The SSA-OLC

Kilo Charlie wrote:
If you happened to notice that there are a couple of bad apples that
consistently fly outside the rules or if there is a gross infraction on any
given flight then pull them aside and ask them if they had considered how
that could impact not only them but the rest of us. But everyone looking
over everyone elses shoulder....come on folks.....pick up a good book or
play with your kids for a few minutes more each day instead.

That's essentially what the OLC team wants as well. And I think the
bad apples have unfortunately exposed themselves here because they
don't like the private counselling they got.

-Tom

Denis wrote:
Paul Remde a écrit :

I hope most glider pilots will continue to post their flights to the OLC. I
also hope that pilots that break FARs will NOT post their flights on the
OLC.

The bad guys in this are the pilots that submitted flights that break FARs.

What about the pilots that flew 5' after sunset and did not submit their
flights ? Are them not bad guys too ? Do you imply that anyone may break
any FAR's provided that they don't publish their flights ?

And what about some posters that confessed here that they've happened to
fly after the sunset without lights ? Why don't you ask them to cancel
their posts, and/or forward their posts to the FAA in order to prosecute
them ?

If we ask a pilot to remove a flight claim, we are trying to help them
recognize their mistake. It's called self-policing, not a police
action. We are looking to avoide outside scrutiny, not encourage it.

Making a mistake is a bad thing. Adults recognize this, and take
responsibility for their mistakes. Trying to deflect blame is not adult
behavior, it's what children do.

So if you bust a reg, that's bad. But if you brag about it, that's
worse.

Andy wrote:
wrote:
" It is the policy of the SSA that all FAR's will be observed".
The same thing is done in contest flying with the exception
that the pilot gets a serious point penalty.

Hank,

You and I have flown enough sanctioned contests to know that just not
true! Only infractions that show in the log are enforced. Ask any
contest pilot about their experiences running cloud streets if they
believe all FAR are observed.


Yes, and that's what's really at the root of this. The whole issue
started with the Robert Harris altitude record in 1986. There were
questions about whether he had a proper ATC clearance for the airspace
at the time. Although he was ultimately awarded the record, the
consensus that followed was that it would be counterproductive for the
SSA to encourage, or even create the appearance of encouraging FAR
violations to enhance a soaring performance.

Now that was in the days of barographs and cameras for flight evidence,
Now we are dealing with IGC loggers, and need to update our thinking to
reflect the changes in technology. So yes, we are talking about
violations that are obvious in the IGC log files, because that is the
evidence we have. We don't have usable evidence of cloud bases, so that
point is moot.

Just because we can't see every violation does not mean we should
ignore the ones in plain sight. Certainly if evidence was found that
someone was competing while their certificate was revoked, they would
also be disqualified. Who would argue against this? Never mind, I'm
sure there are some people on r.a.s who would.

5Z wrote:
Kilo Charlie wrote:
If you happened to notice that there are a couple of bad apples that
consistently fly outside the rules or if there is a gross infraction on any
given flight then pull them aside and ask them if they had considered how
that could impact not only them but the rest of us. But everyone looking
over everyone elses shoulder....come on folks.....pick up a good book or
play with your kids for a few minutes more each day instead.

That's essentially what the OLC team wants as well. And I think the
bad apples have unfortunately exposed themselves here because they
don't like the private counselling they got.

-Tom

Let me emphasize that in these two specific cases, there was extensive
private email communication, and also personal communication from their
SSA Regional Director. So your comment about private conselling is
accurate. They chose to go public, repeatedly making baseless
accusations to try to support thier positions. So instead of using our
limited volunteer time to build and foster the OLC, we are forced to
take this unnecessary side trip to nowhere.

Doug Haluza wrote:
So yes, we are talking about violations that are obvious in the IGC log files, because that is the evidence we have. We don't have usable evidence of cloud bases, so that
point is moot.

Doug,

I don't have any problem at all with rejecting flight logs that have
evidence of gross FAR violation.

All I have lobbied for is a more reasonable interpretation of the
sunset rule. I have stated that many, if not most, if not all, pilots
break some FARs and I get tired of the preaching from those that seem
to claim they never had a flight that ever broke one FAR.

