MAT's are dangerous

Let's go back in time to August 4th 2010. The sport of soaring lost a well respected man named Chris O'Callaghan. It was the 4th fatal sailplane accident in 4 weeks. This was a wake up call to many pilots operating without Flarm or Parachutes. Chris was flying on the return leg of a task when he collided head on with another sailplane traveling opposite direction to the final turnpoint.

What can we learn from history to avoid repeating it?

Can the tasks be a contributing factor to set up pilots for a collision?

Let's look at the task for August 4th 2010 in Uvalde.
1. Start North
2. Callaghan
3. UnoMasPc
4. Leakey
5. Batesville
6. Finish

For those of you unfamiliar with these turnpoints, Leakey is due north of Uvalde and Batesville is almost due south. That means that from the Leaky turnpoint to the Batesville turnpoint you are racing head on with gliders flying opposite direction from Batesville to the Finish. On a good day, you are traveling around 100 mph (85-90 knots true airspeed) which is a closure rate of 200 mph. You are racing between the same cumulus clouds, essentially on the same path, and same altitude (lift band).

Don't you remember from private pilot 101 that collision courses between aircraft are extremely hard to identify because there is no relative movement in your vision?

So what's the point? Tasks that are called which have pilots racing in opposite direction of each other should be avoided.

During a MAT race, there is a MAJOR threat of this happening because there is NO organized route for the task! It's just a bunch of gliders traveling in random directions as fast as they possibly can go. As cockpits become more technologically advanced with Flarm, GPS Maps, Thermal centering devices, etc, cockpit distractions have reached an ALL TIME HIGH.

If you have ever flown in a large contest you know first hand the dangers that exist when pilots are gaggling around the start cylinder. Many pilots will fly out of the way by many miles just to avoid this issue until they are ready to start and then return through the cylinder.

Out on course with a MAT the threat level is high for a mid air to happen. Take a look at Chris O'callaghans accident and tell me if this can't happen again with a similar scenario with a poorly designed task or an MAT.

And tell everyone again....why exactly are we doing MAT's???