Wacky Tracky

The above comments are from someone who has had to walk out 9 miles to the nearest ranch, who has slept out overnight waiting for the morning light to hike out of a bowl pearched up above Mt Patterson accompanied by a two day carry out of my unscratched bird. Neither incident was much of a big deal. It was just a natural part of xc soaring. Guys dont have a clue nowadays of the perfectly normative situations we dealt with and still deal with when streatching our personal xc goals.

This thread is why people think soaring is all just cranky old farts.

For those of you that don't like tracking or electronics in the cockpit or the ground: What does it matter if someone else carries that gear? If they aren't actively flying reckless in your airspace, their preferences don't affect you AT ALL. Being bitchy about it is just as productive as whining about bandwagon sports fans.

The man had a question and was looking for info or help. How does being a dick about it help ANYONE? If you don't have something to add to the conversation, quit complaining on the Internet and go fly, or work on your glider, or do something productive.

No one cares about your negative opinion, and posting it for the world to see serves absolutely no purpose, other than to make you look like an asshole, tearing someone down for no reason (when they're trying to carry more safety gear, no less - Who criticizes safety)!?

The world doesn't need more assholes, so just don't do it.

--Noel

Two weeks ago we had a double GPS failure while travelling westward while south of the restricted area in Utah. No NOTAMS or warning about GPS outages. ATC later confirmed the military was conducting GPS "testing".

Paul A.
Jupiter, FL

Well Noel thanks for the response but it looks like the only guy getting "bitchy n using foul language is you. As to opinions like Dan M and others and myself, they arent "bitchy", they are just bringing to mind a different persoective that may get a guy thinking along another avenue regarding his/her survival. I have Spot, I also have APRS via amateur radio, both of which I use but I dont depend on them.

As to answering the original poster's question, we have all attempted to do that, final answer? Nobody really knows why the system is crashing then later posting the tracks. All the more reason to maybe get prepared for the time when the system might not serve you. That would be the responsible tact to take and that might be the point to get from my and others posts.

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 1:27:20 PM UTC-5, noel.wade wrote:
This thread is why people think soaring is all just cranky old farts.

For those of you that don't like tracking or electronics in the cockpit or the ground: What does it matter if someone else carries that gear? If they aren't actively flying reckless in your airspace, their preferences don't affect you AT ALL. Being bitchy about it is just as productive as whining about bandwagon sports fans.

The man had a question and was looking for info or help. How does being a dick about it help ANYONE? If you don't have something to add to the conversation, quit complaining on the Internet and go fly, or work on your glider, or do something productive.

No one cares about your negative opinion, and posting it for the world to see serves absolutely no purpose, other than to make you look like an asshole, tearing someone down for no reason (when they're trying to carry more safety gear, no less - Who criticizes safety)!?

The world doesn't need more assholes, so just don't do it.

--Noel

Thank you, Noel.

Noel please, you're such a politician. And we all know what is happening to politicians these days the non politician leads the pack.

Fact of the matter about GPS is this, use at your discretion. The owners of theses sats are not us as in you and me. And ultimately their responsibility to you if there is a "glitch" is zero. YOU as a pilot are supposed to be trained to use a map, VOR etc, and navigate without relying on a GPS or "glass". If you rely on a gps for positioning, to get your home, to navigate in general, to "track" you or let someone know your landout spot and can't use a map or properly you should NOT be in the air period.

I would like to see you guys/gals leave the GPS garbage at home and use a sectional to navigate. Can you actually do it? Do you even carry a sectional with you? Not in a tablet I am talking paper sectional and no I don't care about the tree its killing. Don't you think you would be a better pilot to be able to toss the gps (if you wanted to) and be able to run with a sectional? I do think so and I think the reliance on some of this technology is absolutely the problem today. The gps and spots are fantastic tools that you don't need to have. Do they make some tasks easier but that might be some of the problem. Everyone is so into the new stuff, the latest toys that they never have there heads outside the airplane and actually are paying "proper" attention to just flying the airplane.

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 12:12:28 PM UTC-7, Candid Sky Productions wrote:
---
Fact of the matter about GPS is this, use at your discretion. The owners of theses sats are not us as in you and me. And ultimately their responsibility to you if there is a "glitch" is zero. YOU as a pilot are supposed to be trained to use a map, VOR etc, and navigate without relying on a GPS or "glass". If you rely on a gps for positioning, to get your home, to navigate in general, to "track" you or let someone know your landout spot and can't use a map or properly you should NOT be in the air period.
---

I couldn't agree with this sentiment more. HOWEVER, the original poster wasn't talking about GPS for *their own* navigation at all. They were talking about a safety device for folks on the ground to use as reference.

Yet people's eagerness to rip someone for not being the pilot that YOU want them to be, the facts were totally overlooked.

What I think is bad for the sport is the eagerness to be negative and critical. To call people's equipment choices "garbage" when their choice does _not_ affect you in any way. To be so eager to pull other pilots down and question their skill or dedication or ability.

What the heck do folks even hope to accomplish, by blasting out such petty nonsense?

--Noel
P.S. Note the lack of swearing in my response, for those who wanted to complain about that as well. ;-)

I am glad you slowed down, took a breath and cooled off there Noel and thanks for keeping the conversation civil. As to "us telling others how they should fly", thats exactly the opposite of what we are advocating. In fact it is you who are passing judgement on those of us who prefer to take more of a non-tec-dependant approach to the sport. Your very words, quote "those who dont use tracking devices are irresponsible". Now who is judging who?

As to our sport being filled with old opinionated cranky geezers, well it is. Our soirt is aged for a variety of reasons, one of which being, those who advocate for the necesity of having all of the latest n greatest in tecno gizmos have priced the majority of young people right out of the sport.
As to the original reason for some of our posts, some of us "old cranks" have been there-done- that when it comes to xc and instrumentation failing. Maybe we, since we started flying in a limited electro age of soaring, have found ways to fly efficiently, stay alive AND keep our loved ones informed of our wearabouts without overt dependance on outside aids. You might want to give that some thought. Besides you should respect your elders lol

Oh p.s. I took an old 1-26 out for a 100k romp averaging 53mph today in marginal condx with 2,000 ft ceilings, the day you can do that I will consider you my elder

Correction yesterday