End soaring flight at sunset and reject logs with gross violations of
the sunset rule and I'll say no more. Let the FAA decide if they want
to take enforcement action against a pilot that lands a few minutes
after sunset.

If you do that I don't care how you define sunset. The consequence of
landing a minute after SSA sunset time will be an insignificant number
of points.

Andy

Paul Remde wrote:

- The SSA and the SSA-OLC committee has never helped the FAA come after
anyone. The SSA-OLC committee has had reports sent to us of flights ending
after dark or at altitudes that break FARs. The pilots that made the
reports thought the flights were not very sporting, not fair competition,
and worse, could make all other glider pilots look bad. The SSA-OLC
committee then did its job and asked the pilots to remove the flights from
this public forum. The SSA-OLC committee (I'm on it) would prefer to never
have to do that.

Paul,
First of all, I am sorry that you find this thread so useless.I was
trying to get some insight from a very active user group, and not start
another flame fest like the "Sunset" thread.If you could humor my
useless opinion here, I would like to explain my original post.
First, I did not mean to say that it is wrong to remove posts to OLC
where there have been flagerant disregard of FARs.What I took issue
with was the SSA memo on the OLC portion of their website.Imagine if
you will, a memo like this being posted on the AOPA website.My guess is
that AOPA members would storm the headquarters in Maryland (Or wherever
they are).I would rather see the SSA use this goodwill they have with
the feds to mitigate any enforcement action.Judging by Toms post, this
is hopefully the case.It wouldnt hurt the SSA to change the wording of
this memo.
Second, and this is in reference to the "OLC Sunset Warning" on the SSA
website.If we can put the "sunset" part of that memo to bed and just
deal with the altitude portion for a minute, it is clear that the guy
who wrote it doesnt have much of an understanding of this issue and how
the Feds interpret it.I use a Cambridge model 20 with version 6.0 and
this reports both GPS and pressure altitudes.I have never flown my ship
above 17300 feet, and yet on days with a low altimeter, my box has
shown on or about 18K.Now of course this is not a safety issue because
ATC will not assign FL180 to IFR traffic on days with low pressure, but
I dont like the thought of having to explain this to the guy that typed
the "Sunset" memo.
Another concern is the lateral part of the box.I use Aero Explorer 1.1
(and I am not very good with any of this stuff yet), and I do not have
any type of map feature.All of the turn points are just dots on a white
backround and there is no reference to any airspace.What would happen
if you flew across a TFR (Inavertantly of course) or something and the
Feds wanted to see the flight log?Would the SSA cheerfully hand it
over?
Now the main gist of my post Paul, was that I am amazed amount of
infighting on R.A.S. over the SSA-OLC.I thought it would be prudent to
post straight to the OLC in Germany and forgo all of this.
K Urban

Andy, the USNO is the definitive authority on sunset time--there is no
arbitrary SSA definition of sunset. USNO makes online calculators
available that compute sunrise and sunset for any place, for a single
day, or a table for an entire year. So the data is easily accessible.

Now as far as what to do, the SSA policy is uniform for OLC, B&R and
contests--the flights are to be "disqualified". For contests, that
means zero points for the day, plus a possible penalty. For B&R it
means the claim is denied. For OLC, to be consistent with the
international practices, we request that the pilot remove the claim.

If you think this is too severe, you need to make that request to the
SSA Board. But I don't think they will accept that an "insignificant"
penalty is consistent with the SSA policy that FAR's must be observed.

Andy wrote:
Doug Haluza wrote:
So yes, we are talking about violations that are obvious in the IGC log files, because that is the evidence we have. We don't have usable evidence of cloud bases, so that
point is moot.

Doug,

I don't have any problem at all with rejecting flight logs that have
evidence of gross FAR violation.

All I have lobbied for is a more reasonable interpretation of the
sunset rule. I have stated that many, if not most, if not all, pilots
break some FARs and I get tired of the preaching from those that seem
to claim they never had a flight that ever broke one FAR.

End soaring flight at sunset and reject logs with gross violations of
the sunset rule and I'll say no more. Let the FAA decide if they want
to take enforcement action against a pilot that lands a few minutes
after sunset.

