Mike:
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'm keeping this open because we
really do want to hear from people and structure contests to be as
attractive as possible.


Firstly, we chose to have a camp because we were told that there were
no available windows for a sanctioned contest. *

This doesn't sound right. Regionals can run pretty much any time they
want. Especially out West where there are so few contests. I'll look
in to it.

Secondly, we wanted a
more rule-free environment to encourage uninhibited cross-country
flying. *One of the issues we had last year in a local contest series
was a delayed start (3:00 PM!) with a long task that proved impossible
to fly in the allocated time. *A whole bunch of gliders hung around
for hours waiting for the start as the day died. *The task was also
set in the opposite direction to the best weather and ended up with a
lot of landouts. *Furthermore, enabling free flying with no set course
will avoid the majority of conflicts in gaggles and turnpoints,
greatly enhancing safety. *One or two local pilots have a good history
of spotting days with early starts and have made good use of those.
We want to encourage pilots to read the weather and conditions and
decide for themselves when and where to fly, rather than just race
round a fixed course.

As before, there is nothing in contest rules that forces any of this.
You can open the start gate at 8 am, call an unrestricted MAT, or set
huge turn areas.


However, a particular beef of mine is the US attitude to team flying,
which is diametrically opposite to that in the rest of the world.
Free of this (uniquely US) rule, we can fly together, chat about it,
fly further and have more fun. *Pretty much what we do most weekends.
We also see the camp as a good format to bring on juniors, less
experienced cross-country pilots and those not familiar with the area
by providing mentors. *Even you must agree that regular contests
aren't the best place for newcomers to hone their skills.

For just this reason we're allowing team flying in regionals this
year. Just ask for a waiver. We're hungry for regionals to try it, and
if it's a success we'll make it a permanent option in the rules.


Free of the contest restriction to cross certain airspace will also
improve opportunities from El Tiro (this is for Kirk).

For fairness, the rules don't us fly in places where a transponder is
required (over class C). If everyone has a transponder, you might get
a waiver for that. More generally, just about anything reasonable you
want can be arranged by waiver. Ask before giving up!


Insurance for contests is significantly higher than camps or fly-ins
and we are going to avoid a lot of the costs of having manpower to do
task-setting and scoring.

Can't help here, but I hope you're getting the same protection from
"camp" insurance that you do from more expensive "contest" insurance.
You usually get what you pay for. Task setting is easy -- it sounds
like you're going to call an unrestricted MAT every day! I don't see
an escape from scoring, but winscore really does make it easy.


In short, we are also trying to encourage cross-country flying, but
don't think that contests with ever-increasing restrictive rules are
necessarily the only or best way to achieve this.

I'm not sure what "restrictions" you have in mind. We also want to
encourage cross country flying, and that's why the rules are becoming
ever-less restrictive, with more and more options available and more
still available by waiver!

John