Thread: Three Hour OLC
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Old December 31st 08, 05:14 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Three Hour OLC

As an alternative, or in addition to posting flights on OLC, you might
consider setting up a "local contest." We do this in Northern
Illinois. Though many of our pilots also post to OLC, we still find
that the "local contest" structure provides a more satisfying overall
structure.

It's a bit disappointing to fly your heart out to do 150 miles in 1
knot thermals at 2500 feet -- a common occurrence around here -- and
then see that some guy who lives where there is decent weather did
1,000 miles that day. (Ok, move I hear you say!). It's more
challgenging, and much better preparation for real contests, to do a
real start, a real finish, and go to real turnpoints. Also, being able
to take more turnpoints allows us to a lot of cross country in
hopeless conditions, but stay close to home so retrieves aren't so
bad.

I wrote a "contest corner" a while back describing these efforts:

http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.c...l_contests.mht

There are many such contests around, and you can choose from their
ideas without reinventing the wheel. The Northern Illinois contest is
here

http://faculty.chicagogsb.edu/john.c...h/Papers/#nisc

The central indiana club has a variant of the same idea

http://www.centralindianasoaringsociety.org/

A slightly different effort in New Jersey

http://home.netcom.com/~pappa3/

The Arizona Soaring association race series

http://www.asa-soaring.org/

The GTA (Georgia -Tennessee - Alabama) race series, with undoubtedly
the most colorful webpage

http://home.att.net/~g.t.a.race/

John Cochrane BB