Seniors Contest

Jamie,

That is exactly what I was thinking. A control point.
Yes, sort of like what we locally call an IP (initial point)
when entering on the 45 for our normal pattern to land.

We are fortunate to have a huge metal tank maybe 50 meters
diameter that could be used as this remote "control point" and
is in line with the 45 entry (sort of). It is probably 3-4 km
away. At 500ft AGL in a 2-33 with a headwind this would be a little
close, but in the L-13 or anything sexier it looks ok.

Thanks for your post! Control point. I like that.
Is it scored as an OZ or a cylinder? Scoring as an OZ
would take a little bit of thought, and as a cylinder, I'd
expect it'd need to be pretty narrow to not cover the airport.

In article ,
John Doe wrote:
Mark,

I think what you are getting at is what we in the UK
call a control point, a final turnpoint that must be
rounded in the normal way, but is only maybe 5-10 km
from the airfield, each glider is a few hundred feet
(or more depending on the pilots saftey margins) up
at this point and after turning the control point,
competitors turn to the airfield and dive to a known
linear finish gate. There is generally no minimun
finish height so often the gate is crossed under 50
ft but as all competitors are coming in from a fixed
direction towards a small and clear area of land it
eliminates the vast majority of head to head at low
altitude issues and I've never seen congestion at a
control point myself (altough as my own competition
experience is rather limited I won't say it never happens).

As for non comp gliders, everywhere I've been competing
the daily briefing for non-comp pilots always stressed
the comps procedures as well as use of the radio to
ensure separation in launch, landing and finishing.
As long as the finish gate is suitably chosen to be
away from the main landing area and obstacles with
space to land after as well as an easy entry into circuit
for those with the speed to do so it can be both a
safe and an exciting way to finish without the artificial
complications of raised finish lines.

John,

Whilst some of those accidents are attributable
to finish gates, I'd certainly question your thinking
the last three.
Taking the Discus crash for example, in a Discus
(in which I have a reasonable if not spectacular amount
of time), 500' is adequate, if not totally comfortable,
for a decent enough circuit, that crash, as well as
the others, from the reports seem to be the whole 'slightly
low in the circuit leads to a poor turn leading to
a spin in' issue.
Where the blame in that lies is the topic for another
thread but that, like the other last three, does not
seem to be attributable directly to finish gate issues
as surely a pilot just making it over a 500' 1 mile
finish gate would be in exactly the same situation
as someone who has just got a few hundred feet of height
from a competition pullup?

The others seem to be 'insufficient speed, insufficient
time to recover from the spin', afaiks the same situation
as trying to scrabble over a start gate at 450' and
screwing up.

It's been said before but unfortunately you can't legislate
good judgement.

Cheers

Jamie Denton

--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd

I'm in complete agreement. I don't fly contests, likely
never will, but I
sure *used* to enjoy the contest finishes.


I suppose this is a case of different strokes for different
folks...I watch these and think to myself ....'What's
the point?'...and have a particularly hard time explaining
the logic of this manuever to non-glider aviators.

But then I don't stare at teenagers burning rubber
either


What a shame they destroyed the
best part of contests for the spectators.

Like there are a.) any in the first place, and b.)
the few there are will now stop attending.

bumper
ZZ
Minden

I was afraid we might go a whole year without a finish
height debate - Wheee!

9B

At 05:30 11 March 2005, Marc Ramsey wrote:
Kilo Charlie wrote:
Every single one of these is a stall spin accident.
They are examples of
poor judgement and are not different than any other
stall spin
accident....e.g. from base to final. To suggest that
this is not related to
judgement but to the gate is a huge stretch. Some
are not even contest
flights and are therefore unrelated to finish gates
at all.

So, stalling and spinning moments after what are clearly,
in several
cases (including the most recent), botched gate finishes
(i.e.,
insufficient energy) has absolutely nothing to do with
the use of a
gate, while stalling and spinning at 600 feet while
trying to sneak over
the edge of a finish cylinder, proves that cylinder
finishes are
dangerous?

An example of an accident that is related to the finish
gate is if there
were a midair at the gate.

You've got it! I can choose not to finish at 50 feet,
but I have no
control over the potential for a midair. I have had
trouble several
times with having to land between gliders crossing
my base leg low and
fast on their way to the finish gate. There was also
the time someone
cut me off at the gate, by hooking it 100 feet in front
of me. Maybe I
missed the finish calls, or maybe they didn't make
them, it really
doesn't matter. Poor judgment and bad luck may well
equal two dead
contest pilots one of these days.

