Revised IGC-approvals for some types of legacy recorder

"Mike Borgelt" wrote...
Great. What you mean is that any manufacturer could be screwed around
by the GFAC as there is no publicly stated, openly available policy.
It has happened before.

Clearly, the requirements will be somewhere in the continuum between
Diamond-level and all flights approval. What isn't clear (in my opinion,
anyway) is exactly where those requirements should ultimately be positioned.
Discussions with those seeking to gain approval in this category is one way
this positioning could be determined.

Writing a specification around one manufacturer's product, approving
that product and others from the same manufacturer and then changing
the rules for new entrants into the market to make it more difficult
and expensive for them while still leaving the old rules for the
original manufacturer's products would be not only considered
unethical in Australia but most likely illegal. The ACCC does have
teeth and uses them regularly.

I see flight recorders from 5 different manufacturers which received all
flights approval under the original specification. All of those recorders
will be reduced to badge/diploma approval as of 1 January 2004 (with one
possible exception, which is under review). All manufacturers who submitted
new models after the change were required to have them meet the new
requirements for full approval, including those who had older models
approved under the old requirements. The recorders approved since the
requirement change are, almost universally, lower in price than those that
were approved under the earlier requirements. I still fail to see your
point.

Marc

"Mike Borgelt" wrote...
We could also get real and eliminate the pressure sensor out of the
logger and start using geometric altitudes like the rest of aviation.

Which would make it really easy to fake a flight using a GPS simulator. The
change to geometric altitude will happen soon, at least above the mean
altitude of the tropopause (32K feet or so). I personally believe the
pressure sensor requirement should be eliminated for badge/diploma level
approval.

Marc

Tim Newport-Peace wrote:

I did not find anywhere in SC3A any mention of Recorder Categories,

you're right, there are none

I think I must disagree with Denis about "only loggers approved for
world records be accepted for world championships".

In any competition it is far more difficult to falsify a recording

Not so much, you may use a simple software to modify slightly your
depature time without changing take-off, landing, etc.

When using photo-time cameras it was difficult too to cheat, but it has
been done (at least at WGC 93 in sweden)

And, apart from the technical considerations, there is so few pilots
attempting world records that no reasonable manufacturer will ever
present any new model in this category !!! It's not economically viable.

--
Denis
Private replies: remove "moncourrielest" from my e-mail address
Pour me répondre utiliser l'adresse courriel figurant après
moncourrielest" dans mon adresse courriel...

You miss the point entirely.

There is no signature on the GPS signals, therefore any system capable of
generating GPS signals can feed them to a flight recorder via the antenna,
exactly like the real satellite system. All the flight recorder can do is
take the data, and generate a signature proving that what *it received* has
not been tampered with.

Pseudolites ( GPS generators for test purposes ) are available, at least 5
manufacturers, by my very cursory search a while ago. They are still
relatively expensive, but not much in comparison to the cost of setting up
to do a world record.

Fooling the pressure transducer and engine noise detection systems on the
average flight recorder is a relatively trivial matter, for those who want
to cheat.

--
Regards,

Adrian Jansen
J & K MicroSystems
Microcomputer solutions for industrial control
"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Paul Repacholi wrote:
...
If anyone is going to fabricate records, then just feed the whole
system from a pseudolite set. No need to get inside the systems at
all.
...

This is just what the cryptograhic RSA signature makes impossible,
not to fake such records, but to put them in an IGC file that the
validation program accepts as a genuine file coming from the logger.

Mike Borgelt wrote:


At least 30 days notice to the IGC that records will be attempted.

Either you are joking, either you have a very good weather forecaster...

--
Denis
Private replies: remove "moncourrielest" from my e-mail address
Pour me répondre utiliser l'adresse courriel figurant après
moncourrielest" dans mon adresse courriel...

