On Aug 5, 10:48*am, 150flivver wrote:
Just saw on the AOPA site that there was a glider fatality at the
contest in Uvalde TX yesterday, the 4th..

This is the second contest mid-air that I'm aware of this summer.

As I understand things, contestants are required to have parachutes,
spending $1-2000 for a parachute, mostly in case of a midair;
radios are only slight less expensive;
Everyone has at least one flight computer, usually at greater cost;
and of course everyone is required to have a GPS logger.
a FLARM unit is under $1000.

There is no defensible rationale for failing to require everyone
flying contests to be equipped with an operating FLARM device. It
contributes more to safety than all the other pieces combined.