Thanks for the thoughts Tim. Some replies.

1) The RC doesn't control many of these issue, though I'm sure we could offer up some perspectives for consideration further up the chain.

2) On three classes. It is true that the launch window from a rules perspective is by class. I was remembering the 2016 Nationals a Nephi where the Open Class often had 3-hour or sub-3-hour tasks which seemed sub-optimal. Contests ought to have reasonable task lengths for all classes. Heavy glider classes often have to launch last at high density altitudes which consistently puts them in a short-day situation.

3) I agree it's not the total field size that matters as much as the number of top ranked pilots, but I think east-west nationals would have a detrimental effect on the later metric as well since there are only so many top pilots to go around. It's pretty easy to figure out how many "97-plus" PRL ranked pilots you need to have a competitive contest. Just look at the mean and standard-deviation of scores for each pilot on the PRL, then you can figure out the probability of having a "100-point" winner for any number of pilots with a specific PRL score (you need to take care to eliminate 97-plus pilots who earned 97-plus in an under-competitive Nationals, but this is a small effect). I'd be inclined to assign 100-points to any contest with a 95 percent confidence interval of producing a 100-point performance. My rough calculations indicate you'd need 5 or 6 pilots with 97-plus PRL points for a contest to have that probability of being worth 100 points. The risk you run with east-west Nationals is you end up with Nationals that don't earn 100-point status.

4) Dropping classes is something that requires serious consideration. This thread started 5 years ago with an observation that a Standard Nationals had been cancelled (due to insufficient participation IIRC). If we'd followed the "kill-the-class" advice we would no longer have Standard Class Nationals. Once they are gone, it's hard to make a case for bringing them back. People who own gliders that only race competitively in one class can become orphans if their Class is eliminated (Standard would be that were it not for the expanded Club Class definition - which remains controversial today). Should we require people to upgrade gliders to keep racing Nationals? Sometimes it might be inevitable. I've seen a lot of Standard Class pilots move to 15/18 Meter over the past 5 years. IMO splitting Nationals makes it more likely that classes die from insufficient participation or competitiveness. This is compounded if you think of it in the context of point 3, above.

5) I don't get your point about 15M being particularly victimized by site selection. Most classes have had their time in the barrel on sites that have had difficult logistics or unfortunate weather. My guess is that people with 15/18M gliders may get siphoned to 18M Nationals and that may be exacerbated by the relative site attractiveness, but also because 18M is seen as the most competitive class by many. That would likely get worse with east-west nationals.

6) I agree that part of why the US performs poorly at WGC is that our pilots fly fewer WGC-level contests. Sadly, not all US Nationals are WGC-level competition. WGCs are wicked competitive with deep talent pools. I doubt that splitting up Nationals will improve matters as you will divide up the limited US top-ranked talent pool. There are also a pretty limited number of pilots with 8 weeks available to fly 2 Nationals in a year, let alone 4 and I worry about diluting the competitive field. I think the simple solution could be to open up the PRL scoring system to the competitiveness factor described in Point 3 then it doesn't really matter if it's called a Regional or National contest so long as you can attract half a dozen top pilots to fly. There are some iterative dynamics of who flies where that need to be considered in such a system, particularly with contests that are "on the bubble" of making 100-point status. The advantage is that we get to try out the concept and see if we can generate enough interest to attract the requisite number of top pilots to fly east and west sites in the same class in the same year.

7) I do think there is a statistical advantage that accrues to pilots who fly a lot of Nationals (though flying a lot certainly builds skills). The reason for this is that we assign points for the year based on best performance. I think it makes more sense to have a system that is at least partly based on average performance for the year (averaged across 100-point contests) so that pilots flying multiple contests don't "ratchet up" by taking the high scores across a somewhat random distribution of performances. There would still be a potential for gaming in the sense that a pilot with a good performance early in the season, might elect to not fly a second contest to avoid the risk of doing less well later and lowering his/her average while a pilot with a poor performance would have every incentive to try again. I think overall this is a minor point that could be handled with a hybrid system that weighs average score AND highest score.

Thanks again for the detailed input and rationale.

Andy Blackburn
9B


On Sunday, May 26, 2019 at 10:18:33 AM UTC-7, Tim Taylor wrote:
Andy,

I hope the committee will continue to consider changes seriously. I will try to address a few of your comments.

