Participating in Contests

I have been watching the threads about club class and the SRA pilot
opinion polls with great interest. There (statistically) has not been
much of a change in the US with participation in contests in recent
years. For everyone, Europe, USA and elsewhere....what draws, lures
or interests you in a contest? The location that has lots of
amenities? The proximity to your local club? The group events? the
group meals? the ground schools? The mentoring? The camraderie?
The prizes/trophy's? The learning? The sense of accomplishment?

What would it take to draw you into a contest as a first-timer? If
you regularly attend contests, what are the things that you look
forward to the most? Contest organizers all over the world would
really like to hear. Each of us does our own thing in a different
way, but it would be nice to hear some differing opinions to help grow
racing/competition and hopefully the cross-country pilots and the
sport in general. Hopefully you can spend a minute giving us some
data to analyze! Thanks Micki Minner

I started competing in local contests to improve my cross-country
flying. As one of my colleagues put it, when you fly cross-country,
you are racing against the sun and weather. You'll go furthest and
have more chance of getting home if you fly efficiently. My main goal
was to improve my skills, not necessarily to become competitive.

Flying with other experienced pilots is the best way to do this - you
can see how well you do and pick up tips from others. Contests are
also great occasions to log lots of cross-country time in a short
space of time and there's always folks to retrieve you if, like me,
you don't have a regular crew.

I have now improved from being 15% slower than my colleagues to more
like 5% slower. I probably won't beat many folks, but at least I keep
up most days.

Of course, with OLC, every flight seems like a race these days - just
check the past week's log files!

Mike

For a big number of contest pilots, no matter what glider
they are flying and in what Class, the Contests are about one thing
and only: It’s the only way they can fly Cross Country. With a few
noble exceptions, most of our Clubs do not provide the structure
conductive to daily Cross Country. If you are unable to create such
support by yourself, you simply do not fly serious Cross Country. For
most of us, going to Contests is the only way to secure all
necessary logistics and material support . We are willing and we do
pay for the privilege. Let’s make those Contests as accommodating and
inclusive as possible. Please. Thank you.

For me, the desire to fly in contests was part of the desire to fly
with some of the best pilots in my club and the rest of the US. I
wanted to know what they knew and fly as well as they could. One of
the really interesting things about soaring is that it is one of the
only true places in aviation where true competitions exist. Buying a
60+ year old mustang to race at Reno is not a race, it's a museum
piece. Soaring has new developments and the skill of the pilot is
often the deciding factor: just the right mix between brains and
wallet.

After wanting to get into XC flying though, the thing that actually
empowered me to do it was the mentoring. Our club had a good XC ship
(Cirrus) that I used to cut my teeth on and figure out just how much I
didn't know. This lead to me learning from my betters and ultimately
getting a better ship. But even at Parowan, if no one from my club
had come up, I would never have gone by myself. The help from others
at El Tiro that went to Parowan was crucial to me going to my first
contest. The experienced contest fliers helped me know what to
expect, what to bring and how to prepare - everything from setting up
my GPS equipment to showing me how to use my O2 bottle.

The impression that the super pilots with full time organized ground
crews and $90k+ ships makes going to a contest with a older generation
glider say a HP-11 with ~36:1 glide rather futile and would perhaps
feel like a 2nd class pilot showing up with such a craft amoungst all
the expensive glass.

Having never been to a contest I suppose it may just take one good
experience to make me a regular attendee but I just have not felt the
urge to get all the resources together to make that 1st one. Perhaps
its lazy convenience that keeps me at the local club. Distance is
another factor but would probably drive up to 500 miles to go to a 3
day weekend event.

I think what would make me come to one would be a contest amoungst
more of the older generation gliders and some explanation of how
retrieves would be made if I did not bring my own retrieve crew.
Knowing I would have a retrieve crew available at the contest would
remove 75% of the reluctance and flying with older gliders to keep it
interesting, would remove the last 25% and get me to come out.

I know from my sail boating experiences that going to a contest is the
fasterst way to learn from much more experienced pilots and accelerate
your own progress.

I think another good idea for first timers would be to have an
optional pre-contest orientation weekend where perhaps a month before
the contest you could go to the site with a number of others and fly
the area to get the lay of the land for us first timers. For that
matter they should just have a firstimers class with detailed
explanations of what to expect, what not to do, where not to go and
how to prepare for that particular site. Show us where the house
thermal are.

