On Wednesday, April 15, 2020 at 5:40:04 AM UTC-7, RR wrote:
John, do you have a proposed hard deck rule? The mention in the video was brief, and there seem to be a number of posable issues. The first seems to be, it does not seem to reduce the temptation for a low save, but does seem to reduce the "glide stretch" as the scoring point goes back to the hard deck only in the case of a landout. So if you pull off a 300ft save, no effect of the hard deck. While I like the idea of removing incentives for unsafe behavior, a hard deck seem to be fraught with difficulties.

The best way to run a hard deck in my view is to have a set of SUA files for minimum altitudes in different areas. That avoids the problem of, just how does the pilot know what the altitude is at this point, and it avoids the problem of mountains and ridges. Mountains and ridges stick out of the SUA, which is set at valley floor plus 500-1500 feet or so. The SUA can also be higher over unlandable terrain.

The fact that 99.99% of US contest pilots detest the idea is a larger impediment, but somehow Germans seem less opposed.

John Cochrane BB