Cheap GPS Loggers for FAI Badges - Status?

Dnia 5/25/04 8:56 PM, U¿ytkownik Todd Pattist napisa³:

Every
glider pilot needs 8 successful flights to reach 3 diamonds - and that's
all most pilots need certified logger for.
And those 8 flights may need 80 attempts, and all on the
same day as the owner of the certified FR wants to use it.
You're right, just exaggerating
In our club (over 50 active members, about 20 "active" gliders) we have
4 loggers (1 owned by the club, rest by members who are willing to lend
it to others). I don't remember any day when we "run out" of loggers
(but see note about Silvers below).

Methods of flight recording in all competitions below continental level
are up to organisers. These are the people who should be convinced to
"COTS" solutions.
Competitions are seen as a level beyond the 3 silver legs.
If a pilot has reached the competition level, we don't
really need to entice him to XC.
Many young pilots here reach competition level without enough funds to
buy own logger. They were using cameras and this had been giving huge
handicap to logger owners. That's main reason we introduced COTS in our
competitions.

That's great, and I applaud the Polish effort, but the badge
system is still closed without the approved $800 FR.
The main difference is, we still fly Silvers with cameras and
barographs. Nobody complains about that. In my opinion, using camera
during XC and preparing the baro are skills each pilot should have.
Maybe I'm a bit sentimental
I am also aware barographs is extinct species in many places. That makes
problem really serious.

However things may change if IGC bans cameras some day. AFAIK it has
been already discussed and it's inevitable

--
Wojtus'.net __|__
FidoNet: 2:484/47 `--------o--------'

On 25 May 2004 11:56:22 GMT, Don Johnstone
wrote:

I do not know that it is silly. On the one hand we
have a barograph which by admission is in-accurate
and requires complicated and, it has to be said, approximate
corrections and on the other hand we have GPS which
is more accurate and the corrections for which are
straightforward. My FR is also a barograph, it records
pressure altitude and the GPS altitude. Why, instead
of making a calculation to correct the pressure altitude
to geometric altitude, cannot the geometric altitude
recorded be used directly. IF not is there a cogent
argument against?

Sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. As we sometimes say in
Oz " blind Freddie can see that".


GPS altitude is now so obviously much better there should not even be
an argument.
All gliding badges, records etc are essentially trivial, of interest
mainly to the holder, with no implications for the wider world.
We have gone to ridiculous lengths to protect the integrity of
something that isn't that valuable in the first place and the security
of the approved IGC FR's is largely illusory for anyone that cares to
look carefully.

When GPS was allowed instead of turnpoint photography for records the
field wasn't level between old and new so I don't think changing to
GPS altitude for badges and records should be a philosophical or
fairness problem. The accuracy characteristics of the GPS signal are
so well known that it only remains to choose the level of confidence
you want and there is your error band.

In aviation, pressure altitude is mainly of use for air traffic
separation purposes

Mike Borgelt

On Tue, 25 May 2004 16:28:40 +0200, Janos Bauer
wrote:


Good point, there are several non-destructive ways to detect the place
of this switch/switches and avoid it during hacking. Inside the FR I
suspect the same serial communication between the logging part and the
pure GPS part as it's on all GPS systems (NMEA-183). Here you can inject
your fake position data with the existing sims. Some pressure hack also
needed.
Hopefully noone spends his/her freetime on it....

Even easier is simply to open once, take photos, have it resealed and
then do it again. Plenty of approved FRs have lost their security for
unknown reasons. I've fixed a couple of Volksloggers where the welding
on the tags to the lithium security battery was faulty, causing
intermittent loss of security. I'm a VL distributor but I certainly
know how to defeat the VL security now . Anybody would figure it out
having opened one once. I imagine the same happens with other designs.
You are right about the GPS engines.
Mike Borgelt

Let's see - so far I see the contingent from Oz and US weighing in. GFAC
members from those countries, are you listening :-))

In all seriousness, Mike has presented far more eloquently than I what I
believe to be a majority opinion (based on a highly unscientific poll of
undoubtedly intoxicated members of my local club on the deck after flying).
So, I would encourage those of you reading in anonymity to contact your
local reps if you believe the time has come to rapidly develop a plan to
allow COTS units for badges.

P3



"Mike Borgelt" wrote in message
...
On 25 May 2004 11:56:22 GMT, Don Johnstone
wrote:

GPS altitude is now so obviously much better there should not even be
an argument.
All gliding badges, records etc are essentially trivial, of interest
mainly to the holder, with no implications for the wider world.
We have gone to ridiculous lengths to protect the integrity of
something that isn't that valuable in the first place and the security
of the approved IGC FR's is largely illusory for anyone that cares to
look carefully.

When GPS was allowed instead of turnpoint photography for records the
field wasn't level between old and new so I don't think changing to
GPS altitude for badges and records should be a philosophical or
fairness problem. The accuracy characteristics of the GPS signal are
so well known that it only remains to choose the level of confidence
you want and there is your error band.

