Hi all I just received a box of new 5th Edition (dark green cover) Basic Gliding Knowledge books, and was going through trying to identify the changes from the 4th Edition (light blue cover). As far as I'm aware, GFA hasn't generated any sort of revision log document to tell us what the actual differences are.
With the exception of the obvious changes in fonts (much as though it had been transferred to a different DTP system) it contains essentially 99.9% the same information as before. However, it also contains 99.9% of the same errors too, e.g. references to a chapter 12 on radio procedures, which disappeared after the 3rd Edition (yellow cover) and is apparently living in the Bermuda Triangle with Elvis ! There are only 11 chapters in 4th and 5th editions. Similarly, to the best of my knowledge and doing a quick skim read, it doesn't mention more recent advances like GPS, data loggers or web sites where further information can be obtained (FAI for sporting code, GFA, CASA, AirServices etc.) Does anyone know if there was any "grass roots" or NGS / Club CFI / Panel input into the revised edition, or even who within GFA "owns" Basic Gliding Knowledge and determines what's in and what's not ? The e-mail address inside the cover says "[EMAIL PROTECTED], but I am assuming that this is merely an administrative contact, and that someone like the Chairman of the Operations Panel (DaryI Connell) is more likely to "own" it. I am going to write a series of Errata notes and send them to the GFA, plus including them with every copy I hand out to new club members in the meantime. Perhaps anyone else who has received the 5th Edition (or has a 99.9% identical 4th edition) could have a look and pass any comments or information about known bugs to me also (rather than to the list), or the GFA webmaster (Nick, are you out there following this thread ?) could create an Errata page somewhere. Since it's 95% text with a handful of photos and diagrams, should we ask GFA put it on their web site in PDF format to allow members who already have an earlier edition to download / peruse the current one (much like the MOSP and Ops Regs) ? Cheers Jason Armistead -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