The bottom line is this, whoever is fastest with a
50 foot gate, is also
going to be fastest with a 500 foot cylinder. So,
why do some insist
upon trying to force use of a 'fun' finish procedure
that quite a few of
us find dangerous? As far as I'm concerned, if even
one participant
objects, a gate shouldn't be used (and, yes, I have
objected, and have
been overruled). If everyone agrees, have a good time...

So it brings back to attempting to legislate good
judgement.

Yeah, what a silly thing to do...

Marc

Bill Daniels wrote:

You sound like a bunch of wusses.

If the kitchen's too hot for you, get out.

This particular, 'Wuss' has flown 200 combat missions
in Vietnam (RF-4C) and have a hand full of Air medals
+ a DFC. I didn't take unnecessary chances over there
and I haven't done it in 4300 hours spent racing sailplanes.
The advent of GPS has completely negated the need for
the 'Neanderthal' finish line. Why do we keep it in
the rules?

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Oh for God's sake JJ.....you know full well that a low pass is LEGAL re the
FAR's when over an airport. If you don't believe that then explain why
there have been numerous instances of the FAA being present during finishes
at airports around the US for years without a single citation.

When we do passes for fun (yes they can be fun for those of you that are
thinking after reading these threads that only psychotic wackos do them) at
our local airport we do them down the runway with radio calls typically at
10, 4 and 1-2 miles alerting traffic and asking for advisories. So help me
understand how that is ANY different than a landing. And just to ensure you
that I really am a rational being....I broke off a pass last weekend when an
ultralight and other glider traffic presented a possible conflict.

Casey

Give us the FAR. Thanks!

Most people do not understand the implications of having flown an RF-4
in Vitenam.

What I know about the RF-4 in Vietnam I learned while going through USAF
pilot training in the early 80's. There was a video in our viewing room
called "Alone, Unarmed, and Unafraid." It was about the RF-4.

You see, the RF-4 has no weapons, only cameras. After the US would bomb
something, as you might imagine, all the people that had lived through
the bombing were really ****ed. They were real eager to damage something
US and they knew that they would have a chance by just waiting at the
bombed out sites for the lonely RF-4 that was going to be coming by soon
to take pictures. The damage isn't real until there's a picture, gotta
have a picture. The RF-4's defense was low altitude and speed---lots of
speed. And they still got there ass shot up all the time.

200 missions in an RF-4 over Vietnam. I can't possibly imagine what
might qualify as an unnecessary risk in those circumstances. I tip my hat.

Fred




John Sinclair wrote:
Bill Daniels wrote:


You sound like a bunch of wusses.


If the kitchen's too hot for you, get out.


This particular, 'Wuss' has flown 200 combat missions
in Vietnam (RF-4C) and have a hand full of Air medals
+ a DFC. I didn't take unnecessary chances over there
and I haven't done it in 4300 hours spent racing sailplanes.
The advent of GPS has completely negated the need for
the 'Neanderthal' finish line. Why do we keep it in
the rules?

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Reminds me of a comment I heard a while back from a FAA ATC Safety Rep.
it went something like this.

My Idea of playing it safe is putting another 1/2 mile spacing between
two airplanes. An F16 pilot's Idea of playing it safe is firing a
second Sidewinder in case the 1st misses.

Brian

At 05:00 12 March 2005, Kilo Charlie wrote:

Oh for God's sake JJ.....you know full well that a
low pass is LEGAL re the
FAR's when over an airport. If you don't believe that
then explain why
there have been numerous instances of the FAA being
present during finishes
at airports around the US for years without a single
citation.

A low pass may be tolerated by the FAA when done down
the runway. Our finish gates are normally not situated
so that the sailplane makes a low pass right down the
runway. Anyway, the big potential problem isn't getting
a citation from the FAA, it's being named in a law
suit. Those of us that run soaring contests have an
obligation to do everything in our power to make the
event as safe as possible.
Bill took some of us to task for being 'Wooses' and
said we should run our contests like they did in the
'66 nationals at Reno-Stead. Quote from Sterling Starr's
excellent article, 'Ten pilots, because of landing
damage and other problems, were unable to compete.'
And this was only after 4 days. I'll take our present
rules, but we have an opligation to do this as safe
as we possibly can.
JJ

Hi Mark
A control point in simply an additional turnpoint
(as opposed to a remote finish) placed next to the
airport so as to bring gliders round to finish from
a direction where an appropriate finish gate can be
provided. As per UK rules this is the usual 1/2 km
radius circle and 20k (I think) thistle. If you aren't
sure about the thistle part (I don't know if it has
an equivalent in US rules) there is a diagram on page
11 of:
http://www.gliding.co.uk/forms/competitionrules2005.pdf


For an example of Control Point use look at this
task from last years junior nationals:

http://www.lasham.org.uk/comps/natio...p?comp=b&ddate
=Saturday%2021st%20August

Lasham has a very open finish line coming in from the
west but no suitable place to locate a finish line
from the north, so each day where the task came in
from the north an aditional turn point (in this case
TP4) was added to force competitors to approach from
the west.
A glider has not finished until it has crossed
an on airfield finish line or entered the finish circle
(page 12 of the above pdf).

