US Rules Committee to ban XC Soar in US soaring competitioneffective immediately? - Ahh the "genius!"

On Feb 27, 7:16*am, T8 wrote:
On Feb 27, 10:00*am, Brad wrote:









On Feb 27, 4:45*am, T8 wrote:

On Feb 26, 11:17*pm, wrote:

I have to wonder at what point if folks (like me)....when looking at the confusing compliance and scoring issues (to say nothing of leaving smartphones behind or disabling equipment) associated with contest flying...just decide "to heck with trying to figure it all out, plus the expenses/hassles of a road trip, etc...I'll just submit it to OLC and be done with it."..

I know that's the thought process I'm going through with all this. My day job has compliance issues enough for me...I'm not wanting to voluntarily bring that same type of pressure into something I'm ostensibly doing to enjoy on my time off.

RAS

OLC isn't racing.

T8

The number of participants in the OLC, and the number of participants
in sanctioned racing events tells me OLC has more appeal.

Brad

Difference between house cats and tigers. *Saying "house cats have
more appeal" may be demonstrably true. *That doesn't make them
equivalent to tigers.

Racing is two orders of magnitude more intense than OLC. *If OLC
scratches your itch, good for you. *It doesn't even come close to
scratching mine.

T8

That's cute.................Tigers also live pampered lives in Zoos!

Brad

Originally Posted by

As much as I hope that folks won’t cheat in soaring, I’m not optimistic.. I’ve seen WAY too much in my younger years in competitive golf (the gentleman’s sport cough). It still continues today. I play very little golf these days and one of the main reasons is the cheating. One of the most effective ways I saw of stopping it was to publically humiliate the offender in front of a large crowd of his/her peers. That works on many levels to bring an end to it. Let’s hope we don’t have to go to go down this road in soaring.
Craig

That's right. That is totally right. The few 'losers' (and it is always the few) that are psyco-crazed to get ahead, and cheat to do so, will, period. Still around this after 25 yrs on the world wide ocean racing scenes. Mega high profile people, with more money then God to lowly club racers, doing this crap, unbelievable. Psychos. It's the few.
The only cure is to fight back from within, via peer pressure, Forcing a Race Committee Protest response in the Protest Room. Race people must be willing to police themselves, even when it brings you into the Colosseum. I can only imagine that it would be a rare occasion, that someone files a protest, being that the air racing crowd actually is so small. Minimal load on the RC. Plenty of sweet drama when there is. These people would eventually get nailed, and when they do, a HUGE red flag gets planted -forever- in their head, earmarking them as 'potential' cheaters. Now lots of eyes, every time you race just might be painting your back side - psych out pressure. Race committee's response should be severe, hit the pocketbook too, like, you don't have to get out of town, but you're not leaving the tarmac again in this regatta with our tow boys, not even for rec flying, brother. Oh, and thanks for your entrance fee, your meal tickets are void too, (ya cheese-ball).
How do you protest? Log your position when you have a visual, hopefully you can see the tail feathers or recognize the plane. File, RC goes to work, does data logger analysis of both loggers, maybe from others too. Sees that you were at X feet, in visual range of the protest-ee, and based on the meteorology, and other pilot inputs as to actual cloud bases of the day, .... grinds it out....swings the gavel. It can go either way. But sh-t always end up stinking eventually.
Ban equipment? Software? Forget about it. I want that stuff with me. I want to be able BROADCAST out in a emergency situation if I were to screw up, for others to hear - "Alpha Bravo, going IFR, switching to AH over 'ThankgoodGodalmighty Peak' " and take 0.0 pts for the day, and launch the next day, with my friends.....
Over and out.

Considering this and recent threads combined with low participation
rates for contests, this seems appropriate:

"We have met the enemy and he is us." Seems pretty fitting to this
newbie...

RS

On Feb 26, 10:17*pm, wrote:
I have to wonder at what point if folks (like me)....when looking at the confusing compliance and scoring issues (to say nothing of leaving smartphones behind or disabling equipment) associated with contest flying...just decide "to heck with trying to figure it all out, plus the expenses/hassles of a road trip, etc...I'll just submit it to OLC and be done with it.".

I know that's the thought process I'm going through with all this. My day job has compliance issues enough for me...I'm not wanting to voluntarily bring that same type of pressure into something I'm ostensibly doing to enjoy on my time off.

RAS

On 2/27/2012 8:16 AM, T8 wrote:
On Feb 27, 10:00 am, wrote:
On Feb 27, 4:45 am, wrote:

On Feb 26, 11:17 pm, wrote:

I have to wonder at what point if folks (like me)....when looking at
the confusing compliance and scoring issues (to say nothing of
leaving smartphones behind or disabling equipment) associated with
contest flying...just decide "to heck with trying to figure it all
out, plus the expenses/hassles of a road trip, etc...I'll just submit
it to OLC and be done with it.".

I know that's the thought process I'm going through with all this. My
day job has compliance issues enough for me...I'm not wanting to
voluntarily bring that same type of pressure into something I'm
ostensibly doing to enjoy on my time off.

RAS

OLC isn't racing.

