Make Sailplane Racing Great Again

On Wed, 08 Mar 2017 11:37:25 -0800, andy wrote:

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 7:23:48 AM UTC-8,
wrote:
On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 9:58:17 AM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud
wrote:
Way back, last time I was active glider pilot, we had Region 12
contest spread over two weekends. When I returned to flying I was
looking forward to competing close to home and with little time off
from work to fly this contest one would think this would be well
attended. Instead, if I am right, the last time there was a region
12 contest was 2009. When was the last time there was a contest in
AZ (region 9?). If you want to make racing popular again you must
have a strong regional showing or at least have regional contests
available.

And yes, Dave, Americans typically only have one or two weeks off a
year. Very rare to see anyone have three weeks a year off. We also
have many full time jobs that do not pay a living wage. My sister
just returned from living in Australia for 5 years where every job
has a living wage, big difference in cultures when if comes to
workers between America and other 1st world nations.

Back when I had my law office and support staff, if I was not in the
office the work did not get done so I was limited to the occasional
three day weekend and odd days off when the weather was booming.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 2:45:07 AM UTC-8, Dave Walsh wrote:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change jobs or
emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

Split contests over 2 weekends have some real benefits, and some trade
offs.
Benefits Pilots can participate using little vacation time.
Can encourage the local population to give it a try.
Possibly incrased activity for local operation.
Trade offs Hurts participation of pilots further away due to affect of
double travel.
Ties up 2 weekends of supporting operation.
Getting enough days means some vacation use and \may limit local
practice time for some pilots. We have done it both in R2N at
Wurtsboro. I expect we will go the split weekend route next time.
FWIW UH

Agree with Hank on this issue. You really need an active racing
community within a few hours drive to support split weekend contests.
For instance, it makes no sense to have sites like Nephi or Uvalde
running a weekend format. Also, if you have local critical mass you may
be able to support a summer racing series. These tend to be lower key
events with less infrastructure and support needed. I've most often seen
them run by commercial operations, but probably not impossible for clubs
to do.

One attractive feature is these contests tend to be scored on a best N/2
basis for each pilot (where N is the total number of days flown). This
means individual pilots have considerable flexibility on schedule.
Thinking out loud, I wonder whether we should give more recognition and
support to these types of events.

On spectators. It would be nice if we could all bask in the glory of
having a dozen or two spectators watching us race in real time online
(IIRC the last US GP contest had live streaming of the event - how many
real-time spectators were there? I heard a number, but it was
second-hand info).

I do wonder if the biggest challenge is making glider racing more
logistically and financially accessible to pilots rather than attracting
spectators. I'm also in favor of the simplest rules possible, but here
too, most of the complaints you hear are about fairness and ability to
compete on a level playing field. The fairness comments fade a lot every
time you get specific.

Nevertheless, we keep soliciting feedback from pilots on simplification
of rules - some of it pretty radical. For example, no devaluation, which
is the biggest source of complexity and confusion in rules and scoring.
I personally proposed this at the rules meeting at last year's
Std/15M/Open Nationals. The feedback was significant opposition, so it's
an uphill journey - even with top-ranked pilots. I proposed elimination
MAT tasks. Also strong negative feedback. I don't mind an uphill battle,
but success isn't walking over the opposition, you need to bring people
with you. In a sport where you struggle for participation, authoritarian
approaches based on minority viewpoints probably won't have the desired
outcome - assuming the desired outcome is building participation.

Despite all that, there is a proposal on the table right now to get rid
of pretty much all of devaluation formulas in the rules at the WGC
level. It would have helped out at least one of the US pilots at the WGC
in Benalla quite a bit - also the Jonkers brothers who had one terrible
day in an otherwise impressive contest performance. I'd personally favor
this change, but to be clear, doing that will make at best a tiny
difference in terms of overall racing participation. Rules complexity is
way down the list in terms of what any thoughtful, fact-based assessment
reveals about why there are fewer glider pilots and fewer glider racers
(many of those reasons have been well-described here). Task format is
also relatively low among all the features that pilots point to in terms
of what makes the rules hard to understand. In fact there is generally
broad support for formats that increase flexibility in tasking rather
than restrict it, particularly at the Regional level but at the National
level too. Of course there are one or two (depending on how you count
screen names) notable exceptions to that support.

If we are talking about taking action to improve participation and
enjoyment of glider racing, the most important consideration is the
Pareto principle. Without that we will spin our wheels on hobby horse
theories and personal assertions that will consume energy and have
little - or even negative - impact. This is a hard enough problem to
address as it is, focusing on the important things is important.

I'm a little surprised that, apart from the single long-standing inter-
club contest on the East Coast (President's Cup? NY/New England area?)
nobody seems to have tried a similar format to the Inter Club League we
run in the UK:

- single weekend comps, two entries per club in three experience levels
- about six clubs in each local group
- typically three weekend comps run during the soaring season,
each on a different club's field
- winning club from each local group goes forward to a national comp
which is run to the same format.

This would seem to hit most of your buttons - minimal time/travel/cost
(you can usually drive home between days or camp on the field) and
minimal organisation beyond typical club flying apart from task setting
and scoring because no start/finish gates are used.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |