On Jan 8, 10:41*am, Tim Taylor wrote:
*What you describe can still happen with the new rules
so I guess I don't see the point in trying to make the rule more
complex. *I can climb up right at the center of the cylinder and dive
through the gaggle five miles ahead as long as I don't stay in the
cylinder longer than 2 minutes. *Maybe we need to shorten that time to
1 minute so they are likely to get a new start time and make the whole
idea of hitting the front edge worthless.


Good points Tim. It feels like an attempt to solve a problem that
doesn't happen much and in doing so negates some of the benefits of
the original rule change while only halfway meeting the objective of
making the "bump and run" strategy hard to pull off when it is an
option.

Andy's suggestion of a fixed front half should work - with the
understanding that under the worst case scenario a pilot could
technically line up a course line that ran for 10 miles along the
straight edge of the half-cylinder - just the way the angles work out.
Would it happen very often? Who the heck knows? It would be simpler to
understand.

The other possible approach would be to make the start cylinder
smaller (like 3 miles) - no software re-programming required. I like
the bigger cylinder, but it would be an easier experiment to run in
2009.

9B