Cameras and barographs

I'm not sure what the point of changing the badge requirements would
be. Nobody really believes that a Silver/Gold/Diamond/1000km in an
open class ship is as impressive as the same flights in a 1-26, do
they ?

Bragging rights is all that you get for these badges. You don't get
money, power or fame. So if you did your badges in a 1-26, then you
get to one-up the pilot who did them in a supership.

And we have effectively increased the distances for badges. A diamond
distance today does not match one done 40 years ago, you have to fly
1000km or more to get the same kind of respect from your gliding
peers.

Todd Smith
3S

I guess I should have called this thread 'proposed
new badge DOCUMENTATION requirements'.

This response, which looks very reasonable to me, came
from Judy Ruprecht:

'The proposal to eliminate both documentation by ground-based
Observer
and photo documentation in favor of 'commercial off
the shelf' GPS
units ('COTS') has been wafting around since agreed-upon
at the
Spring 2004 IGC meeting - a month or so before my time.
Since then,
I've received a total of 7 photo-documented claims
from US pilots...
and quite a bit of lobbying from those who see no reason
not to allow COTS.

This hasn't been kept secret - the 2004, 2005 and 2006
editions of
Sporting Code Section 3 are all prefaced with a note
regarding the
future demise of photographic evidence; the note at
the front of the
newest edition effective 1 October 2007 indicates photographic

evidence will not be allowed after September 30, 2008.

The current draft proposal will be reviewed by IGC
at their spring
2008 meeting and is subject to change by IGC. The current
draft would
require National Aero Club approval of COTS units and
software, and
an approved COTS unit, supplemented by mechanical or
electronic
barograph, could be used only for documentation of
Silver and Gold
badge legs. Barographs - used alone - would, as I understand
it,
remain viable for any badge altitude or duration claim
and IGC
approved Flight Recorders would be required for Diamond
Goal, Diamond
Distance and all world records.'

Ian

On 2 Oct, 15:48, Chris Reed wrote:
Ian wrote:

OK, let's introduce an inverse-speed condition. Silver distance to be
done in no less than two hours, gold five, diamond seven. No dawdling
allowed. It would mean that good days were no advantage.

Hmm. I may have to work on this a bit.

Ian

Think you might need to. I flew my Gold distance in over 6 hours, but on
a day when the club pundit decided it wasn't worth a launch. I reckon I
earned it properly! Haven't yet managed Diamond, but in my Open Cirrus
in the UK I don't expect to take less than seven hours if I ever do
manage it.

Then you'll have no problem with my minimum time limits! Of course you
will be going rather further than the Ka8 drivers, but I am sure
you'll agree that that's quite fair ...

And what about Silver in a K8 into any kind of a headwind?

Flying wood into headwinds is pointless and rather ostentatious.
Downwind is for dashing!

My experience of talking to pilots who are trying for their Silver
distance is that the hard part is leaving gliding range of the home
airfield. I guess the exception might be flying somewhere you can take
one climb overhead, and the rest is final glide, but that doesn't happen
in my part of the world. The main barrier for Silver is psychological,
not ability or glider performance.

I remember an enormous sense of liberation when I set off on my first
cross country - which was also my Silver Distance, as it happened.

Ian

On 2 Oct, 20:06, toad wrote:
I'm not sure what the point of changing the badge requirements would
be. Nobody really believes that a Silver/Gold/Diamond/1000km in an
open class ship is as impressive as the same flights in a 1-26, do
they ?

Indeed. I never took seriously the Portmoak pilots who went solo, got
bronze, bought 40:1 glass and cruised along a single wave bar (maybe
two) round the Balmaha - Edzell milkrun for their 300km triangle. It's
like doing your five hours on a hill - it may be within the letter of
the law, but it's not quite gentlemanly.

Ian

On 2 Oct, 22:32, Ian Cant wrote:

an approved COTS unit, supplemented by mechanical or
electronic
barograph, could be used only for documentation of
Silver and Gold
badge legs.

Does that mean it would be possible to use one of these for a 300km
triangle and get gold distance but /not/ diamond goal as a result?
That would seem to devalue the gold quite a bit: "You might have
cheated, but we don't really care since it's only a gold."

Ian

Ian wrote:
Flying wood into headwinds is pointless and rather ostentatious.
Downwind is for dashing!

Ideally yes, but hardly anyone from the club where I learnt managed it
because we're near the UK East coast. East and south winds are rarely
soarable enough for a first 50k, and north blows you into controlled
airspace. The prevailing wind is west, so into wind it had to be for
most folk. Quite a lot of 30-49k attempts, even in 35:1+ glass!

I remember an enormous sense of liberation when I set off on my first
cross country - which was also my Silver Distance, as it happened.

Me too, and I think this is part of the psychological importance of the
Silver distance. Early soaring flights for me were a constant series of
checks whether I was still within gliding range of base. Once I set off
on my 50k and realised I was out of range, a real weight fell off my
shoulders - I could go anywhere I wanted, so it made sense to go where I
thought the best lift would be in the vague direction of my goal (this
seems to have stuck, so my flight traces look like a drunkard's
progress). Some people find this transition easy, but talking to those
who have struggled they find the invisible elastic cord which links them
to their home airfield is really difficult to escape from.

wrote:
I guess a digital camera is completely out of the question
!

Ian

Think Photoshop!

Quite apart from that, how do you verify what sequence a set of digital
photos were taken in? The camera's time&date stamp doesn't help: it can
be digitally edited by anybody who is willing to cheat and the file
names are easily changed.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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