Gary Osoba's record flight declined

[Brian Bange[_2_]]

FAI has canceled the following Class D (Gliders) World record :
================================================
Claim number : 15103
Sub-class :DU (Ultralight Gliders)
Category: General
Type of record : Free Distance
Course/location : Zapata, TX (USA)
Performance : 791 km
Pilot : William G. OSOBA (USA)
Glider : Woodstock
Date :19.07.2008
Current record : 627.60 km (09.07.2004 - Leonardo R. BENETTI-LONGHINI,
USA)
Reason for cancellation: No dossier received in due time by NAC
================================================

[[email protected]]

Flew the flight, it was all for real. SSA informed me that the FAI
would not accept the flight log from my Cambridge Model 20 logger
since they didn't file the last time around for certification. They
have only validated later models for world record level. So the file
wasn't sent. It's my fault for not knowing, and assuming it was OK
since all prior logs submitted for world records were flown with this
model. It has changed.

Whatever. This would have been number 15, and after a while they don't
seem to matter so much. Especially at what it costs to certify world
records. I can do better- 1000 km open distance is possible in the
Woodstock on a good day so if it presents itself, I'll fly the longer
flight and file it with a newer logger.

This is the first notice I have received in this regard.

-Gary

[Ramy]

On Oct 31, 5:17*pm, wrote:
> Flew the flight, it was all for real. SSA informed me that the FAI
> would not accept the flight log from my Cambridge Model 20 logger
> since they didn't file the last time around for certification. They
> have only validated later models for world record level. So the file
> wasn't sent. It's my fault for not knowing, and assuming it was OK
> since all prior logs submitted for world records were flown with this
> model. It has changed.
>
> Whatever. This would have been number 15, and after a while they don't
> seem to matter so much. Especially at what it costs to certify world
> records. I can do better- 1000 km open distance is possible in the
> Woodstock on a good day so if it presents itself, I'll fly the longer
> flight and file it with a newer logger.
>
> This is the first notice I have received in this regard.
>
> -Gary

No Gary, it was not your fault. One can not possibly keep up with such
bureaucracy.
This goes to show the meaningless of records, as the majority of true
record flights don't get approved or never filed.
This is also a big disappointment from Cambridge. You would expect
they will look after their many customers who fly with model 20.
Great flight Gary. You have the record in my book.

Ramy

There will always be those who can fly record flights and those who
can only decline or approve them...

[[email protected]]

I like to say it's the experience, not the achievement. That flight
is a world record experience. No one an touch that. Those hours are
yours for eternity. The rest of us are in awe, inspired to experience
similar hours.

Fellow Woodstock pilot,
Matt Michael

[Karl Striedieck]

The NAA rip off for doing nothing (Judy Ruprecht does all the work) is the
main reason we ridge runners don't bother with records anymore. They also
skim off thousands from what money we can raise to fund our US Team. Again
for no value added. This is an example of a beltway bureaucracy coasting
along on a compulsory welfare program.

Karl Striedieck

> wrote in message
...
>I like to say it's the experience, not the achievement. That flight
> is a world record experience. No one an touch that. Those hours are
> yours for eternity. The rest of us are in awe, inspired to experience
> similar hours.
>
> Fellow Woodstock pilot,
> Matt Michael

[[email protected]]

Hmmmmm.

No sour grapes here. I've been a little out of the loop for a couple
of years when it comes to matters of officialdom. However, if you're
going to play the game, officially, you need to be up on things. I
know this from past experience, and it really is my fault for not
checking more thoroughly ahead of time. I was merely relying on past
experience. All of my dealings with Judy Ruprecht and others at the
SSA when it comes to filing official records have been quite
satisfactory, and I appreciate all of their hard work and expertise.
Judy is remarkably good. I have also had good dealings with Art
Greenfield at the NAA. It does get expensive, however. It is
disappointing regarding the Cambridge issue.

After this filight, I was urged to post it to the OLC- something I
hadn't done before. I guess I bombed out there as well, not realizing
there was a very short deadline. It was filed a couple of days late.
Again, my fault but now I know. I am curious about how this flight
would have scored properly. I couldn't find the Woodstock and so
picked a 1-26 as something close. Later, a friend wrote and said the
Woodstock can be found under M for Maupin. Does anyone have the
ability to calculate the distance and score the flight with proper
handicap from the flight log? I wonder how this flight would have
compared to others flown this past season in the OLC. I'm really
curious about this but can't figure it out from the website.

Best Regards,
Gary Osoba

[Pat Russell]

On Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:47:59 -0700 (PDT), Ramy >
wrote:

>No Gary, it was not your fault. One can not possibly keep up with such
>bureaucracy.

Agreed.

Furthermore, the disapproval of the Model 20 is based on nonsense. It
has been deemed by IGC to be a security risk because it uses a single
secret key. A single key system in a different logger was broken
once, as an experiment. Consequently, all single key systems are
disapproved. This is painting with a broad brush. Sort of like not
trusting the lock on my bank because someone once jimmied the lock on
my suitcase. No one has ever broken Cambridge security.

IGC have done a lot of good for our sport, but in this case they have
hurt it.

Congratulations on a terrific flight, Gary!

Pat

[Papa3]

On Nov 1, 7:55*am, wrote:
> Hmmmmm.
>
> No sour grapes here. I've been a little out of the loop for a couple
> of years when it comes to matters of officialdom. However, if you're
> going to play the game, officially, you need to be up on things. I
> know this from past experience, and it really is my fault for not
> checking more thoroughly ahead of time. I was merely relying on past
> experience. All of my dealings with Judy Ruprecht and others at the
> SSA when it comes to filing official records have been quite
> satisfactory, and I appreciate all of their hard work and expertise.
> Judy is remarkably good. I have also had good dealings with Art
> Greenfield at the NAA. It does get expensive, however. It is
> disappointing regarding the Cambridge issue.
>
> After this filight, I was urged to post it to the OLC- something I
> hadn't done before. I guess I bombed out there as well, not realizing
> there was a very short deadline. It was filed a couple of days late.
> Again, my fault but now I know. I am curious about how this flight
> would have scored properly. I couldn't find the Woodstock and so
> picked a 1-26 as something close. Later, a friend wrote and said the
> Woodstock can be found under M for Maupin. Does anyone have the
> ability to calculate the distance and score the flight with proper
> handicap from the flight log? I wonder how this flight would have
> compared to others flown this past season in the OLC. I'm really
> curious about this but can't figure it out from the website.
>
> Best Regards,
> Gary Osoba

Hi Gary,

Anyone who is using SeeYou can tell you the OLC points for the
flight. Feel free to send it to me.

As the chairman of the SSA's FAI Badge and Record Committee, I felt
terrible when we saw your file (Judy checked with us for guidance).
In fact, the "problem" in the eyes of the IGC with the older Cambridge
Model 10, 20, and 25s is a little more complicated than you
describe. Their decision to reduce the approval level to "All
Badges" is related to concerns about the security/encryption
methodology employed on these models. We can agree or disagree as to
whether the IGC made the right decision in reducing the approval
levels of these ubiquitous (at least here in the US) and extremely
long-lived recorders, but them's the rules.

FWIW, the SSA has gone against the IGC in the sense that we have
decided to continue to allow these legacy CAI recorders to be used all
the way up to National Records. We are acutely aware that this
creates the potential trap of a flight being "good enough" for a World
Record but only being acceptable up to the National level.

Regards,
Erik Mann (LS8-18 P3)
Chair, SSA FAI Badge and Record Committee

[[email protected]]

Thanks for the info, Pat. It sounds like the problem, if there is any,
is with the IGC certifying process (I don't know enough about the
issues- maybe there is a security risk). Not with Cambridge. I'm sorry
if my posts unnecessarily discredited Cambridge in this respect.

-Gary

[[email protected]]

Gary - If you had been able to post your flight on OLC, you would
have scored 1483.63 pts (assuming 11.9M Woodstock). This would have
been the longest flight in North America and the second longest in the
world for 2008! Great flight!

David Stevenson

[[email protected]]

On Nov 1, 8:25*am, wrote:
> Gary *- *If you had been able to post your flight on OLC, you would
> have scored 1483.63 pts (assuming 11.9M Woodstock). This would have
> been the longest flight in North America and the second longest in the
> world for 2008! *Great flight!
>
> David Stevenson

Thanks, Dave. The 11.9M version is correct.

And congratulations on your world record flight in the Silent 2!
BTW, the best things about my scenario is that Leo Bennetti Longhini
will retain his open distance record- is there a nicer person in
soaring?

