wrote:
Would someone please tell me - without rancor and name calling - how
the rule requiring ELT's for all SSA events in 2006 came to be. If I
read the 2004 poll correctly, 58% of the respondents did not want
ELT's
required at all and only about 22% wanted them by 2006. If the polls
are not going to have a bearing in the rules then why do them?

Tom
Idaho
Ken Kochanski (KK) wrote:
http://sailplane-racing.org/

Ken Kochanski
SRA Secretary


Reply
Mandatory use of ELT's is a major change which must be proposed a year
in advance in accordance with the SSA Contest Rules process. This is
done, in part to avoid surprise rules and permit pilots to plan
accordingly.
It also permits a comment period.
The reason the proposed rules are published in advance is so that
comments and exchanges like this can occur.
It is also understood that some decisions may,at times, not reflect
majority positions, This is rare and not done without considerable
thought.
Please feel free to have your director aware of your position. If
enough pilots oppose, and directors agree, this will not go into effect
next year.
Please understand, no voting on this rule occurs this year. The only
change related to this is to formally permit organizers to require
ELT's without getting the waiver previously required.
As to the reasoning behind the proposed '06 rule: Having been involved
in the search for one live pilot lost in the trees and onother killed
on a mountain, it is easy to see why they are needed. If your wife,
significant other, or whoever was the one that had to wait for you to
be found, possibly for months if you are dead , how do you think they
would feel?
Thanks for your input and for not calling anybody and idiot!
Hank Nixon UH
SSA Contest Rules Committee Chair