF IN A BENIGN SPIRAL OR UNCONTROLLED DECENT OR PARACHUTE JUMP.

Im starting to think that some think I am arguing so that I can personally cheat. I hope not. I just think that going against the tide of technology here is a waste of time. stop, and go with it.

Why do you, eric, think it is bad to allow AH for everyone and smartphones? Just go with it? Would that be bad? Why?
- show quoted text -

Eric- i understand that in europe cloud flying training was part of the private glider pilot requirements. not sure if this is still the case today.

in general i think basic instrument skills should be a part of all pilot training, even sport & glider pilot. every pilot should have some basic understanding of how to maintain control of their aircraft if forced into imc. im not saying they will all live, but that doesn't mean they should not have some training.

On 2/17/2012 6:39 AM, Sean Fidler wrote:
Eric- i understand that in europe cloud flying training was part of
the private glider pilot requirements. not sure if this is still the
case today.

in general i think basic instrument skills should be a part of all
pilot training, even sport& glider pilot. every pilot should have
some basic understanding of how to maintain control of their aircraft
if forced into imc. im not saying they will all live, but that
doesn't mean they should not have some training.

That is always available in a power plane, but I don't many glider-only
pilots seek it out, and I think requiring it would reduce the number of
glider pilots entering the sport if it were required, but to the point
here (contests): contest experience has not shown that it would help.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

On 2/17/2012 6:32 AM, Sean Fidler wrote:
Im starting to think that some think I am arguing so that I can
personally cheat. I hope not. I just think that going against the
tide of technology here is a waste of time. stop, and go with it.

I do not think you are hoping to cheat.

Why do you, eric, think it is bad to allow AH for everyone and
smartphones? Just go with it? Would that be bad? Why?

I do think that following your recommendations could lead to people
cheating (and discovering they can not handle cloud flying), and that it
could lead people to thinking others ARE cheating (so they decide "why
bother entering contests?").

I do think that it is becoming increasingly easier to cheat, given
changes in technology, so perhaps the method to discourage cloud flying
needs to change. The most practical one I can think of is a daily
altitude limit enforced like the current one on 18,000'. A long term
approach could be one that detects cloud around the glider, such as
video or relative humidity, and makes it part of the logger record.

The "honor method" seems impractical if everyone has an AH on their
panel, without some means penalizing egregious abuse. That might be a
committee of pilots, chosen randomly each day, that examines logger
files for climbs well above others in the area, and gives penalties.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)