Best Regards,
Gary Osoba

[Ramy]

On Nov 1, 10:13*am, wrote:
> On Nov 1, 8:25*am, wrote:
>
> > Gary *- *If you had been able to post your flight on OLC, you would
> > have scored 1483.63 pts (assuming 11.9M Woodstock). This would have
> > been the longest flight in North America and the second longest in the
> > world for 2008! *Great flight!
>
> > David Stevenson
>
> Thanks, Dave. The 11.9M version is correct.
>
> And congratulations on your world record flight in the Silent 2!
> BTW, the best things about my scenario is that Leo Bennetti Longhini
> will retain his open distance record- *is there a nicer person in
> soaring?
>
> Best Regards,
> Gary Osoba

While it is definitely too late now, it is generally possible to
submit flights to OLC few days late, at least it used to be in the
past. All is needed is to email it to OLC and ask nicely. They are
more flexible than the FAI and can post it for you :-)
Could have won the OLC flight of the year award...

Ramy

[Ian Strachan]

On Nov 1, 11:55*am, wrote:

> No sour grapes here. I've been a little out of the loop for a couple
> of years when it comes to matters of officialdom. However, if you're
> going to play the game, officially, you need to be up on things. I
> know this from past experience, and it really is my fault for not
> checking more thoroughly ahead of time.

Dear Gary,

I feel for you, having flown such a great flight and then to find out
that your recorder is no longer IGC-approved for World Records or FAI/
IGC badge flights. Mind you, in my record-breaking days I had a
number of flights turned down for failures to comply with one aspect
of the rules or another, so I've been there too! One flight I did
before the days of IGC-approved recorders, was turned down because the
proof that the motor glider engine had not been run was not positive
enough. So, the next weekend I flew it again but had an OO seal the
engine inside the engine bay with tape (which could have been broken
if I needed to run the engine to prevent a field landing). The tape
was unbroken at the end of the flight and it was validated. Now, with
IGC-approved recorders we have a much better worldwide system.

As you generously say above, you should have checked. On that point,
it it easy for anyone to check by simply going to the IGC GNSS web
site and downloading the latest IGC-approval document for that type of
recorder. In your case the three legacy Cambridge models 10, 20 and
25.

Go to: http://www.fai.org/gliding/gnss

then go straight to the end where there is the list of IGC-approval
documents for all 43 types of IGC-approved GPS recorders from 16
different manufacturers. BTW, there are three new types of recorder
under test for IGC-approval at this moment.

On the IGC GNSS web site, there are also free downloads and many other
things. For example, the free IGC Shell program for downloading and
validating IGC files, which was created by distinguished SSA member
Marc Ramsey, who often posts on this newsgroup.

The issue with the three legacy Cambridge models was wider than the
lack of Public/Private Key security. With 43 types of recorders with
all sorts of different characteristics, it was becoming more and more
difficult to treat them all in the same way. Therefore, in 2005, IGC
introduced a series of different IGC-approval levels for ALL IGC-
approved recorders. These levels are listed in para 1.1.3.3 of Annex
B to the Sporting Code (also on the IGC web pages).

Another factor with the legacy Cambridges is that the IGC Validation
process does not work with the IGC file, only with the CAI binary
format. There have been several cases of pilots losing flight
validation because they did not realise this and lost the CAI file.
The IGC GFA Committee asked Cambridge several times to change their
external software so that IGC file would validate directly, but this
was not done in the commercial turbulence that happened after Dr David
Ellis sold the business and it moved from Vermont. You might think
that you could always go back to the recorder and extract the CAI
binary. However, this may not be in the recorder because with these
early models, if setup information is changed, previous flights are
erasedfrom the memory. Bear in mind that the memory capacity of all
older-generation recorders is much less than modern ones and, except
for the Volkslogger, old files are over-written when the memory is
full. For instance, I remember a flight by Chris Rollings that was
over 12 hours and his legacy Cambridge recorder ran out of memory at a
4 second fix interval and started over-writing the first bit of the
flight.

If you read the IGC-approval document for the legacy Cambridges, these
cautionary notes are included, and some others.

So that's the moral, every now and again go and look at the
information provided free for you on the IGC web site !

Regards to all SSA people from this side of the pond,


Ian Strachan
Chairman IGC GFA Committee
Lasham Gliding Centre, UK

[[email protected]]

Hello Ian:

Thanks for your cogent and comprehensive remarks. Hopefully, these
will prove helpful to others as well.

And thank you for all of your hard work over the years!

