I also dislike the complexity of the scoring formula. But every bit of
this comes from pilot demand!

You basically can't get less than 600 points, no matter how slow you
go, because a) pilots want a landout not to be a catastrophic end to
the contest, as it would be if you got 0 points for landout and b)
pilots do not want a "finisher" to receive less points than a
"landout". (FAI rule fans note, the change from 400 to 600 points, by
the way, was made in part to harmonize US with world treatment of
landouts vs. speed points.)

I happen to disagree with the latter objective, especially on MAT and
turn area tasks. If you fly 400 miles and land 10 miles from the
airport, I think you should get more points than the guy who does 61
miles and lands 2 hours early. The guarantee puts too much emphasis on
coming home very early to "get a finish." But that's just me, everyone
else likes the current system.

If you want "simpler", so that a very slow finisher always gets his
fraction of the winner score, tell the rules committee which of a or
b above you want to give up.

The big complication with the rules involves day devaluation, all that
scored completion ratio and other stuff. I'd be happy to get rid of
that too, but pilots want it. If every day is 1000 points, so the mass
landout day where the best pilot goes 60 miles, or the 1.5 hour dump
task day counts exactly as much as the other days, then contests will
all be won and lost on those weak short days. That used to happen,
pilots felt it wasn't fair, so we have our current system. Do you
really want to go back to the old system where every day is 1000
points?

Then we get "use the FAI rules" as in the quote below. Have you read
the FAI rules? "Simplicity" and "use the FAI rules" are two separate
ideas! If you don't like our day devaluation formulas, look at
theirs! The FAI devaluation formulas also lead to much more gaggling.
Since the "lone wolf" doesn't gain much by being the only finisher,
everybody sits in one big gaggle until sunset and then lands out
together.

Again, I dislike the complexity and the fact that it's very hard to
check your score just like everyone else. But the scoring formulas in
US contests evolved over the years responding to specific and valid
complaints from pilots. Simplicity is important, but fair and fun
contests are also an important goal! So it would be much more
productive to understand those goals and suggest a simpler system that
addresses them, or makes a clear case for abandoning them

John Cochrane BB.


This idea would be a terrific start... or we could just score
according to the FAI rules and use SeeYou to score cotnests like the
rest of the world. You can definitely overcook the rules and we are
definitely in that kitchen.

EY

John Cochrane BB