T8

The number of participants in the OLC, and the number of participants in
sanctioned racing events tells me OLC has more appeal.

Brad

Difference between house cats and tigers. Saying "house cats have more
appeal" may be demonstrably true. That doesn't make them equivalent to
tigers.

Racing is two orders of magnitude more intense than OLC. If OLC scratches
your itch, good for you. It doesn't even come close to scratching mine.

T8

I don't have a horse in this race - have never participated in racing or OLC
and have no desire to do either going ahead - but this particular threadlet
touches upon a critical element, i.e. desire. In America, we all get to
(pretty much) do as we please and are motivated to do. That said, at some
point(s) in every activity, the 'entry hassle' (which is to say hoops one has
to jump through in order to participate) DOES get factored into every
individual's equations, and in that sense (assuming organizers of a given
activity worry about declining participation, as evidently U.S. glider racing
folks are), the placement of (advertent or inadvertent) barriers is arguably
not a desirable thing.

Though the above is (I'd hope!) a "Duh!" observation, it's not entirely clear
to me everyone who DOES have a horse in this race gives this reality
sufficient due.

In any case, the discussion continues interesting 'from the grandstand'...!

Bob W.

On Feb 27, 12:22*pm, Robert S wrote:
Considering this and recent threads combined with low participation
rates for contests, this seems appropriate:

"We have met the enemy and he is us." *Seems pretty fitting to this
newbie...

RS

I would recommend reading the rules (http://www.ssa.org/myhome.asp?
mbr=6310235857) yourself and basing any opinion of them on that
reading, not on what you've read on RAS, especially in the last month
or so. There has been a lot of exaggeration and "what if"
extrapolation here lately.

I look at this on google groups and the title to the thread was
truncated to read:
"US Rules Committee to ban XC Soa"

I thought it was trying to say the rules committee was going to ban XC
soaring (!) With all the goings on, I thought it just might be
possible.

At 18:50 27 February 2012, Tony wrote:
On Feb 27, 12:22=A0pm, Robert S wrote:
Considering this and recent threads combined with low participation
rates for contests, this seems appropriate:

"We have met the enemy and he is us." =A0Seems pretty fitting to this
newbie...

RS

I would recommend reading the rules (http://www.ssa.org/myhome.asp?
mbr=3D6310235857) yourself and basing any opinion of them on that
reading, not on what you've read on RAS, especially in the last month
or so. There has been a lot of exaggeration and "what if"
extrapolation here lately.


As someone who has flown gliders in cloud using gyro instruments in a
country where this is still legal (UK) let me say that I would not even
consider doing so with a gps based system updating at 1 Hz. I have flown
limited panel (turn & slip) and the secret to being able to successfully
fly high rate turns in cloud is using the rate of change displayed by both
gyros and pitot instruments. With a 1 second or more lag this would almost
certainly result in PIO's and loss of control if trying to fly a thermal
turn. In my opinion positively dangerous although perhaps useful for flying
wings level with airbrakes deployed for an emergency descent if trapped
above cloud.
IMHO this whole thing is being overblown and if tried may result in an
increased accident rate, rather than increasing safety as has been
suggested.

Here in the UK in any case the advantage of climbing high in a modern
glider in cloud is debatable to say the least due to the effects of water
and ice on the wings.

Terry Walsh

On Feb 27, 9:38*am, RAS56 wrote:
T8;810426 Wrote:









On Feb 26, 11:17*pm, wrote:-
I have to wonder at what point if folks (like me)....when looking at
the confusing compliance and scoring issues (to say nothing of leaving
smartphones behind or disabling equipment) associated with contest
flying...just decide "to heck with trying to figure it all out, plus the
expenses/hassles of a road trip, etc...I'll just submit it to OLC and be
done with it.".

I know that's the thought process I'm going through with all this. My
day job has compliance issues enough for me...I'm not wanting to
voluntarily bring that same type of pressure into something I'm
ostensibly doing to enjoy on my time off.

RAS-

OLC isn't racing.

T8

True enough.

No fatalities in OLC.

ZAP

--
RAS56

I'm pretty sure that's not true.

T8

On Feb 27, 9:38*am, RAS56 wrote:
T8;810426 Wrote:









On Feb 26, 11:17*pm, wrote:-
I have to wonder at what point if folks (like me)....when looking at
the confusing compliance and scoring issues (to say nothing of leaving
smartphones behind or disabling equipment) associated with contest
flying...just decide "to heck with trying to figure it all out, plus the
expenses/hassles of a road trip, etc...I'll just submit it to OLC and be
done with it.".

I know that's the thought process I'm going through with all this. My
day job has compliance issues enough for me...I'm not wanting to
voluntarily bring that same type of pressure into something I'm
ostensibly doing to enjoy on my time off.

RAS-

OLC isn't racing.

T8

True enough.

No fatalities in OLC.

ZAP

--
RAS56

I can prove this is untrue. I will not so crass as to do so.

Zap, yourself.

T8

True enough.

No fatalities in OLC.

ZAP

--
RAS56

Nonsense, there are plenty of gliders and pilots destroyed on OLC
flights. It does prove difficult to turn in a trace when you are dead.

Rick