On Feb 9, 2:04*pm, T8 wrote:
On Feb 9, 1:17*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:

*Even the "gentleman's agreement" doesn't
work to control this. *I have been in and around enough contests to
see this frequently and (at least after a few beers) most contest
pilots will fess up! *I have seen more than one of the names high on
the ranking list sneaking out of the side of a cumulus!

Then you have a problem. *Your options would appear to be peer
pressure or the safety box.

I'm not really a safety monkey (I'd go back to zero height finish
lines in a heartbeat), but I chafe badly when confronted with
borderline suicidal behavior. *This is one such instance. *I'd be
absolutely ripped if I had a really good day, stayed legal, got beat
by some jackass cloud flying.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

I'll repeat what I said earlier and Andy pointed out a few posts ago -
it's very hard to know when to pull out of a strong thermal as you
approach cloudbase, particularly out west. Most competitive pilots
will go as high as they can, since there is no practical way to
maintain the mandated clearance and no penalty if they do bust it.
Most will go into cloud as an unintended consequence at the top of a
fast climb they held for just one turn too many. This will happen
regardless of whether or not there are cloud-flying instruments.

Many competitors are already breaking the rules on mandated clearance
from clouds and there is no way to monitor this or penalize the
behavior. If you want to prevent it, you are going to have to come up
with a way to monitor it.

As a fellow contest pilot said to me "I'll start worrying when clouds
are shown on igc files"

Mike