On May 31, 5:16*pm, wrote:
On May 31, 10:23 am, Andy wrote:





On May 29, 1:14 pm, John Cochrane
wrote:

Second, you can achieve an "assigned task" in the MAT structure by
simply calling a lot of turnpoints. *I don't know why this is not done
more often but it should be. You get all the joys of assigned task
racing -- start gate roulette, big gaggle flying, everyone on the same
course, leeching, watching your buddies go by, and so forth. But after
X hours everyone gets to go home rather than land out the bottom 25%
of the fleet.

How may years have I been staring at the rules and it never occurred
to me that you could go home without hitting all the declared
turnpoints. Mostly I've seen "free-for-all MATs with one or zero
declared turnpoints. I wonder why CDs don't call this version in
Sports Class for all the AST-hungry types? With some longer middle
legs it wouldn't even have the "get home exactly on time" feature of
tasks with a minimum time - just set it so the fastest expected speeds
get you to the last turnpoint just before minimum time, but going home
without the last turn would have you well under. 3 or 4 turnpoints
would be more than enough to cover a broad range of pilot and ships.

9B

It's starting to catch on in the East now. *Check out Saturday
(yesterday)
at Mifflin -- they called 5 turnpoints for all the classes. *Hank
Nixon
came in 2nd in Sports class (in a K21) and obviously didn't hit all
the
turnpoints since he flew less that the total called distance. *Others
hit
all the turnpoints plus some since they came in longer. *A CD could
call
all 11 turnpoints and take all the choosing of extra turnpoints out of
the competitors' hands (since you can't go to more than 11 on a MAT).
I've flown a MAT with 3 called turnpoints and did enjoy seeing others
in the class along the course (although I probably saw more gliders
from OTHER classes once I passed the first turnpoint!).

Now, as to the purpose of contests, isn't it to choose champions,
especially at the National level? *I agree if we make them too
unpleasant, dangerous, frustrating, etc then people won't fly them,
but if we make them too soft/easy we're not really selecting
champions either. *It IS satisfying to fly well in difficult
conditions
or with challenging tasks, even if you don't win.

-- Matt- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It isn't starting to catch on in the East, the MAT was invented in the
East by Dave Welles who saw the opportunity to call tasks that would
challange the better pilots while still allowing the newer- or lesser-
or whatever , pilots to skip the last turn or two and get home to
drink beer with everybody else. This makes it fun for everybody. The
guy that cuts it short doesn't score so well, but still gets to have
fun and probably loses fewer points than a landout. The key is to call
the assigned portion long enough to use the entire allotted time.
We've been doing this for years.
It also keeps folks flying in the same air which can reduce the "luck"
factor.
Many CD's don't understand this very well and don't use this option.
We flew 510k as I recall in the Club Worlds in Musbach while the Open
Nats guys flew 503 or so. The last 20k was at Macready 0 with 100
feet to spare. The day was over. I saw a lot of my friends on the
ground in the last 10 miles or so. Enjoyed beating them but don't
recall it as being all that much fun. The contest was won on the timed
task days where the point spread more closely reflected the pilot
skill spread, at least as I saw it.
FWIW
UH