I've seen cloud flying at contests but rarely. Up against the wisps, sure. But rarely in the clouds. I do recall very clearly an incident back in the '70s (that's 1970s for you kids) when five of us were working up to cloudbase about 20 miles north of Cordele on the edge of a giant blue hole. The top guy went right up into the cloud and popped out the side a minute or so later on the correct heading. He made it home. The three guys I was with rolled out on course when we got to cloudbase. I stayed with them for a mile or two but was unhappy that we were betting everything on finding lift on the way home in what felt like dead air. So I did a 180 behind them, went back, and climbed up again. By then, the wind had drifted me closer and I had glide path. On the way back I heard excited chatter from the three ahead of me. It was a great moment for a 20-something kid as I passed over them, all down in a plowed field about a mile short. I got lucky; I could have been slow. I never said much about the guy who went into the cloud; certainly not a protest. I'm pretty sure the three guys with me saw him, too, but they must not have said anything. The offender was a nice guy, popular, not normally in contention for the lead so I think we just all let it go. Today, I'm not sure what I'd do.

In the old days, I saw turnpoint films that clearly didn't meet the requirement (the TP and photo target both in the frame shot at a shallow angle). I never protested it but it rankled me. Another pilot did protest another's film one day and it was upheld, but everyone felt awkward.

I also knew of one pilot, quite famous, who was reputed to announce a phantom start a few minutes after his real start when he heard a crowd hit the IP, hoping that the gate would re-up his start time in the confusion rather than admit they missed him. Don't know if it was true but I heard it enough times to wonder.

Few really wish to be a jerk and face the choice of reporting a violation or just grumbling quietly.

I do think that if pilots had the tech to creep up into the clouds, some would be tempted to use it. I've done enough 0/0 final glides (sorry, BB) to know that sometimes a few hundred feet can make a huge difference. Saying we can't enforce a rule 100% of the time is no reason not to put measures into place to make it more difficult for pilots to break that rule, so long as it's not an undue burden on the organizers.

On that subject, when Elmira mandated the use of stealth in FLARM at the 15M/Std. Nats a few years ago, we all had to submit a flight log evidencing compliance in our config files. AFAIK, it worked well. Actually, I thought stealth worked quite well at that contest but this isn't the thread to raise that subject again.

Chip Bearden
JB