SSA Competition Rules Committee Meeting Minutes Now Available

Minutes from the SSA Competition Rules Committee Meeting are now posted on the SSA website:

https://www.ssa.org/files/member/201...2012-07-18.pdf

There are many detailed items in the minutes. For clarity of communication, the introduction to the most significant item (#19 in the minutes, starting on page 9) is reproduced below:

RC intends to move towards FAI-based rules capable of being scored by SeeYou or similar commercial tasking/scoring software and/or WinScore by 2021.

This will happen in three steps:

2019
- Make adjustments to US Rules to add FAI-like AT turn cylinders and finish configuration.
- Develop and begin execution of plans for 2020 contest trials and longer-term transition – rules, local procedures, training and change management, handicaps (esp. Sports Class), PRL and UST implications, systems integration with SSA.org, SoaringSpot, FAI ranking, financial implications.

2020
- Run 3-4 trial contests (including 2 Nationals) under a US rule system based on FAI – contests should be of sufficient size to reach a significant proportion of the pilot community, particularly the most active pilots
- Collect detailed pilot feedback and input from trials

2021
- Roll out of “final� rules and systems, infrastructure, training, fees, etc. based on trial system plus adjustments based on learnings/pilot feedback/refinement.

For the Competition Rules Committee
Andy Blackburn, Chair

Please post link to current FAI soaring contest rules. Thanks.

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 10:01:37 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Please post link to current FAI soaring contest rules. Thanks.

https://www.fai.org/igc-documents .

Annex A is Rules for World and Continental Gliding Championships.

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 12:10:05 AM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Minutes from the SSA Competition Rules Committee Meeting are now posted on the SSA website:

https://www.ssa.org/files/member/201...2012-07-18.pdf

There are many detailed items in the minutes. For clarity of communication, the introduction to the most significant item (#19 in the minutes, starting on page 9) is reproduced below:

RC intends to move towards FAI-based rules capable of being scored by SeeYou or similar commercial tasking/scoring software and/or WinScore by 2021.

This will happen in three steps:

2019
- Make adjustments to US Rules to add FAI-like AT turn cylinders and finish configuration.
- Develop and begin execution of plans for 2020 contest trials and longer-term transition – rules, local procedures, training and change management, handicaps (esp. Sports Class), PRL and UST implications, systems integration with SSA.org, SoaringSpot, FAI ranking, financial implications.

2020
- Run 3-4 trial contests (including 2 Nationals) under a US rule system based on FAI – contests should be of sufficient size to reach a significant proportion of the pilot community, particularly the most active pilots
- Collect detailed pilot feedback and input from trials

2021
- Roll out of “final� rules and systems, infrastructure, training, fees, etc. based on trial system plus adjustments based on learnings/pilot feedback/refinement.

For the Competition Rules Committee
Andy Blackburn, Chair

Thanks guys.

Three cheers for most of this.

Q: what happens to our handicapped combined classes, e.g. the popular 15m + std class? Are they retained (I argue that they need to be)? Does the handicapping change?

-Evan Ludeman / T8

Hi Evan.

Some of the details are in the minutes.

Overall, the intention is to do what most other countries do, which is to develop and evaluate US National and Regional rules based on FAI Rules that are used for WGC contests. Where FAI either contains features that are unsuitable for National/Regional competitions or lacks features that are necessary the RC would contemplate making appropriate adjustments.

You might have read the parallel thread on the Australian Multiclass Nationals where they have combined 15m/Std and 18M/Open with handicaps in order to ensure classes have an minimum required number of pilots. As near as we can tell that is an adjustment on top of the FAI Rules used for WGC Competition. While the RC is not contemplating that exact structure for the US, it is an example of how FAI WGC Rules get adapted to suit the needs of National or “Regional� competition.

As to US versus other handicap systems that get used internationally, that is being evaluated. For the most part the raw handicaps (once you invert the scale for US) are quite similar (within a couple of percent), except for very long-winged gliders where the US handicaps are less favorable. If we intend to retain combined FAI handicapped class and Sports Class in the US system - and the current thinking is to try to do so - it might require a handicap system with reference weights and handicap weight adjustment formulas. Whether such a system would be based on the US handicap database or could be based on the handicap systems that are used elsewhere is being evaluated. There are a number of gliders on the US handicap list that don’t exist elsewhere - they seem to be mostly US-centric designs, so we’d need to evaluate whether and how to fill those gaps if they turn out to be gliders that actually get flown in competition - if we were to favor changing over.

There are dozens to hundreds of topics like this that need to be worked through in a deliberate, thoughtful, fair, safe and operationally detailed way.. That means that many questions that people have deep interest in may not have definitive answers for quite some time. The RC asks for your support and indulgence as we work through that process.

For the US Competition Rules Committee
Andy Blackburn, Chair

Updated link to the meeting minutes.

https://www.ssa.org/files/member/201...2012-07-18.pdf

9B

The heading at the top of all the minutes says "November 3, 2017" Was this an error or are these from the meeting in 2017?

MB

On Saturday, December 8, 2018 at 12:03:34 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Updated link to the meeting minutes.

https://www.ssa.org/files/member/201...2012-07-18.pdf

9B

Andy(9B), is the below whats planned or a typo?

• AT turn configuration; RC to reduce the AT radius to ½ mile.
o X to incorporate the change

Is not the current FAI AT turn diameter 1 km(radius .5 km)? If so, should the RC not reduce the radius to .31 mile?

Also, please do clarify, all the RC members not living in Palo Alto got their on their bucks and they also covered all their expenses?

Kudos to all.

Best. #711.

Updated link has the correct date. Nothing else changed.

9B

Tom,

Not a typo.

We picked a round-ish number. Also, some expressed a concern over going smaller right away, so the intermediate step is to go 0.50 miles instead of 0.3107 miles so pilots can get a little more used to the different traffic patterns when converging on a smaller target. Pilots will need to develop slightly different tyrnpoint habits. Best not to learn the hard way if we can avoid it.

Obviously there’s a bigger question about how to handle the pretty clear US pilot preference for miles, feet and knots and whether you round some of the metric numbers to some number of decimal places in English units or mandate that everyone fly in a mixed feet/kilometers, knots/kph environment. No final decision on that.

Andy Blackburn