OLC participation and "red marks"

Erik Mann (P3)

p.s. If anyone want an example of the situation, take a look at the
file from Ron Schwartz on 3/27 in the US. The source .CAI file
passes Vali-Cam just fine. Ran CAI2IGC just fine. Output .IGC file
shows the binary .CAI file appended to the IGC file. File still shows
up on OLC as invalid, not to mention that the scoring distance is also
wrong. Would appreciate anyone who can download the file and see if
anything jumps out at you.


I think two things are going on with this file. First, the optimization
software thought he landed near the beginning of the flight, so most of
the distance was not counted. He needs to manually enter the time he
landed, and that should solve this problem. Why did the optimization
software think he landed at the top of a thermal? Who knows. Open the
flight in SeeYou, and the flight is optimized just fine, so it appears
the flight was not uploaded with SeeYou. I think the OLC is using
Strepla as its optimization software for flights that are not already
optimized when uploaded. But SeeYou gets it wrong at times, too.

The other problem is the message " Sorry, Validation Service is current
not running. OLC Team is working on that issue." Apparently some or
all of the earlier Cambridge files are getting the red mark because OLC
can't run its validation software. This has been going on for 3 weeks
now, and certainly would cause unhappiness for a pilot who just made a
tremendous flight. Especially since after going through the CAI 20/25
song-and-dance, you don't know if you did it right until you see the
approved flight on the website.

My personal feeling is that the OLC is a great idea that has been
implemented very poorly:
1. The web interface is very poor, both for those uploading flights,
and those wanting to look at recent flights.
2. It has all the noted problems with older Cambridge loggers,
including rejection of flights that have a single bogus line in the IGC
file.
3. It requires a level of security that is way beyond what is needed
for this type of contest.
4. It requires you to submit a Monday flight by the evening of the next
day (so the flight in question is already beyond the submission date,
and now there probably is no possibility of correcting the distance).
5. The maps on the OLC site are very poor.
6. You must enter a code to view any IGC files (is there really a
problem with automated software downloading hundreds of flights, and if
so isn't there a better way to handle this?).

The founders of the OLC did a fine job implementing a great idea. What
is needed now is to transfer the entire OLC project to new people who
can take it to a higher level.