I am glad John realized that the "termination of flight" changes do not apply to indoor free flight. However, there is another rule change proposal that corrects a serious problem with respect to FAI world record flights.
The rules that went into effect for 2018 required that stopwatches be calibrated to one part in one million (1 in 10^6). The rule did not specify how or by whom the calibration was to be done. This accuracy is one that is more appropriate to a laboratory setup and I have yet to test a stopwatch that met such a standard given the error level of most calibration tools. This looked to be a problem for the 2018 Indoor WC where it was quite probable that a new Cat III WR would be set. The rules for championships allowed the Jury a way around this requirement.
In the FAI rules proposal that John mentioned, Part 5 - Special Rules for Records amends 5.1.1.4 to require calibration to one part per one hundred thousand (1 in 10^5). This is just under one second error in 24 hours and is similar to the specified accuracy for good stopwatches. However, manufacturer certificates of accuracy, which have been used in the past for WR submittals, often only certify to one part in ten thousand (1 in 10^4) although the certificates usually show accuracy better than 1 in 10^5. So, even though the 1 in 10^5 requirement is more stringent than we need for indoor free flight, we can make do. Note that over 30 minutes an error of 1 in 10^5 only amounts to 0.18 seconds, probably less than the start-stop error for the timekeeper.
So, this particular rule change should be supported by all in the indoor free flight community.
LeoP
Received on Wed Apr 18 2018 - 23:17:50 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:49 CET