At szeged there are beautiful fields for the last few miles short of
the road and barbed wire fence. The only thing separating a landing
just shy of the road in a field and a landing 1 cm over the barbed
wire fence and road is the substantial number of points offered by the
rules for trying to pop over the fence.

We say "pilots will act safely and throw away the contest when safety
intrudes" but time and again experience proves us wrong. Put 400
points 1 cm above a barbed wire fence and pilots go for it.

This is a solved problem. A substantial minimum height for finish,
coupled with very strong penalties for coming in low, means that for
pilots like the one in this accident, racing is over when you're
making the life or death safety decision of stopping in the last field
or popping over the fence.

Alas, IGC rules do not even allow the safe finish. Yes, they allow a
cylinder with minimum altitude, but the penalty for finishing low is a
warning the first time, and 25 points the following times. Compared to
the loss of all speed points for stopping in the last field, this will
do nothing. The US has gradually moved ot a cylinder finish with
substantial penalties for low arrival, which is helping.

To those who have "never heard" of this type of accident, go read the
accident reports. European accident reports are littered with crashed
gliders in the last few km of contest flights, driving into the ground
in the hope of squeaking over the fence. (Kudos to Sailplane and
Gliding for printing them.)

All this is explained in great detail in an article I wrote for
Soaring magazine nearly 10 years ago. Here is a link.

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john...20finishes.doc

I apologize for the harsh tone, but it's sad to see utterly
preventible accidents continue, and sadder still that international
rules do not even allow organizers to take the obvious corrective
action. This is not rocket science.

John Cochrane BB