Not to speak for the site selection committee, but something like the above is generally the goal - host a couple of Nationals together for organizer economics - generally with a bigger class and a smaller one together (occasionally three classes, but that can lead to problems getting everyone launched in time - especially if you are talking out west with big gliders in the mix).

I think this is the correct approach. We can hold contests with three classes and still limit it to 60 gliders or less. It is the quality of competition, not the number of gliders that makes a competition meaningful. I think your point about launching is incorrect. Each class has to be in the air in one hour, not the entire field. Several classes actually make it easier (other than open class), not harder. You can run a competition with fewer tow planes.

The other goal is to make it so the folks with gliders that can reasonably fly in two different classes are eligible for at least one Nationals on their side of the country each year. The other objective is to flip/flop east and west each year so that the Nationals for each class move around geographically year to year.

This is a good idea, but should not be the basis for increasing competitors. The gliders capable of this are all at the high end of the cost range. We are killing the sport by moving to 15/18m and 18/21M gliders with prices tags of $160K to $300K. We need to focus on the Club, Standard and 15M class to grow the sport.

I'm not sure how it would work to have two versions of each class' Nationals each year - at least without combining classes via handicapping. The expected size of each class would go down which could affect competitiveness.

Actually the size of the class has very little to do with competiveness to a point. Both Uvalde in 2018 and Bermuda High in 2019 were very good contests. The quality of the pilots and a field of 20 makes a very good contest. Forcing pilots to gain ranking points at the regional level and earn their way into a nationals is not a bad system. It has actually been bad for the US to have National contest with lower ranked pilots competing. The top pilots get used to using the lower ranked pilots as makers and waiting to start later and “hunt” the other pilots down as markers.. This technique does not work at the International level were most of the pilots are flying very fast.

This is particularly problematic for Standard and 20M where the number of participants hovers around the minimum every year.

If a class can not sustain a nations it should be dropped or combined with something else. I am not sure 20M is even worth pursuing. We need to focus on a few classes and build the quality of the pilots if we are going to improve the sport overall.

15M is not far behind.

15M is hurting because of the US contest site system, not because the class is lacks pilots or gliders. If we had a contest on the East and West each year it would likely be the largest class other than maybe Club. It is being hurt because most pilots are being forced to buy 15/18M glider to be able to race each year without driving 3000 to 5000 miles for a contest. The entry cost to fly the 15/18M gliders is killing new pilots joining the sport.

Open has gotten a boost from the JS1, but many of those might go to 18M if we had east and west Nationals. Splitting the folks who live in the middle of the country likely makes the competitiveness problem worse.

Actually, having two contests for each class improves the competitions and improves the quality of US pilots overall. One of the main reasons the US is not competitive is most pilots do not race enough each year. The size of the US and the cost, distance and time required to go to contests is killing the sport. By holding at least two national level contest each year we allow pilots to at least fly one contest in their class each year and those that want to fly more gain extra experience by having the opportunity to fly additional contests. Potentially a pilot with a 15/18M glider could fly four nationals in a year. This would improve the quality of all of our pilots.

Having a larger number of sparsely attended Nationals would give more advantage to pilots who can "double dip" by flying a lot of Nationals on both sides of the country in their specific class. Let the gamesmanship begin.

This is an incorrect statement. The gamesmanship has been in the system because only those willing to drive gamed the system. This would actually level the playing field and improve our US teams overall. We would have a deeper pool of pilots that are flying more quality contests.

I have toyed with the idea of making PRL (and US Team selection) points a function of the average PRL points of the top 4-6 pilots in a contest and eliminating the distinction between Regionals and Nationals from a point’s perspective. 100 and 92 points maximum might be about right on average, but there are sparsely attended Nationals where a bit of luck counts a lot and some Regionals that are just as competitive as a Nationals - why not make the points awarded a function of the breadth and depth of the competitive field and relax some of the constraints around overweighting Nationals in a specific class?

I agree with this completely! There should be a quality factor for contests that adjust the team selection points accordingly. At Bermuda High we had 22 pilots, 17 of the 22 had been National Team pilots. It does not take a large contest to make it competitive. This has been done in many other sports. It also means the organizers work to get a strong group of at least 5 to 6 pilots in each class.

Tim Taylor
TT