Mike Borgelt

Sorry Eric, you are right. I wanted to point out that most of the
cases there is no check on declaration by the OO. Of course it can be
done before or after the flight. I know about cases where a certain
logger is used by several persons in different sailplanes and it was
simply forgotten to reprogram the pilot name and glider type. You know
it's an everyday mistake. But only the OO can prevent to use this "fake"
log for a badge claim...
Other example: do I get more scores on OLC (or on any logfile based
contest) if I change a Nimbus4 to a Ka8 in the declaration? Can I
collect more scores if I keep my logger at the airport and ask others
just to carry it any time they fly xc? Who will know about it, it
happens at the other side of the world?

/Janos

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Janos Bauer wrote:


The OO has a much more important role than is recognized in
maintaining security for important flights (records) and the
existing tried and true OO system is more than sufficient
for badge flight security with a COTS recorder.



It's also true. I haven't seen any OO who checked flight declaration
before flight. For example in certain cases it's beneficial to replace
the nimbus4 with a ka8 in the declaration. Only the OO ensure that a
certain pilot did a FAI badge requirement and not only the FR traveled
in someone else's luggage compartment...


I'm puzzled: why does the OO need to check the flight declaration before
the flight on an approved recorder? I routinely make flights where the
OO doesn't check the flight declaration before the flight, which is
allowed by the approval document for my recorder. I can change the
declaration at any time I wish. Of course, if I change it after the
takeoff, it is invalid, and this can be determined from the flight file.

He is required to ensure the flight recorder from which the flight file
is taken is the same one that was in the glider when it took off (in
other words, "maintain control" of the flight recorder through
observation or sealing to the glider).

Janos Bauer wrote:

Sorry Eric, you are right. I wanted to point out that most of the cases
there is no check on declaration by the OO. Of course it can be done
before or after the flight. I know about cases where a certain logger is
used by several persons in different sailplanes and it was simply
forgotten to reprogram the pilot name and glider type. You know it's an
everyday mistake. But only the OO can prevent to use this "fake" log for
a badge claim...

In the USA, this "fake" claim would be discovered by the person
appointed by our national soaring organization to review badge claims.
Many claims are not accepted after this review because of errors of
various types. I don't know how a mistake like this one would be
handled, but it would be found. Perhaps in a club situation, a paper
declaration would be a good way to avoid the problem. I've made the
mistake myself, with my own logger, when I forgot to change the
declaration for a new task.

Other example: do I get more scores on OLC (or on any logfile based
contest) if I change a Nimbus4 to a Ka8 in the declaration? Can I
collect more scores if I keep my logger at the airport and ask others
just to carry it any time they fly xc? Who will know about it, it
happens at the other side of the world?

The OLC (and many club contests of this type) are run on the "honor
system". There is no formal protection against it. As long as the system
isn't abused, the participants will be happy and continue to enter it.
If groups of pilots around the world begin to submit flights they didn't
make, I think eventually it will be found out, and the contest rules
will change or pilots will simply not enter it anymore.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Todd Pattist wrote:

Excellent. I suppose it would be nice to know if GPS
simulators really work,

They do. Most simulators can read satellite ephemeris data
from a file. Web sites like

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS/cors-data.html

have past satellite ephemeris for download. At the ouput
of any GPS baseband chip there is next to nothing to tell
the difference between a properly set up simulator and
the real thing.

The more expensive simulators can even program a "skyline"
to match the glider's canopy, pilot's head, etc.

On the other hand, I'm sure the effort of creating the
perfect fake is in the same order of magnitude as flying
the thing in the first place.

Regards,

Iwo

On Tue, 25 May 2004 03:03:03 GMT, "Papa3"
wrote:

Right on Todd. What rarely hits the papers is that the vast majority of
major security breaches in corporate environments come not from external
hackers but from disgruntled or malicious employees. One DBA with root
access can bring on a world of hurt. Seems like we're facing a similar
situation here...

I'm not that bothered by security, but I do think that the majority of
COTS GPS systems are not technically adequate for the task in terms of
trackpoint storage and/or presence of a pressure sensor. See an
earlier post for details.

Even if Garmin do build a suitable COTS device, what makes you think
it will be appreciably cheaper than existing FRs or as cheap as
existing Garmin GPS units? Who else, apart from us, would buy it in
sufficient quantities to pull the price down to, say that of a GPSmap
296 let alone a GPS 76S ?

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

Bingo - so why continue to require pressure altitude?

In terms of the other requirements, folks here are using Garmin and other
devices on a daily basis to successfully document claims. Why are they not
"technically adequate."?


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 25 May 2004 03:03:03 GMT, "Papa3"
wrote:


I'm not that bothered by security, but I do think that the majority of
COTS GPS systems are not technically adequate for the task in terms of
.... and/or presence of a pressure sensor. See an
earlier post for details.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

The club system is far different in the U.S. Many can't or
won't buy them.


Todd Pattist - "WH" Ventus C

Todd, that may be true, but I think this is an international news group
and cetainly the majority of glider pilots live and fly in Europe and
are a member of a club, so in that respect Wojciech is right.


Robert