The compass rule reminds me of the offshore yacht racing rules which required a sextant as an emergency backup for GPS or Satnav.
Apart from almost nobody being able to use a sextant or being able to use it on the deck of a small boat in a sea or being able to do the calculations to fix your position some half an hour earlier, the chances were that there was complete overcast during the event, especially if it was anywhere near Victoria or Tasmania. Finally, they agreed that one could have a second (battery powered?) GPS as backup for the main one. I can remember that my first Garmin would take so long to get a fix when first switched on that the rechargeable batteries would run out of electricity before you got a fix. So there was no substitute for keeping a running fix on a chart. And you can steer a yacht with a compass much better than a sailplane, especially at night. D _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] To check or change subscription details, visit: http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
