T8: Part of what's being tested every time we go XC soaring (never mind competition) is the ability to assess and manage risk. I relish this. If you take this out of the game... well, it's no longer the same game.


Are you f...ing kidding? You voluntarily enjoy the ability to assess and manage physical risk.. and by definition to occasionally fail with potentially fatal results? What is this, aviation or climbing Mt. Everest?

Anyway, fear not dear T8. Even with a hard deck, you will still be flying a motorless aircraft, and there will be plenty of opportunity for you to scare yourself silly even though you no longer will get contest points for it.. We'll even still give you points for flying in clouds, through thunderstorms, over unlandable terrain, shoot mountain passes with 10 feet to spare, and so forth. And the risk of losing points at 500 or 1000 feet might still be enough to keep you awake, though the hard ground won't give you quite the rush it used to.

I mean, really, of all the illogic on this thread, the idea that no longer giving contest points for what a pilot chooses to do under 500 or 1000 feet AGL, removes all risk from motorless aviation, so the pilot no longer has to "assess and manage risk" is the most ludicrous. You might as well argue that we remove parachutes, so pilots get more of the adrenaline rush of assessing and managing risks.

Oppose a hard deck if you will, but please bring some faint common sense, thought and logic to the discussion

John Cochrane