Another factor for some will also be the availability of a proper
Logger as they seem unnecessarily expensive and are not standard
equipment in older gliders. Perhaps allowing a PDA with GPS, or even a
simple hand held GPS unit to substitude as a turnpoint recorder would
help in this area.

Remove some or all of those barriers and Im sure the contests would
get greater attendance.

The impression that the super pilots with full time organized ground
crews and $90k+ ships makes going to a contest with a older generation
glider say a HP-11 with ~36:1 glide rather futile and would perhaps
feel like a 2nd class pilot showing up with such a craft amoungst all
the expensive glass.

Having never been to a contest I suppose it may just take one good
experience to make me a regular attendee but I just have not felt the
urge to get all the resources together to make that 1st one. Perhaps
its lazy convenience that keeps me at the local club. Distance is
another factor but would probably drive up to 500 miles to go to a 3
day weekend event.

I think what would make me come to one would be a contest amoungst
more of the older generation gliders and some explanation of how
retrieves would be made if I did not bring my own retrieve crew.
Knowing I would have a retrieve crew available at the contest would
remove 75% of the reluctance and flying with older gliders to keep it
interesting, would remove the last 25% and get me to come out.

I know from my sail boating experiences that going to a contest is the
fasterst way to learn from much more experienced pilots and accelerate
your own progress.

I think another good idea for first timers would be to have an
optional pre-contest orientation weekend where perhaps a month before
the contest you could go to the site with a number of others and fly
the area to get the lay of the land for us first timers. For that
matter they should just have a firstimers class with detailed
explanations of what to expect, what not to do, where not to go and
how to prepare for that particular site. Show us where the house
thermal are.

Another factor for some will also be the availability of a proper
Logger as they seem unnecessarily expensive and are not standard
equipment in older gliders. Perhaps allowing a PDA with GPS, or even a
simple hand held GPS unit to substitude as a turnpoint recorder would
help in this area.

Remove some or all of those barriers and Im sure the contests would
get greater attendance.

The impression that the super pilots with full time organized ground
crews and $90k+ ships makes going to a contest with a older generation
glider say a HP-11 with ~36:1 glide rather futile and would perhaps
feel like a 2nd class pilot showing up with such a craft amoungst all
the expensive glass.

Having never been to a contest I suppose it may just take one good
experience to make me a regular attendee but I just have not felt the
urge to get all the resources together to make that 1st one. Perhaps
its lazy convenience that keeps me at the local club. Distance is
another factor but would probably drive up to 500 miles to go to a 3
day weekend event.

I think what would make me come to one would be a contest amoungst
more of the older generation gliders and some explanation of how
retrieves would be made if I did not bring my own retrieve crew.
Knowing I would have a retrieve crew available at the contest would
remove 75% of the reluctance and flying with older gliders to keep it
interesting, would remove the last 25% and get me to come out.

I know from my sail boating experiences that going to a contest is the
fasterst way to learn from much more experienced pilots and accelerate
your own progress.

I think another good idea for first timers would be to have an
optional pre-contest orientation weekend where perhaps a month before
the contest you could go to the site with a number of others and fly
the area to get the lay of the land for us first timers. For that
matter they should just have a firstimers class with detailed
explanations of what to expect, what not to do, where not to go and
how to prepare for that particular site. Show us where the house
thermal are.

Another factor for some will also be the availability of a proper
Logger as they seem unnecessarily expensive and are not standard
equipment in older gliders. Perhaps allowing a PDA with GPS, or even a
simple hand held GPS unit to substitude as a turnpoint recorder would
help in this area.

Remove some or all of those barriers and Im sure the contests would
get greater attendance.

The impression that the super pilots with full time organized ground
crews and $90k+ ships makes going to a contest with a older generation
glider say a HP-11 with ~36:1 glide rather futile and would perhaps
feel like a 2nd class pilot showing up with such a craft amoungst all
the expensive glass.

Having never been to a contest I suppose it may just take one good
experience to make me a regular attendee but I just have not felt the
urge to get all the resources together to make that 1st one. Perhaps
its lazy convenience that keeps me at the local club. Distance is
another factor but would probably drive up to 500 miles to go to a 3
day weekend event.

