On Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 12:23:30 PM UTC-4, wrote:

Meanwhile other racers have reassured me that the stuff I'm considering is commonly used, but technically illegal, and that doesn't exactly give me a warm feeling about buying instruments etc.

Let's try this: "May I have a show of hands please? How many of you have been asked to disable your gyro instruments at a US contest?"

Will we get even one?

I speculate that in 2017 we are at, or close to 100% non-compliance on the part of organizers, which makes this a dead issue. Asking the RC to get rid of the rule may well still be futile due to 50 years inertia ("We're not about to ask the board to get rid of a rule that's worked for 50 years" is what I was told). I still pull my trutrak turn indicator out of the panel for contests (takes 5 minutes), but it feels silly to do so when there are so many AHRS capable instruments out there. The reason I do pull it out is a) that's what the rules require and b) there's no downside, other than 5 minutes wasted time.

-Evan Ludeman / T8