On Tuesday, February 6, 2018 at 9:30:12 AM UTC-8, Jim White wrote:
I have bailed out of the hard deck thread as I think that all opinions have
been aired once or maybe twice!

The hard deck discussion started out following the dreadful accident in
Chile and was an attempt to discuss making all competition safer.

However, when I think around the subject, isn't the real issue about the
use of the SGP format?

We have adopted and developed SGP in order to make the sport more exciting.
Not just for pilots but also the wider public who may find the racing more
interesting and might be encouraged to enter our sport.

I suggest that by doing SGP racing we have also made racing less safe
because the format fundamentally changes the risk / reward balance.

In normal racing if you were 3 minutes behind the leader you came in with
980 points instead of 1000 and could catch up the next day. In SGP 3
minutes could well mean 0 points and you are out of the game.

The question I raise is this: have we made gliding less safe by making it
more exciting, or have we made gliding more exciting by deciding to make it
less safe??

Anyone remember the 1975 film Rollerball?

The region 11 FAI contest in Truckee is adding a one day SGP in the middle of the contest this year. I will not be flying that part as I don't want to take that much risk. Too many gliders bunched up a the start. Gliders of very different performance levels thrown together. Pilots with very different skill levels. A finish at a busy airport (with a tower) where winds are unpredictable and microbursts are a little too common. No thanks.