Club Procedures for Late Day XC Flights

On Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 1:33:35 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 1:10:39 PM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:
On Thursday, April 5, 2018 at 11:22:53 AM UTC-4, wrote:

As Evan said we've been debating the tracking issue at the club. My personal opinion is that cellphone-based tracking is fun and games but not a solution for the late-day retrieval nor much of a safety bonus. If somebody lands where there isn't cell service, then the tracking just stops somewhere and there is no way to know whether that pilot landed or not, is safe or not.


At 7pm (or any other time), you'll see one of three things from a cell phone track, a) a track still being laid down, b) a track that stopped for some reason at near ground level, c) a track that stopped for some reason at some much higher altitude. There is useful information here in all three cases.


-Evan / T8

Case "C" ("a track that stopped for some reason at some much higher altitude") may mean: glider entered an area with no cellphone coverage even at higher altitudes. Or, maybe the glider descended too low for cellphone coverage in that area, and is currently on the ground - or working on a low save. Or, it may mean that the battery in the cellphone died. Or the app crashed (not the glider). Or the cellphone slipped under the pilot and lost GPS signal. In short, not a lot more info than having no tracking at all.

True. So what? Case C turns out to be rare in practice. But the additional point is that case C clearly indicates a system failure, not cause for immediate concern. That's preferable to the Spot failure I had over the boonies at the Canadian border.