Best Regards,
Gary Osoba

[danlj]

On Nov 2, 11:14*am, wrote:
> Thanks for your cogent and comprehensive remarks. Hopefully, these
> will prove helpful to others as well.
>
> And thank you for all of your hard work over the years!
>
> Best Regards,
> Gary Osoba

After some private correspondence, Gary Osaba's flight is now posted
on OLC
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/gliding/flightinfo.html?flightId=1538997862

dan johnson N18UF

[Ian]

On 2 Nov, 10:17, Ian Strachan > wrote:

> With 43 types of recorders with
> all sorts of different characteristics, it was becoming more and more
> difficult to treat them all in the same way. Therefore, in 2005, IGC
> introduced a series of different IGC-approval levels for ALL IGC-
> approved recorders. These levels are listed in para 1.1.3.3 of Annex
> B to the Sporting Code (also on the IGC web pages).

And that, my friends, is why I'm sticking with clockwork and silver
nitrate!

Ian

[kirk.stant]

> And that, my friends, is why I'm sticking with clockwork and silver
> nitrate!
>
> Ian


Which, I believe, are no longer accepted for badge/record claims (at
least in the US - no sure about Britain) - so why bother?

If you really think using a barograph is easier than a logger, you are
a real Luddite!

Cheers,

Kirk

[noel.wade]

I have no connection to the company, but I absolutely _love_ my
ewMicroRecorder. Flew with it in a few different gliders at a few
different places this year and it worked great everywhere I went.

Built-in GPS and a fully-approved IGC logger for all levels of
flights. It has ONE BUTTON to turn it on and off (and it
automatically turns on if you supply it with ship's power - for "hands-
free" operation). Plugs directly into a PC or Mac to grab the IGC
file (like a USB thumb-drive), or get the SD-card version and just
pull the card at the end of the day. No menu-insanity or switchology
like the Volkslogger or a lot of the fancy flight computers (I can
hook my PDA up to the MicroRecorder and get a lot of the same
functionality, and if the unit is hooked up to ship's power it can
even pass that along to the PDA and charge it in-flight).

Even if you have a comprehensive flight computer, the MicroRecorder is
a great secondary / backup unit. Its also the perfect "club logger"
because its so simple and rugged.

http://www.ewavionics.com/
(and Sold in the US by Cumulus Soaring)

--Noel

[[email protected]]

Hi all,

I try to get into contact with Gary Osoba and Matt Michael, two owners of Woodstock,
as I placed a blog about the Woodstock and Gary at my Website UL-Segelflug.de
Could anybody give me the mail-adresses of both pilots? Would be very nice.
I know the thread is already seven years old, but maybe it still works.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus
http://ul-segelflug.de

[Tony[_5_]]

They both still read this group

[[email protected]]

Hi Tony,

thanks for info, so I hope they will reply.

Regards from Germany

Klaus

[[email protected]]

On Friday, October 31, 2008 at 12:30:04 PM UTC-7, Brian Bange wrote:
> FAI has canceled the following Class D (Gliders) World record :
> ================================================
> Claim number : 15103
> Sub-class :DU (Ultralight Gliders)
> Category: General
> Type of record : Free Distance
> Course/location : Zapata, TX (USA)
> Performance : 791 km
> Pilot : William G. OSOBA (USA)
> Glider : Woodstock
> Date :19.07.2008
> Current record : 627.60 km (09.07.2004 - Leonardo R. BENETTI-LONGHINI,
> USA)
> Reason for cancellation: No dossier received in due time by NAC
> ================================================

Are there tows available near the Zapata area? When is the best time frame to go for long straight out flights?
Doug Levy

[[email protected]]

> FWIW, the SSA has gone against the IGC in the sense that we have
> decided to continue to allow these legacy CAI recorders to be used all
> the way up to National Records. We are acutely aware that this
> creates the potential trap of a flight being "good enough" for a World
> Record but only being acceptable up to the National level.
>
> Regards,
> Erik Mann (LS8-18 P3)
> Chair, SSA FAI Badge and Record Committee

Just to be clear on regs, the Sporting Code (para 3.0d) stays entirely out of the business of national records, so national gliding bodies can invent record types and acceptable evidence to their heart's delight.

[Soartech]

Doug,
Tows are not usually available in Zapata except during the hang gliding world record encampment which occurs every summer, usually in July. Check Ozreport.com for a calendar of dates. Towing is for ultralight gliders and hang gliders only. Not fast enough for heavy sailplanes.


>
> Are there tows available near the Zapata area? When is the best time frame to go for long straight out flights?
> Doug Levy

[[email protected]]

I can be reached at wby0nder at aol dot com.

Still flying my Woodstock. Amazing machine

Matt Michael
Ames Iowa USA