Steve:

Thanks, yes, let's keep Benalla on Benalla and scoring on scoring. My concrete proposal

points = (day devaluation) x max [ 1000 x speed / winner speed, 750 x distance , winner distance].

Let's leave day devaluation out of this for the moment, as it's much less important.

The ratio of speed to distance points does not change as a function of land outs. This is the major innovation. Therefore, just finishing vs. just short is always the same thing. We do not have the situation that the only finisher is 1000 with the gaggle just short at 999 while the only just short is 300 with the gaggle at 1000. The lone wolf can strike out.

It's not magic. There still will be gaggles. 750 is still a bad outcome. But it tilts the playing field a bit to the lone wolf, early starter, etc.

The main "defect" mentioned in the previous thread, is that someone going 66% of winner's speed and someone going 75% of winner's speed get the same points. Reply: That's already in IGC rules. Very slow finishes are counted as landing out. Reply 2: Yeah, but so what. If you lower the 750, then you lower distance points, meaning that going further on distance days counts less, and that a land out is more of a disaster. On that basis 800 distance points makes more sense.

Notice also that by removing 2 x speed -- which was pointless, as it makes speed points just as easy to get as to lose, and does not affect the final ranking -- these distance points are the equivalent of half as many under current IGC rules. So even 750 is harsh. That's another argument for 800 or even more.

Day devaluation? Again, it's a separate issue, but I would also not base this on land outs. We only use land outs to measure things because we didn't use to have gps. A concrete proposal:

day devaluation = min [ median time from start to finish or landing of top 10% of pilots / 3 hours, 1]

We measure time on course for everyone. If the top 10% of pilots fly 3 hours, it's a fully valid day. If we all land out, we're fighting for the full 750 distance points. This keeps the current IGC philosophy that distance days are valid days. It's the median and the top 10% so that one pilot does not affect the devaluation formula -- no incentive to sit on a ridge and orbit to run up the clock and lower the devaluation of a hopeless day

Advantage 2: This is all really really simple! It also removes the quirks of current IGC rules that encourage pilots to intentionally land out on some days.

John Cochrane