At 03:26 23 July 2018, Charlie Quebec wrote:

There's a dichotomy between selecting the winner of the Nationals
(rightly an individual honour) and selecting the best team pilots for
the Worlds. With the current formulaic selection process, we only
have the Nationals to select from. So we are selecting on ability to
fly well independently, where for the Worlds, what we need to select
on is ability to stick with busy gaggles and resist the impulse to do
your own thing. I love team flying at international comps - there is
no better fun than flying with a partner and having two sets of eyes
and two brains to improve decision making. Jim and I have worked
really well here at Ostrow. There is no question that it improves
outcomes if done properly. But for that you need discipline and
commitment, and practice.

Adam has been playing the gaggle game at this comp and doing a
fantastic job of it. If you religiously stay with a gaggle of top pilots
and have a glider that can keep up with them, then you are almost
guaranteed a good result, even without a team partner. The rest of
the gaggle becomes your de-facto team. It is hard for us as
Australian pilots, brought up with the idea that leaching is
despicable, to embrace this approach. But there is no shame at it at
the Worlds. If you are not doing it, you are at the very bottom of the
points table, almost every day.

As G Dale said to me this competition: We're not here to show that
we're better pilots than the rest. We're here to get more points than
the rest. And like it or not, that's not the same thing.

Whether you agree with it or not, that's the reality of flying at a
Worlds.

CQ,

That is exactly the point I was trying to make about the USA team
too. The reality of a WGC is that if you want to do well, you have to
possess an excellent gaggle flying skill set to put in your toolbox
to use as required - and it will be required on multiple occasions.
The current USA rules and thought process are to defuse gaggle
flying due to safety issues, and that's fine, but we have to be aware
that it may be detrimental to choosing a team that will finish well at
the WGC. The SSA charter says that the purpose of a Nationals is to
determine a National Champion. It doesn't say that the purpose is
to pick members of a team to represent the USA at a WGC. A
National Champion may be a great "lone eagle" pilot, but a lousy
gaggle flyer, so that pilot's WGC chances are greatly diminished right
from the start.

RO