Date of effect now 1 April 2004 for revised IGC-approval for certain legacy types of GNSS flight recorder

A good point has been raised on the IGC mailing list. With the new
categories it may be possible to have a ratified national record that
exceeds the same task world record.

Ian

In article , tango4
writes
A good point has been raised on the IGC mailing list. With the new
categories it may be possible to have a ratified national record that
exceeds the same task world record.

In principle this has always been possible because FAI and IGC (rightly)
cannot control criteria for events and flights for which the rules are
made by the National body.

For example, one of Jim Payne's USA 100 km triangle records was for a
time at a faster speed than the world record. This was because of
different criteria on the shape of triangles.

--
Ian Strachan

Bentworth Hall West
Tel: +44 1420 564 195 Bentworth, Alton
Fax: +44 1420 563 140 Hampshire GU34 5LA, ENGLAND

In principle this has always been possible because FAI and IGC (rightly)
cannot control criteria for events and flights for which the rules are
made by the National body.

This is true, but it does not apply to your exampe, below:

For example, one of Jim Payne's USA 100 km triangle records was for a
time at a faster speed than the world record. This was because of
different criteria on the shape of triangles.

In fact, the criteria were identical when the flight took place.

The IGC criteria changed after the flight, specifically for the
purpose of disapproving it.

It has always been the intention and practice of the USA to use
international rules for the homologation of national records.

-Pat

In article , Pat Russell
writes

In principle this has always been possible because FAI and IGC (rightly)
cannot control criteria for events and flights for which the rules are
made by the National body.

This is true, but it does not apply to your exampe, below:

For example, one of Jim Payne's USA 100 km triangle records was for a
time at a faster speed than the world record. This was because of
different criteria on the shape of triangles.

In fact, the criteria were identical when the flight took place.

The IGC criteria changed after the flight, specifically for the
purpose of disapproving it.

I think that is a bit hard. What happened was a difference in
interpretation of the then Sporting Code rule on triangle shape, the SSA
one was more generous than that of IGC. For the world record the matter
went to FAI arbitration via a Tribunal called by the President of the
FAI Air Sport General Commission (CASI). Personally, I was all for
approving it as a world record and gave evidence to the Tribunal to that
effect, as, I think did Bernald Smith on behalf of the SSA. However,
the decision went the other way. That's life!

So it is merely factual that for a while, until Jim Payne did an even
faster flight, the US 100k triangle record was in excess of the world
record.

This confirms my point that it is not possible for IGC/FAI to control
flights for which the evidence and interpretation is to National rules
and procedures rather than those of the IGC and FAI.

--
Ian Strachan

"Todd Pattist" wrote...
We have to wonder how many still don't have access due to
the cost of approved loggers versus inexpensive handhelds,
and how much interest in the badge system and our sport has
been lost due to the early decision that a handheld GPS in
an Official Observer sealed box is not sufficient for even
the lowliest FAI badge.

We tend to forget that, up until 3 years ago or so, the most popular
low-cost handheld GPS units didn't record altitude or time in their track
logs. Those that did record altitude often had little control when fixes
were recorded, so it was difficult to reliably record flights of more than 3
hours duration. The end result would have been that it would have been
necessary to fly with a sealed barograph, as well as a sealed handheld, and
the official observer would have needed to have a fair bit of knowledge of
the GPS unit to ensure that it was set up properly (and the track memory
cleared) prior to sealing. A written flight declaration would also be
needed, and the observer data handling would need to be fairly stringent to
maintain even a moderate level of integrity. It's not clear to me that
there would be any advantage over simply using a camera.

Speaking of cameras, they have continued to be acceptable evidence for all
badges and diplomas. I don't remember the exact figures, but the percentage
of badge claims made using cameras worldwide has declined to very low
levels. If the expense and complication of flight recorders was as much of
a factor as is being suggested, I don't think this would be the case...

Marc

I think that is a bit hard. What happened was a difference in
interpretation...

It was a bit hard, and I apologize. We agree on what happened.

I acknowlege that it has always been possible for a national
record to exceed a world record due to a difference in
interpretation of the rules. The Jim Payne example is a case in
point.

However, I think that you have missed the distinction between
the Jim Payne reality and the following hypothetical:

What if: a pilot who already holds a world record uses the same
flight recorder on a flight that beats the old record. He
submits his claim, gets a new national record, but is not
allowed to claim a new world record because the flight recorder
was downgraded in the meantime.

This is not a matter of "interpretation," nor has it ever
existed before. It is merely bizarre.

Pat Russell wrote:

What if: a pilot who already holds a world record uses the same
flight recorder on a flight that beats the old record. He
submits his claim, gets a new national record, but is not
allowed to claim a new world record because the flight recorder
was downgraded in the meantime.

This is not a matter of "interpretation," nor has it ever
existed before. It is merely bizarre.

It doesn't sound bizarre to me. Requirements can change as the situation
changes. For example, suppose after his first record, a way was found to
cheat with the type of recorder he used (perhaps a new algorithm for
cracking security codes is developed). I think it is bizarre to suggest
a recorder can be used for all records in the future, once it has been
used to establish one record.


--
-----
Replace "SPAM" with "charter" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:52:28 +0200, "Ian Forbes"
wrote:

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 13:00:36 +0000, CH wrote:

And why Ian is it, that suddenly the Cambridge 25 Model should not be
save enough anymore. Was the safety standard proposed by the IGC not
good enough - too lax?

The politics of flight recorders seems to be as complicated as some of
their technical aspects. Clearly there is a lot of mistrust surrounding
the motivation of the decisions of the "GNSS Flight Recorder Approval
Committee" (GFAC) both now and in years gone by. Perhaps the technical
issues should be separated from the political ones.

If the GFAC defined a series of "levels of security" for GNSS Flight
Recorders. For example:

Level 610: Encryption, microswitch, ENL, internal GPS, barometric hight

Level 600: Encryption, microswitch, no ENL, internal GPS, barometric hight

Level 510: ENL, internal GPS, barometric hight

Level 500: Internal GPS, barometric hight

Level 400: External GPS, barometric hight

Level 300: Commercial GPS with logging function

Level 200: GPS + PDA + Software
Security depends on people and procedures, not hardware.

Any logger could be approved for anything with the right security
procedures in place. There is an approval condition for each logger
anyway and it simply needs to spell out the O.O. procedures required
for that logger.

GFAC's task would then be limited to examining the design features of
each logger and specifying the security procedures. They could be less
onerous for less prestigous events.

Better still just have a set of design feature rules that
manufacturers would design to for a particular level of O.O. procedure
and cut GFAC out of any approval loop. It only leads to suspicions of
corruption.

Mike Borgelt

X-no-archive: yes
In article , Marc Ramsey
writes
Speaking of cameras, they have continued to be acceptable evidence for all
badges and diplomas. I don't remember the exact figures, but the percentage
of badge claims made using cameras worldwide has declined to very low
levels. If the expense and complication of flight recorders was as much of
a factor as is being suggested, I don't think this would be the case...

Marc

I asked this question of our Badge Officer and the suggested figure was
'about 1-2 percent' for UK.

There is however, a suggestion (not from GFAC I hasten to add) that
Camera should be 'phased out' over the next few years.

Tim Newport-Peace

"Indecision is the Key to Flexibility."

Eric, you make a very good point.

What if security were not an issue?

What would your position be if our hypothetical flight recorder
had been downgraded because the manufacturer decided to retire?