Powerflarm's unknown effect on the first contests in US

On Jan 9, 12:32*pm, WR wrote:

As one of my racing buddies put it "next year will be an unrestricted
technical free-for-all, don't be the guy who brings a knife to a
gunfight."

It has always been a technical free-for-all, within the constraints of
the class that was chosen. I flew Std class for years in an
uncompetitive glider, and I was known to have described that as
bringing a knife to a gun fight. It only took money to solve that
problem.

The amount of money to buy PowerFLARM and a display device is
insignificant compared to the investment in a new glider.

I'm still not convinced that the competitive advantage of having a PDA
showing climb rates will be that great but I'm looking forward to
trying it. What I need is a system that monitors my task average
climb rate, my current climb rate, the climb rates of all others in
the area, and then guides me to the best next thermal taking into
account deviation from course line and probability that the thermal
will still be there when I arrive. Of course it will also tell me the
best time to leave the one I'm in now.

I expect it will be a while before a PDA system does that better than
the pilot and even then it won't have the skill to find the unmarked
thermal that's better than all the marked ones. Luck and skill are
not going to go away as significant factors in contest results.

Andy (GY)