Power FLARM as logger

On Monday, December 3, 2012 8:39:03 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Monday, December 3, 2012 6:57:47 PM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:

Marc, slightly of topic, but can you explain why some flight recorders can be approved for badges but not diplomas? I can understand world records with all their fame and groupies that follows them may have more strict requirements, but what is the difference between diamond and 1000km diploma? I mean, who else cares but me if I have diamond or 1000km diploma?? Other than the IGC and flight recorder manufactures, does anyone else think that we need "approved" flight recorders for badges and diplomas? Anyone?



It is time to end this nonsense.



I take it I should not be expecting any flowers or chocolate from you.



Flight recorders exist at various approval levels, as some achievements are considered more noteworthy than others, so a higher level of flight documentation security would seemingly be called for in those cases. Rather than having everyone one buy a flight recorder with all of the required bells and whistles for world record use, lesser options are available for those who choose to save a few bucks.



Make a proposal to your IGC delegate to initiate the two year process needed to make this sort of alteration to the Sporting Code. Perhaps a return to cameras and barographs?

Marc, you deserve flowers and chocolate regardless :-)
But in case it wasn't clear, my proposal is not to get rid of flight recorders all together, but to just get rid of the approval requirements for badges and diplomas which are just personal achievements.

Ramy

Marc

Thank you for your response I am just starting out and appreciate the information.
My question came from the realization that I will have 3 GPS units (Power FLARM, Nano, and Nexus 7) in my glider and thought that it might just be a bit of over-kill as I remember the old days flying in Papua New Guinea with a wet compass and an incomplete map that said something like "maximum elevation not believed to be over 14,000".

On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 1:38:16 AM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
But in case it wasn't clear, my proposal is not to get rid of flight recorders all together, but to just get rid of the approval requirements for badges and diplomas which are just personal achievements.

They may be just personal achievements, but there still needs to be a little something there that keeps mostly honest people, like myself, from "forgetting" the little things that sometimes make flights not quite valid. Like, managing to complete a 1000K flight except for the tiny little detail of still being 20 or 30 miles out on final glide at official sunset in a glider with no lights. Or, making a flight and somehow forgetting that Class A airspace begins at 18000 ft in our corner of the world. Or my personal almost, but not quite, achievement, the one time I managed to declare my perfect 1000K triangle out of TPH, climbing out with full water at 9:15 am, zipping out to Utah in no time, making it all the way back past Mt Grant to 10 miles out from my last turnpoint with essentially no turns, which should have been followed by an easy ride back to TPH. Except, the turnpoint was smack underneath a shelf of over-developed clouds, which were already dumping water. Since I wanted the "personal achievement", I had to try, with the pretty much inevitable result that I didn't make it back to TPH until the next day. Or, I could have just declared a moral victory, turned 10 miles out, and made it back for the BBQ, but somehow, it wouldn't have been the same.

I think the rules are there for valid reasons, and part of any achievement is managing to comply with the rules while making the flight. Without some independent means of demonstrating compliance with the declaration and rules, all you have is the pilots word. There is still a significant difference between "making" a 1000K flight, and actually getting the FAI diploma. So, yes, I still think we need flight recorders...

Marc, I completely agree with everything you say (including starting final glide after sunset...). My grip is only on the requirement for the flight computer to be "certified". What's wrong with using SeeYou/XCSoar etc IGC files for badges and diplomas? I imagine much more pilots will be motivated to get their badges and diplomas if they could simply submit the IGC files from their flight computer, certified or not, just like OLC.

Ramy

Ramy,
IGC 'Position Recorders' have been created for exactly this purpose; no certification required.
http://www.fai.org/gnss-recording-de...tion-recorders

Nobody seems to care enough to make it happen, except for some more or less random approvals (e.g. of non-IGC certified FLARM devices).

Urs
FLARM

On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 10:24:43 AM UTC-8, Ramy wrote:
Marc, I completely agree with everything you say (including starting final glide after sunset...). My grip is only on the requirement for the flight computer to be "certified". What's wrong with using SeeYou/XCSoar etc IGC files for badges and diplomas? I imagine much more pilots will be motivated to get their badges and diplomas if they could simply submit the IGC files from their flight computer, certified or not, just like OLC.


Ramy, the approval process is only intended to provide some sort of reasonable baseline for the quality, integrity, and reliability of the evidence used to document flights that result in various kinds of FAI awards. We can argue about where the baseline should be, but if you eliminate the baseline altogether, in my mind, it starts to affect the value of the awards. GPS receivers are not all equal in quality, not all recording capable consumer GPS units produce usable position evidence, and code running on on readily reprogrammable devices isn't necessarily what it looks to be. We need some standards, which is not to say that existing standards are cast in stone.

Perhaps the IGC will eventually decide that SeeYou, XCSoar, or whatever, provide acceptable evidence on some specific kinds of hardware, but that is not the same thing as saying they will provide acceptable evidence on any and all possible hardware on which they run, which implies that there would still be a need for some sort of approval/certification process...

Marc

On Tue, 04 Dec 2012 10:24:43 -0800, Ramy wrote:

Marc, I completely agree with everything you say (including starting
final glide after sunset...). My grip is only on the requirement for the
flight computer to be "certified". What's wrong with using SeeYou/XCSoar
etc IGC files for badges and diplomas? I imagine much more pilots will
be motivated to get their badges and diplomas if they could simply
submit the IGC files from their flight computer, certified or not, just
like OLC.

The problem is that some pilots have, both in the past and currently,
continued to cheat and fake logs. Even for 500 km flights. I don't
understand that mentality at all, let alone how they can live with
themselves knowing they are liars whenever they say they've earned the
badge.

But, as long as that sort is around, we need secure loggers and the whole
business of Official Observers and paperwork to stop them from devaluing
the badge and diploma system for the rest of us.


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