Hi Ian,

You finish height can't be lower than your start but there is no reason it
can't be higher than your start. There is no need to land right away.

I think some people will get caught by doing standard tasks where the start
altitude is higher than the finish. If they finish low and never get as
high as their release or low point then the system will find a shorter task
in the flight in which the start height equals the finish height. If the
"sprint" section is less than 2.5 hours long then 2.5 hours is still used as
the task time - which can lead to slow speeds. So, as Doug suggested, be
sure to do a climb after you finish if necessary to make sure your finish
height is greater than or equal to your start height. Remember that it is
all optimized to find the fastest 2.5 segment.

Paul Remde

"Ian Cant" wrote in message
...
Doug, thankyou for an excellent write-up and the encouragement
for the lower-performance guys to compete. May I ask
two questions on the scoring ?

First, what happens if there are only two flights from
a club on a weekend ? Is the average speed calculated
on the sum of the speeds divided by two, or divided
by three ? Makes a difference if one flight is very
fast and the other very slow, as the slow flight might
either hurt the club or benefit it.

Second, from your example, the start altitude is the
lowest point after release, setting the start time
and start position. So it is the altitude at the base
of your first climb, and your first time to climb is
counted in the speed determination. But after you
finish the last leg, and have re-achieved that low
start altitude, the scored flight is not necessarily
over. If you stay above that start altitude for another
hour, not going anywhere in particular but just enjoying
the day and maybe drifting a mile or two downwind,
the small extra distance will be included as part of
your last leg and all the time counted until your two
and half hours are up. This could hurt your speed
quite a lot; so you might want to consider landing
pretty soon, or staying below your start altitude for
the rest of your flight. Is this really how it works,
or am I mis-interpreting the scoring description ?

Fly safe,

Ian




At 01:42 27 April 2006, Doug Haluza wrote:
We now have well over 100 clubs set up and ready to
compete in the OLC
League in the US. So now it's time to work on how to
get started in the
competition. It may take a while for clubs to catch
on, so the early
adopters will have a big advantage. As long as one
club member scores
on one day of the weekend, your club will score a minimum
of 1 point
for the round. But if only 20 other clubs score, you
will score a
minimum of 30 points for the round. So it pays to get
started early.

To score you will need to get at least 50 handicapped
points in 2.5
hours using only 4 legs. If you are flying in a SGS
1-26 or 2-33, or
any other glider with a handicap less than 64, the
required distance is
less than 20 miles. Since you get 4 legs, each leg
only has to be 5
miles long.

So the simple strategy is to pick a turnpoint 5 miles
upwind, climb up
over the home airfield, then head out to the turnpoint,
always staying
above a safe glide back to home. Round the turnpoint,
and fly home.
Climb back up and do it again. Then, and this is important,
climb back
up to to your start altitude. If you did this in less
than 2.5 hours,
congratulations, your flight qualifies for the OLC
League.

So let's say you want to maintain a conservative 10:1
glide to home.
Then, at 5 miles out, you only have to be 0.5 miles
higer than pattern
altitude, or around 3500' AGL. This should be doable
on a decent
soaring day in most places. Remember that you are working
upwind, so
the tailwind provides an extra safety factor.

Of course if you are flying a higher performance glider,
you will have
to go a little further, but you can see that this is
doable in any
glider on a good day almost anywhere. All you need
to do is carry an
FAI approved logger to claim your flight.

Naturally you should only attempt this if you have
landable terrain
upwind, just in case. If you can make your turnpoint
an airport, that's
even better. You also want to have the basic skills
for X/C flight. The
Bronze Badge program is an excellent introduction to
X/C, and this
basic OLC League task should be suitable for anyone
who has properly
earned this award.

This task is also an excellent opportunity for dual
instruction in X/C
procedures. It creates a goal-oriented traning situation,
which is an
excellent learining opportunity. And if the goal is
completed, it
creates an instant trophy in the form of an OLC claim
for all to see.
Plus it can be done in any two place trainer, with
minimal chance of an
actual off field landing.

So it's time to start thinking about how to get your
club started in
the OLC League competition. It doesn't require anything
special, other
than the logger. So start thinking about how to how
to get your club
involved. The competition starts this weeked!