Wow! If they do away with the pressure sensor requirement,
I can submit SoaringPilot for approval. If it only
gets the lowest level approval, I'd be happy. I'm
sure Jerry and Henryk would agree. However, I won't
get my hopes up. That way if it happens, it will be
a WONDERFUL surprise. :-) Later!-MarkAt 22:42 19 November 2003, Marc Ramsey wrote:I personally believe thepressure sensor requirement should be eliminated for
badge/diploma levelapproval.Marc

Mark Hawkins wrote:

Wow! If they do away with the pressure sensor requirement,
I can submit SoaringPilot for approval. If it only
gets the lowest level approval, I'd be happy. I'm
sure Jerry and Henryk would agree. However, I won't
get my hopes up. That way if it happens, it will be
a WONDERFUL surprise. :-) Later!-Mark

At 22:42 19 November 2003, Marc Ramsey wrote:
I personally believe thepressure sensor requirement should be eliminated for
badge/diploma levelapproval.

The lack of a pressure sensor is not the only thing that prevents PDA
software from getting approval. But, keep trying, Mark 8^)

Marc

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:21:06 -0800, "Marc Ramsey"
wrote:

"Mike Borgelt" wrote...
We could also get real and eliminate the pressure sensor out of the
logger and start using geometric altitudes like the rest of aviation.

Which would make it really easy to fake a flight using a GPS simulator. The
change to geometric altitude will happen soon, at least above the mean
altitude of the tropopause (32K feet or so). I personally believe the
pressure sensor requirement should be eliminated for badge/diploma level
approval.

Marc


So you feed a pressure sensor to the computer controlling the GPS
pseudolites and it roughly matches with GPS altitudes with appropriate
corrections for reasonable guesses as to the mean temperature in the
atmosphere. Dead easy! And a trivial enhancement to your pseudolite
system. Given that some IFR aviation GPS systems already use pressure
altitude for GPS aiding it would not surprise me if test equipment
that can do all this isn't available off the shelf.

Why limit the change to geometric altitude to above 32K feet? Most
loggers are on cockpit static (an original adamantly insisted on
requirement by GFAC now changed I believe - why?). That is good for 50
to 100 feet of error, you get sea level pressure changes and huge
errors due to temperature in the atmosphere, let alone running the
pressure sensors at maybe -20 C or colder. The fully approved
Volkslogger only claims +/- 2hPa over temperature which is another
+/-100 feet at around 20,000. You are already over any reasonable GPS
error budget.

Mike Borgelt

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 00:38:22 +0100, Denis Flament
wrote:

Mike Borgelt wrote:


At least 30 days notice to the IGC that records will be attempted.

Either you are joking, either you have a very good weather forecaster...


Not at all. Are you seriously suggesting that you can break a World
Record at essentially no notice on Sunday afternoon at your local
gliding club? Lots of luck.

Take a look at the effort that Steve Fossett and others are going to.

Nowadays it takes much preparation and planning which will take you
much longer than 30 days. It isn't at all unreasonable to require
prior notice of intention.

It has nothing whatever to do with weather forecasters (and I am one
-or used to be).

Mike Borgelt

Mike Borgelt wrote:
So you feed a pressure sensor to the computer controlling the GPS
pseudolites and it roughly matches with GPS altitudes with appropriate
corrections for reasonable guesses as to the mean temperature in the
atmosphere. Dead easy! And a trivial enhancement to your pseudolite
system. Given that some IFR aviation GPS systems already use pressure
altitude for GPS aiding it would not surprise me if test equipment
that can do all this isn't available off the shelf.

When is the demo going to be ready? 8^)

Why limit the change to geometric altitude to above 32K feet? Most
loggers are on cockpit static (an original adamantly insisted on
requirement by GFAC now changed I believe - why?). That is good for 50
to 100 feet of error, you get sea level pressure changes and huge
errors due to temperature in the atmosphere, let alone running the
pressure sensors at maybe -20 C or colder. The fully approved
Volkslogger only claims +/- 2hPa over temperature which is another
+/-100 feet at around 20,000. You are already over any reasonable GPS
error budget.

The IGC works in mysterious ways. It seems eminently sensible to me to
switch completely over to GPS measured geometric altitude, but I don't
get to make the rules. In any case, a number of people with expertise
in the area have argued rather convincingly that the relationship
between pressure altitudes measured above 32,000 feet or so and actual
elevation above the ground is tenuous, at best.

The reason for the change allowing panel mounted flight recorders to use
aircraft static as an alternative to cockpit static is very simple. An
instrument manufacturer requested the change, and persuaded us that the
original reasoning behind the requirement for cockpit static was no
longer relevant.

Marc