If you do that I don't care how you define sunset. The consequence of
landing a minute after SSA sunset time will be an insignificant number
of points.

Andy

Andy, the USNO is the definitive authority on sunset time--there is no
arbitrary SSA definition of sunset. USNO makes online calculators
available that compute sunrise and sunset for any place, for a single
day, or a table for an entire year. So the data is easily accessible.

Now as far as what to do, the SSA policy is uniform for OLC, B&R and
contests--the flights are to be "disqualified". For contests, that
means zero points for the day, plus a possible penalty. For B&R it
means the claim is denied. For OLC, to be consistent with the
international practices, we request that the pilot remove the claim.

If you think this is too severe, you need to make that request to the
SSA Board. But I don't think they will accept that an "insignificant"
penalty is consistent with the SSA policy that FAR's must be observed.

Andy wrote:
Doug Haluza wrote:
So yes, we are talking about violations that are obvious in the IGC log files, because that is the evidence we have. We don't have usable evidence of cloud bases, so that
point is moot.

Doug,

I don't have any problem at all with rejecting flight logs that have
evidence of gross FAR violation.

All I have lobbied for is a more reasonable interpretation of the
sunset rule. I have stated that many, if not most, if not all, pilots
break some FARs and I get tired of the preaching from those that seem
to claim they never had a flight that ever broke one FAR.

End soaring flight at sunset and reject logs with gross violations of
the sunset rule and I'll say no more. Let the FAA decide if they want
to take enforcement action against a pilot that lands a few minutes
after sunset.

If you do that I don't care how you define sunset. The consequence of
landing a minute after SSA sunset time will be an insignificant number
of points.

Andy

Doug, until this post you acted somewhat professionally, but you lost
it.
Here are my responses to your comments, then I'm out of this public
flaim war.
1 - I will email you privately the email. I would not post it
publically. I would never go as low as twisting someone words or take
them out of context. But I probably should have not quote him either.
2 - I have absolutly no idea which flights you are claiming I posted to
Brazil. This is a complete BS. My last flight out of Truckee was on 9/4
and was posted to the SSA- OLC and I haven't been to Truckee since. It
was also the last flight I posted to OLC.
3 - I have no idea who KM is and I never had any contact with him
before.

Doug, I must say I am very disappointed. You would have done a favor to
your credibility if you would have checked the facts first.

Ramy

Doug Haluza wrote:
Ramy wrote:
Excellent points, KM.
I saw a comment from the originator of the olc, Mr. Reiner, that he
"find this development (meaning the fact that the SSA has changed the
rules in this respect)
also very sad".
Yes, you can post under any country and club you wish and bypass the
SSA-OLC. Some of us considering doing it, some already are.
Also you can post any length of flight, there are many who post local
flights as well. And 200-300 miles is not a short flight...

Ramy

Ramy, why don't you post the whole quote in context so we can interpret
it for ourselves, instead of giving us your obviously biased
interpretation. The SSA-OLC team has been in constant contact with the
OLC-i team, including Mr. Reiner Rose, so he is well aware of the
situation, and he has not expressed such reservations to us. I will let
him speak for himself, though.

Also your statement about posting under any country is incorrect. The
flights you made from Truckee that you claimed to Brazil were caught by
the OLC-i admin, and moved back to the US. His email to me indicated
that he was quite annoyed about this. So please stop, and do not
encourage others to do the same.

Also, would you please disclose if you had any contact with KM before
he made the post you so wholehartedly endorsed here.

Doug Haluza wrote:
Also, would you please disclose if you had any contact with KM before
he made the post you so wholehartedly endorsed here.

Doug, I gotta ask, what does this matter?For your info, I have never
had any contact with anyone on R.A.S. exept for Paul Remde when I am
interested in buying stuff , and you with some questions about
OLC.Thanks for the response by the way.My intention here is not to
start another OLC flamerama, it was just to ask around and see if
posting on OLC was worth it with all the infighting and contention
going on.All of the legality issues really dont concern me much. I
think your argument here is really with someone else because I never
took issue with removing illegal flights from OLC.My issue was with the
content of the SSA's OLC portion of the website.
K. Urban