The Online Contest had a presence at the SSA Convention to match its growing popularity as a way to share the cross country gliding experience. OLC founder Reiner Rose conducted a breakout presentation on Friday followed by an OLC luncheon and presented awards at the Saturday night banquet.

Reiner Rose

During his breakout session, Rose spoke about the origins of the OLC and the development of the OLC plus scoring system which eliminated the devaluation of some legs.

He reported that 1,024 pilots in the US posted flights in the last OLC year which ended in October.

Elke Fugslang

With Rose came Else Fuglsang who moved from Germany to Colorado following her husband’s transfer in the wind power industry. Flugsang is translating German language posts to the OLC online magazine, Segelflugzene, into English and vice-versa. The magazine is accessed through a button in the header of any OLC page. She is asking for flight stories of 300 words or less and photos. She plans to read flight comments posted with flights throughout the year and may initiate contact with pilots to get their stories. Some magazine content will remain in German language only.

Rose and Fuglsang asked for more contributions to the OLC. There are more Smiley Faces (contribution acknowledgments) next to pilots in Europe than in the USA. The suggested donation is 10 Euros  a year.

During the luncheon session a question was raised about validation of Cambridge fight files from older recorders. Pilots using them have been converting files to get an IGC file with validation, but that process was designed to be a temporary bridge to a permanent fix by Cambridge and is no longer allowed, Rose said.

About the Presenters: Reiner Rose heads Segelflugzene GmbH, a non-profit closely held limited liability company that, among other services to glider pilots, provides a free and simple-to-use worldwide online scoring and ranking service to registered pilots carrying out distance soaring flights. Elke Fugslang-Petersen writes for the U. S. glider community and flies with the Soaring Society of Boulder