On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 9:57:27 AM UTC-8, wrote:
Andy, how different is this from the definition of Standard Class? The FAI/IGC established it in the 1950s, the German glider manufacturers allegedly colluded in the 1960s to rewrite the rule about terminal velocity dive brakes, and each country's aero club can do whatever they want (as the U.S. did with flap timers around 1980 and again a few years ago to handicap older gliders).

Or "approved flight recorders", the definition of which varies widely from country to country.

Within the U.S., is it standards? Or enforcement?

I'll grant you a dispensation from the "don't post if you haven't flown" mandate to respond.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

It is different in that setting standards for glider manufacturers, which by the way, also serve the interests of technological evolution, rather than retarding it - think 18-meter class, 2-seat, 20-meter class, 13.5-meter class (okay, not so much). More classes, more glider sales. If you are setting standards for gliders that are primarily designed and built to serve the buyers who race - and that's mostly what happens - you will get compliance from the manufacturers or they will sell far, far fewer gliders.

In this case the technology is significantly designed and built to serve much, much bigger markets than gliders. Transponders and ADS-B server general and commercial aviation, cellphones serve a market of well over a billion people. I think it will be hard to get Garmin or Apple, or Google to put in technology to restrict what information glider pilots can use. You could ban these things, but banning a device that can pick up transponder-equipped aircraft without ADS-B via TIS-B traffic services is a safety benefit near many airports, so requiring glider pilots to rip said equipment out to race seems problematic, as does restricting the acceptable range of manufacturers only to more high-priced bespoke soaring devices.

There are other examples, but that one is most prominent in my mind. I won't even get in to the cheating opportunities this opens up, but they are manifold. (Now I am sure to get the body-cavity search at Nephi).

9B