Hi all,
Once again a disclaimer: I hold no relevant official position with the
GFA. I do have considerable experience as a rulemaker, as a Contest
Director, as a Scorer, and as a competition pilot. I speak only for myself.
What follows is general clarification about competitions and rules, and
is not intended as a comment on any specific incident.
Back when I was involved in competition rulemaking, I remember we
introduced some principles as a preamble to the rules and on checking I
found that most of them are still there:
At alltimesit remainsthe
responsibilityofpilotstooperateinaccordancewiththe GFAManualofStandard
Proceduresandall applicablelawsandregulations.
Pilotsareexpectedtoconduct themselvesat
alltimesinthespiritoftheserulesand inaccordancewiththe practice
ofgoodsportsmanship.
*Safetyis at all times theprimary consideration.Ifat anytimeapilot feels
that therequirementsoftheserules compromises thesafetyoftheirflight
thentheyshould takewhatever actionsarerequiredtoensurethesafety
ofthemselves and ofother air users.This may includewithdrawing
fromthetaskor fromthecompetition.*
Pilotsare requiredtoconduct themselvesina mannerthatwill
notbringdisrepute on the Organisers, the hostingclub orthe GFA.
There is nothing in the competition rules that suspends any laws. There
are no exemptions. Pilots flying in a competition are just pilots, and
must obey every requirement of the law. They remain fully responsible
as Pilots in Command for the conduct of the flight. If they choose to
disobey the law or good practice then that is entirely their
responsibility. The competition is a game. Flying is not.
No one wants to break their glider or themselves, and the rules of the
game clearly discourage that by the simple fact that most of the time
there is another race tomorrow. You won't get any points from a
hospital bed or if your glider is in bits. On the last day, well if
there was a million dollars at stake I could imagine that the risk of
rolling yourself into a ball might be worth taking for some - but in our
game why would anyone break a $100K glider for a bottle of cheap wine
and a round of applause? Or even for the opportunity to spend shed
loads of their own money representing Australia?
If you want to know who is responsible for the safety of a flight where
you are the Pilot in Command, take a good look in a mirror. And be very
sure of what you see.
Cheers
/Tim Shirley/
/tra dire é fare c' é mezzo il mare/
On 28/10/2014 2:06 PM, Texler, Michael wrote:
The caveat should be in place that the crash was a result of your own poor
decision making.
Now what constitutes poor decision making is a matter of opinion.
Surely competition rules should be in place to discourage crashing:
i.e. you crash, you are out of the comp. You pack up and go home.
I'll leave it to others more experienced in these matters to give reasons why.
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