I think what would make me come to one would be a contest amoungst
more of the older generation gliders and some explanation of how
retrieves would be made if I did not bring my own retrieve crew.
Knowing I would have a retrieve crew available at the contest would
remove 75% of the reluctance and flying with older gliders to keep it
interesting, would remove the last 25% and get me to come out.

I know from my sail boating experiences that going to a contest is the
fasterst way to learn from much more experienced pilots and accelerate
your own progress.

I think another good idea for first timers would be to have an
optional pre-contest orientation weekend where perhaps a month before
the contest you could go to the site with a number of others and fly
the area to get the lay of the land for us first timers. For that
matter they should just have a firstimers class with detailed
explanations of what to expect, what not to do, where not to go and
how to prepare for that particular site. Show us where the house
thermal are.

Another factor for some will also be the availability of a proper
Logger as they seem unnecessarily expensive and are not standard
equipment in older gliders. Perhaps allowing a PDA with GPS, or even a
simple hand held GPS unit to substitude as a turnpoint recorder would
help in this area.

Remove some or all of those barriers and Im sure the contests would
get greater attendance.

The impression that the super pilots with full time organized ground
crews and $90k+ ships makes going to a contest with a older generation
glider say a HP-11 with ~36:1 glide rather futile and would perhaps
feel like a 2nd class pilot showing up with such a craft amoungst all
the expensive glass.

The impression is completely wrong. Most pilots fly crewless at
regionals. Most pilots are incredibly welcoming of newcomers. And we
love to look over interesting bits of soaring history. When you do
well in an older glider you get lots of attaboys and pats on the
back.


Having never been to a contest I suppose it may just take one good
experience to make me a regular attendee

You will have a good experience!

I think what would make me come to one would be a contest amoungst
more of the older generation gliders and some explanation of how
retrieves would be made if I did not bring my own retrieve crew.
Knowing I would have a retrieve crew available at the contest would
remove 75% of the reluctance and flying with older gliders to keep it
interesting, would remove the last 25% and get me to come out.

Welcome to sports class. It's full of older generation gliders, and
like I said nobody there cares what you're flying. In fact, you get a
lot of extra respect for flying older gliders.

If having a crew is really important then bring one along. But it's
really not needed. Come with some buddies; or just get together with
the rest of the sports class and agree "I'll get you if you get me."
Air retrieves and a retrieve office make the whole business pretty
painless. The support you get at contests is one of the great
attractions.


I know from my sail boating experiences that going to a contest is the
fasterst way to learn from much more experienced pilots and accelerate
your own progress.

Bingo. Nothing will push you to becoming a better pilot faster than
hanging around with this gregarious friendly and welcoming group of
very fast pilots.


I think another good idea for first timers would be to have an
optional pre-contest orientation weekend where perhaps a month before
the contest you could go to the site with a number of others and fly
the area to get the lay of the land for us first timers.

Most sites are regular operations. Go for it. Otherwise it's called
practice day. Or go to one of the US team pre-contest camps or the air
sailing sports event.

For that
matter they should just have a firstimers class with detailed
explanations of what to expect, what not to do, where not to go and
how to prepare for that particular site. Show us where the house
thermal are.

First timers class is called sports regionals. You get exactly this
star treatment. You will be assigned your personal "mentor" Many
contests have exactly the kind of special morning briefing you're
asking for. The US team regionals also give daily briefings and daily
debriefings.


Another factor for some will also be the availability of a proper
Logger as they seem unnecessarily expensive and are not standard
equipment in older gliders. Perhaps allowing a PDA with GPS, or even a
simple hand held GPS unit to substitude as a turnpoint recorder would
help in this area.

This is allowed now in sports regionals.


Remove some or all of those barriers and Im sure the contests would
get greater attendance.


These barriers are removed. You're out of excuses. Hope to see you
next year!
John Cochrane BB

Like BB said: No excuses.

Do some homework (go to the SSA or any big club website and there will
usually be links to find info about racing rules, procedures, etc.).
SRA is another excellent source.

Read Moffatt. At least twice.

Then show up and give it a try.

Don't obsess about the "racing" aspect - you will find many pilots who
"race in order to fly", instead of "flying in order to race". (That
approach tends to change as you start doing better, by the way!)

Warning - it is addictive!

Kirk
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