"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message ...
"Hank Nixon" wrote...
Please provide info to member of the rules comm. as to what rule says
that team flying is not allowed in US competition. I have not been
able to find such a rule.

U.S. National FAI-Class Competition Rules, Contest Year 2003:

10.7.2.7 Relaying of information between aircraft for any reason other than
safety is prohibited. This specifically forbids team flying.

Team flying happens now- you simply are not aware of it.

Somehow, I'm not surprised...

Marc

Reply: As you might well expect, there are many elements to team
flying. One of the more useful is the exchange of information by
radio. As noted, this is not permitted in our rules.
There are many other elements and techniques that can be used by
cooperating pilots to help each other without verbal communication.
Those who have flown with and watched the skilled team flyers can see
them as obvious.
These include cooperative search patterns in both climb and glide,
agreement as to lead and follow, waiting for partner so both can stay
in the same air, and a variety of other techniques.
These occur today and are legal within our rules. It does not involve
cheating as you seem to imply.
With 2 frequencies available for us to share among ourselves and other
users, I suspect it would not be pretty. Those who could team fly with
little or no radio communication would simply have the benefit of the
portion of radio chatter that is useful and would not use the radio to
pass on useful info to others.
UH