On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:31:30 AM UTC-6, John Carlyle wrote:
Yeah, I learned (most of) them the hard way too, Herb (although I did read them several times). But Start Time Interval is a new one to me. I couldn't find it in the 2013 Sports Class National rules either. What is it?



-John, Q3



On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 10:16:33 AM UTC-5, wrote:

Charlie Spratt Story: During my very first contest at Uvalde in '90 I sat through the mandatory pilots meeting and when it was time for questions, I asked Charlie: What's a start time interval? When the laughter subsided, he sat there for a while, rolled his eyes, mumbled something about the idiots coming to these meets without having read any rules and assigned someone to me to explain the basics.



In short Pete, just go to a contest and figure it out! At some level we all did that.



Herb, J7
John,
When writing the note I realized that the 'joke' was probably lost on today's contest pilots. Given the high median age of glider jockeys, I figured there might be some left who remember this. When turn-point cameras were common in the Dark Ages, we had to go through the start gate for repeat starts inside a start time interval that was set as part of the task. The idea was that an enterprising pilot could not start, fly to the 1st turnpoint, take a picture, return and start again (and go to the 2nd turnpoint). This went away with GPS recorders but not without the contest committee dragging their feet for some years.