Eric Greenwell wrote:
P. Corbett wrote:
Orion Kingman wrote:

I wonder if some who might otherwise attend a contest are getting their
jollies by posting their flights to the OLC??

For me - no. Contest flying (lets call it "racing") and the OLC are such
different experiences, one can not subsitute for the other. In the air,
racing with other gliders, especially on assigned tasks, is quite
different from flying by myself. There is also the ground side, with all
the competitors gathered in one place at the same time for the race,
flying the same tasks, so you have a shared experience that you don't
get in the OLC.

While the competition aspects of the OLC are interesting, it's not
exciting like a race, at least for me; interesting, but not exciting. I
really like to see what others are doing and how differet areas of the
country and the world work for soaring pilots, so I do follow the postings.

I don't seriously compete in the OLC, but I do post all my flights.
Serious competition would involve carefully planning a course for each
day to best fit the OLC task rules, along the lines of Badge and record
tasking. While I enjoy these kinds of flights, the experience is still
very different than a race, and I don't plan my flights to optimize my
OLC score.

So, perhaps someone that's never raced a sailplane might think the OLC
was a substitute for racing, but I don't, and I'm guessing most pilots
that have raced wouldn't, either.

--
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Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
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