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Old March 27th 17, 07:17 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Surge
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Default handicap for olc club scores based on # of soarable days?

On Monday, 27 March 2017 02:26:47 UTC+2, Blake Seese 3Y wrote:
The clubs in the southwest have a clear advantage and will always win OLC.. Should there be a handicap system like we have for our gliders based on geographic location?


This has been discussed here before. Such a scoring system would be too onerous to manage. Just think for a moment:
How would one score a soaring club which lives near a mountain range and normally flies in ridge lift or wave vs a flatland club that relies solely on thermic lift?
Who records the number of windy days, the strength and direction of the wind and computes a daily handicap for a specific club? How will winds aloft be recorded if they diverge from forecast models?
The same goes for flights using thermal activity ... how strong are the thermals, how high is the cloud base, etc.

OLC is nice for checking out what soaring activities are taking place around the world but it's by no means a fair, comparative scoring system and it never will be. That's what gliding competitions are for (everyone flies on the same day in the same weather conditions).