SSA Contest Rules and Waiver for Nationals Now Posted

If only there were some other way for the scorer's to tell if somebody was circling in cloud and purposely braking the rules...and yet still leave the competitors with a horizon for emergencies.
What if we mandated everyone carry a GPS recorder and take a look at the traces at the end of the day?

I distinctly recall my second flying lesson because we ended up in the clouds! A front blew in and there was STRONG convergence lift everywhere. We flew just below VNE with full airbrakes and the vario was pegged up. Clouds quickly formed around and below us. Suddenly, we found ourselves in the soup.. 20 years later, it remains my most terrifying aviation experience. I'm currently putting together a panel for my new ship and it will absolutely have AHRS.

Pretty much every modern VFR airplane has AHRS and the FAA requires all private airplane pilots to log 3 hours of instrument training. This isn't all for ****s and giggles; unintended flight in IMC is one of the leading causes of GA accidents.

I recall that just a few years ago, an ASW-27 came out of the clouds in pieces over Reno. That pilot survived thanks to his parachute, but others have perished.

In this day and age, we really ought to encourage AHRS installation and teach our students how to use it. I understand the desire to reduce cheating, but I feel that banning common safety equipment is going too far. Besides, as others have mentioned, every cell phone and tablet is a potential AHRS device, so it has become impossible to enforce.

I'd rather risk losing a race to a cheater than losing my life to inadvertant IMC. In any event, I will have AHRS enabled for every flight and it will be really unfortunate if this prevents me from participating in contests.

Why did the weight adjustment formula in 11.4.1.5.6 change between 2019 and 2020? Which formula is right? 2019 uses addition in the parenthesis, 2020 subtraction.

On Sunday, March 1, 2020 at 10:37:16 PM UTC-5, Tony wrote:
Why did the weight adjustment formula in 11.4.1.5.6 change between 2019 and 2020? Which formula is right? 2019 uses addition in the parenthesis, 2020 subtraction.

There was an error in the published 2019 rules text that is corrected in the 2020 rues text. The calculator on the SSA site and used in the scoring system was and is correct.
UH

Thanks, I hate it when that happens

Now...if the 17m Kestrel and the ASW-20B have the same performance, why cant they both fly in club class?

For those who think it’s about time the SSA drop it’s restriction to instruments that allow flight without reference to the ground...............there are many things that can be found inside the clouds and all of them are bad:
1. Another sailplane!
2. Wing ice, Probe ice!
3.Hail, Lightening, Extreme turbulence!
4. The ground!
5. Joe Cessna on an IFR Plight plan!

It doesn’t happen very often, but on a thunderstorm day and a MAT is called, contests have positioned themselves in front of the storm and logged some high speed miles flying a constant heading at an altitude above cloud ceiling! On the last day of that contest, I saw a sailplane come out of the clouds and two other pilots told me they iced up! Contestants are very observant and if somebody’s doing it and nothings done to stop it, some will join the movement!

If you want to kill sailplane racing in the US, just let someone find an airliner in the soup!

JJ

JJ, nobody here supports soaring in clouds, besides, it's not allowed by the FAA. The problem is that pilots frequently find themselves in IMC by accident. The FAA reports that unintended flight in IMC is the 7th leading cause of accidents. These particular accidents are almost always fatal (86% fatality rate). This is the reason that you find AHRS in nearly every VFR airplane, and the reason why every VFR airplane pilot is required to receive instrument training. The FAA is working very hard to reduce these types of accidents and the soaring community is actively setting the stage for more accidents.

A far more rampant problem is that many (most???) pilots don't maintain legal VFR cloud clearance. How do ensure that contest pilots stay 500ft below cloud base? Topping off a few thermals is an easy way to gain thousands of feet of additional climb in above-average lift; a major competitive advantage for sure! For every 1ft of illegal climb inside clouds, I would guess there are mor ethan 1,000ft of illegal climb below clouds. It seems to me that we're banning safety equipment in order to minimize a tiny problem, while doing nothing to control a very large problem.

How about this for a solution? I'll install a Gopro in my cockpit and if anyone questions my flight, then I'll be happy to submit the video.

Heck, it would be really easy to develop a video analysis tool for contest directors. Basically, any areas of the image that never change are easy to identify as the sailplane cockpit. When most of the remaining area (95%?) is white for an extended period of time (10 seconds?), the software would export a short video clip for manual review.

On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 12:30:13 PM UTC-5, wrote:
The problem is that pilots frequently find themselves in IMC by accident.

Hmmm. I must be doing something wrong. Or right. I've been flying since 1965 and never found myself in IMC by accident. I agree pilots going up closer than 500' to cloudbase is an issue, but that practice certainly won't be eliminated by allowing attitude indicators.

I also agree there are times when another few hundred feet in a cloud could prove to be an advantage, because I've seen it. I was a young kid so I didn't make waves but it made the difference between that offender making it home that day and three guys landing 1 mile short. I would handle it differently now. Making that practice safer with an attitude indicator won't make it any more legal or sportsmanlike.

I also understand the desire to have a backup instrument when wave flying, because I've been on top watching the window shrinking and had to come down quickly. That's part of flying.

If the problem is that we aren't enforcing the rule, then we can fix that. If you show up at a contest with an instrument that has an attitude indicator, you should be required to provide evidence it's disabled each day. Yeah, it's a bother. We had to do something similar when Stealth mode was mandated for FLARM in the Elmira Nationals (15M & Std.) a few years ago. We all understood the rule and complied.

As it happens, I don't have an instrument with an attitude indicator (AFAIK). I don't want to feel like I have to go out and buy one just to stay competitive.

Chip Bearden
JB

Absolutely no one is arguing in favor of intentional cloud flying in competition. Jeeezus this gets frustrating.

Furthermo anyone who knows anything about climbing on instruments in a modern glider knows that it's hard, it's dangerous, it's illegal, it'll fill your instrument lines with water and...

IT'S S L O W.

So there's not a lot of motivation to go cloud flying in a race that I can see.

I fly eastern waves with some frequency, I want the gyro toy in the panel when I do that, surprises sometimes happen. Often, avoiding the potential for cloud problems with 100% certainty comes at a big cost in lost adventure.. Many of us are willing to settle for 99.X% certainty, with a back up plan for the 0.X%.

It doesn't bother me to fly a thermal soaring contest with the instrument removed, I will never need it and never miss it for that. The annoyance comes the -next- time I get the glider out, the wave is cooking, the instrument is not installed and it's either impossible (20+ kts of wind) or very inconvenient to re-install. I have had this happen more than once, it just strikes me as really freaking dumb.

We should try to be less dumb. This is low hanging fruit on that ole tree of knowledge.

Not holding my breath on this one.

best regards,
Evan Ludeman / T8

Thanks for the support, Tony.

Fortunately, all the D2/LS-8/ASW-28 pilots are offering big money for my glider—nothing says performance like 17 meters.