On Feb 20, 3:39*pm, nimbusgb wrote:

Everyone involved at the IGC is very firmly connected to gliding and,
knowing more than one or two of them, I can say all of them have the
sports best interests at heart. Trying to make things workable on a
global scale and still have some level of security when an OO is not
about was a very difficult task. With 20:20 hindsight it may be easy
to say they did not get it perfect but they came up with a workable
system.

At the time that flight recorders were just getting going a LOT of
consultation was done and many, many hours were spent by people like
Tim for zero reward apart from delivering an acceptable methodology
for improving and simplifying the flight verification procedures. At
the time Cambridge were the only manufacturers of any sort of flight
recorder following their early demos in Sweden in 93 and New Zealand
in 95. Even they did not get things all their way in the ensuing
regulation changes. In this day and age and the track record of
American companies it still surprises me that they didn't tie the
whole idea up in patents which might have had us paying 5 times the
current price for flight recorders today.

I agree that the communication to and consultation with the membership
appears to be very poor at times but I don't see too many people
sticking their heads above the parapet to try to change that. Perhaps
they are all too aware they they will become targets for bored pilots!


A very rational post. I have to admit that I was one of the folks who
was a strident (if under-informed) critic of folks on the GFAC when I
first got involved in the issue. I personally feel badly about that,
and I would hope that most of us now realize it's a thankless job.
In large part, I agree that the IGC and GFAC got it about right,
especially the part about establishing standard record formats which
allow us to speak the same language when it comes to log file analysis
and the like. Many commercial industries continue to struggle with
this even today.

OTOH, I have to at least suggest that the GFAC has tended (if
unintentionally) to represent the views of certain regions where the
conduct of gliding is highly organized and revolves around reasonably
well equipped clubs. The sense of frustration felt by the grass
roots in other locations seems irrational to them; a sort of
cognitive-dissonance if you will. Couple that with the fact that
communication has not always been especially open, consistent or
complete (in today's world we'd use the buzz-word "transparent") and
it's not hard to understand why there have been some harsh critics.

If you look at COTS, it would have been nice if the attitude going in
had been "how can we make this work" as opposed to "why won't this
work". Just that change in mindset would have quickly led to a
solution-driven approach which would have moved the entire effort
along much faster. Couple that with a more open/transparent
communication plan (think along the lines of an open-source movement
with issues being identified and then addressed by the community), and
I'm convinced we would already be using COTS equipment successfully
for badge flights. So, if anything, it may be that poor governance
has been the issue, and it's not too late to change that.

Respectfully,
Erik Mann
LS8-18 (P3)