OLC scoring - USA

I made a few attempts to get my club to adopt a UK like ladder system
over the past few years, without success. The UK clubs often
established a club ladder, best four flights, as an annual trophy
recognition. The BGA also had a couple of national ladders, one for
weekend only flights and the other for weekday flights. These were
very popular and an inspiration for XC flying. The OLC is a 21st
century iteration of this.

I don't have any problem with the SSA regional filter as it probably
aids those sites that are borderline with other regions. Haven't
checked to see if there are any anomalies. A state filter would assist
me, and other governors, in the role of governor in presenting soaring
to the general Colorado public and deciphering annual OLC awards. I've
posted to the 'governors' group to see how and if others have made
these awards. Possibly the SSA will give regional or national
recognition at some point in the forms of certificates. Trophies are
probably out as official SSA trophies require sizable endowments. It
took several years before the Sports Class Nationals trophy became a
reality. I agree Bill, there is some gee-whiz value here.

FWIW, our Colorado record keeper holds 10 state records (from diverse
sites, see Mr. January on the 2006 SSA Calendar), 17 Wyoming records
(same region) and 13 Nebraska records (different region). The WY and
NE records were all flown from our club in Colorado. So I can
appreciate how some sites are looking at the regional mapping,
especially if soaring just over the boundary may be greener. But these
flights and OLC are mixing apples and oranges presently.

My club hasn't taken an official stand WRT OLC and our fleet is not yet
logger equipped. It's mostly economics, and partly member awareness.
Though a private owner, I'd like to see the club ships that are likely
to go XC so equipped.

Mapping states is not necessarily trivial, having done some lat/lon and
grid ref conversions encompassing the 0 meridian when helping develop
software during 1993 and 1994 for task setting and doing logging
analysis. Colorado, one of the rectangular states, is easy. States
with river boundaries are something else again.

OLC is still in its infancy. Use will change somewhat. The criteria I
used this year will undoubtedly change in the future, but we also have
to look forward to other awards based on OLC performance. One change
in 2005 (50km minimum distance) resulted in one club in our state to
stop posting, as they have about 8 1-26's in the private and club
fleet. The bar appears to have been raised a little too high. I know
of some more senior pilots that aren't posting though they do manage a
lot of soaring and some impressive flights, but somehow they haven't
bought into the process yet. So we need to win them back and I really
think the state filter might help there also. Anyway, I'll get with
Chip on this.

There is a cost per pilot associated with OLC participation. SSA would
rather support this through an advertising stream rather through member
fund or charges. Aerokourier has a cost for hosting and bandwidth, but
is not charging for the service, but will need some revenue to keep it
running.

It will be interesting to see if the FAI 28% triangle fit will change
the type of flying done this year.

Frank Whiteley