You mentioned the self selection of turnpoints
in the US Sports class (I assume that is similar to
our Club Class). In this case might it not be an idea
to have the provision for a mandatory turn point at
the end of the task and say 'you may select the order
of your turnpoints but your final turnpoint must be
this one'. This would seem to eliminate the whole
problem of converging gliders at low level without
necessitating the use of such a large finish cylinder
(which I have to admit I am sceptical of the value
of). There are obvious issues regarding the use of
thistles and penalty sectorsif the direction you are
approaching the airport is not fixed (in UK competitions,
the order of turns is usually fixed), but I think these
could be alleviated by the use of a simple 1k cylinder.
The idea of the thistle I believe is to allow a pilot
to round a turnpoint further out if the conditions
at the turnpoint are unfavorable, but as the control
point is very near the finish a pilot would be trying
to get to that exact location so the thistle could
be discarded at this point, leaving a 1 or 2 km radius
cylinder as the only point.

Cheers

Jamie

p.s. I have to admit that on that day during the Juniors
I forgot about the conrol point and went straight for
the finish, recording a gps landout a few k from the
airfield, d'oh!



At 18:30 11 March 2005, Mark James Boyd wrote:
Jamie,

That is exactly what I was thinking. A control point.
Yes, sort of like what we locally call an IP (initial
point)
when entering on the 45 for our normal pattern to land.

We are fortunate to have a huge metal tank maybe
50 meters
diameter that could be used as this remote 'control
point' and
is in line with the 45 entry (sort of). It is probably
3-4 km
away. At 500ft AGL in a 2-33 with a headwind this
would be a little
close, but in the L-13 or anything sexier it looks
ok.

Thanks for your post! Control point. I like that.
Is it scored as an OZ or a cylinder? Scoring as an
OZ
would take a little bit of thought, and as a cylinder,
I'd
expect it'd need to be pretty narrow to not cover the
airport.

In article ,
John Doe wrote:
Mark,

I think what you are getting at is what we in the UK
call a control point, a final turnpoint that must be
rounded in the normal way, but is only maybe 5-10 km
from the airfield, each glider is a few hundred feet
(or more depending on the pilots saftey margins) up
at this point and after turning the control point,
competitors turn to the airfield and dive to a known
linear finish gate. There is generally no minimun
finish height so often the gate is crossed under 50
ft but as all competitors are coming in from a fixed
direction towards a small and clear area of land it
eliminates the vast majority of head to head at low
altitude issues and I've never seen congestion at a
control point myself (altough as my own competition
experience is rather limited I won't say it never happens).

As for non comp gliders, everywhere I've been competing
the daily briefing for non-comp pilots always stressed
the comps procedures as well as use of the radio to
ensure separation in launch, landing and finishing.
As long as the finish gate is suitably chosen to be
away from the main landing area and obstacles with
space to land after as well as an easy entry into circuit
for those with the speed to do so it can be both a
safe and an exciting way to finish without the artificial
complications of raised finish lines.

John,

Whilst some of those accidents are attributable
to finish gates, I'd certainly question your thinking
the last three.
Taking the Discus crash for example, in a Discus
(in which I have a reasonable if not spectacular amount
of time), 500' is adequate, if not totally comfortable,
for a decent enough circuit, that crash, as well as
the others, from the reports seem to be the whole 'slightly
low in the circuit leads to a poor turn leading to
a spin in' issue.
Where the blame in that lies is the topic for another
thread but that, like the other last three, does not
seem to be attributable directly to finish gate issues
as surely a pilot just making it over a 500' 1 mile
finish gate would be in exactly the same situation
as someone who has just got a few hundred feet of height
from a competition pullup?

The others seem to be 'insufficient speed, insufficient
time to recover from the spin', afaiks the same situation
as trying to scrabble over a start gate at 450' and
screwing up.

It's been said before but unfortunately you can't legislate
good judgement.

Cheers

Jamie Denton

--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd