"Dale Kramer" wrote...
Some of your responses deserve no response, however:

I will bet that unless your runway is in a 100 foot wide canyon, I can do a
safe speed pass down one side of it.

If there are buildings, cars, people, a town, etc., on one side of the runway
(which is the case at many airports) you probably aren't going to be allowed to
do high speed passes on that side of the runway.

The CD doesn't have to call anything. After I finish through the cylinder I
can do what I want unless there are instructions not to. I just think the
CD should give guidance for orderly speed passes.

What you said was confusing, I thought you were proposing some sort of finish
gate on both sides of a runway.

I've probably flown 20 or so cylinder finishes at regional contests over the
past couple of years. Except for the very first contest where I (and just about
everyone else) was exposed to them, everyone I've seen does an easy pullup after
they cross the edge of the cylinder.
This is the way finish cylinders are supposed to be used. They were intended to
eliminate the need for high speed passes. It doesn't preclude a high speed
pass, but around here very few people feel the need at this point, and if people
insisted upon doing them at a contest, in many cases the CD would tell them to
stop.

Obviously, there is at least one place where people routinely do high speed
passes after crossing the cylinder. The honest question in my mind is still,
why? If you all want to do passes, use a finish gate, it's clearly safer than
having people coming from different directions and pulling up in the center of
the cylinder.

Pulling up at the edge of the cylinder is probably more dangerous than
continuing down to a speed pass. If you finish at 550 feet what about the
guy finishing behind you that finishes at 650 feet, can you see him?

If you pull up from your pass at 50 feet, and the guy behind you is at 150 feet,
can you see him? Any problems with multiple people finishing simultaneously
from the same direction will be the same whether or not everyone is doing a low
pass. Using an appropriately sized cylinder, and pulling up at the edge,
greatly reduces the high speed conflicts with people coming from other
directions, and pretty much keeps everyone out of the traffic pattern until they
are actually landing.

Marc