Sailplane Contest Strategies & Tactics

After the practice day at the 1966 Nationals in Reno, Dick Schreder
got a fortune cookie that said something like "You will be victorious
in a great contest."

Just $0.02 from someone who was recently a newbie contest pilot:

It is very VERY tempting to say "I'm better than the average pilot, I
can jump right into the _real_ racing strategies". But it just ain't
so. I know because - while it may sound a bit cocky to delcare this -
I _AM_ better than the average pilot (though I'm definitely no
superstar).

Here's the catch: the "average" is surprisingly low when you look at
all of the pilots who can only soar locally or who only take a couple
of flights a year in old club equipment. The truth is that "below-
average" just doesn't really exist in the glider-racing world. Below-
average pilots hardly ever make it out to a contest. There are guys
who don't score well in contests - but even those folks can soar cross-
country with a reasonable amount of success. So you can't compare
yourself to the folks at your local airfield or club and use that as a
gauge for how you'll do in a contest.

This does NOT mean that you have to take it easy and be non-
competitive at your first contest!! I thought that's what people were
telling me when I asked these questions in 2008 and 2009 and got many
of the same responses you have gotten. But I realize now that we were
just communicating in different ways.

Here's the thing: Cross-country soaring and sailplane-racing use
remarkably similar _piloting_ skill-sets. But _mentally_ they are
very different. From the organization of the day (morning meeting,
grid-time, launch-time, start-time, etc), to the task (programming it,
flying it, tracking your time, guesstimating your past and future
speed and performance, etc), to the finish (make it home safe and
don't bust anything) - your head will be full of a lot of stuff OTHER
than flying fast and thermalling well. There's nothing but practical
experience that can get you comfortable with this, and is why
experienced racing pilots do so well.

So with that said, here are my tips for successful contest flying:

1) Get familiar with your GPS, logger, and flight computer!! Try them
out in "contest mode" and actually use that feature. Don't just plan
a route with them - program a task with time limits and try to fiddle
with it (safely) in the air. I made the mistake of thinking that I
was ready just because I knew how to fiddle with waypoints and read my
current status on my PDA. Actual contest flying involves time limits
and a constant re-evaluation of your progress. MATs and TATs require
you to tweak your destination on-the-fly, so you have to understand
how to find out what you've accomplished so far and how to adjust
accordingly. You also need to find out if you can trust your flight-
computer's estimates and calculations. I still have no idea how good
or accurate my PDA is at estimating my final glide - and I've been
flying with it for 3 seasons now...

2) Get really really good at thermalling. Low saves happen - you need
to be confident that you can make 'em without endangering yourself or
the other gliders that may be in the same weak thermal with you. When
you can find and center weak lift, you're on the path to success. You
don't want to waste your time with weak lift during a contest - but
sooner or later EVERYONE needs a weak thermal in order to make a low
save. And the confidence that you can work one gives you the ability
to really fly competitively and push your speed and range up.

3) When you get to the contest, do NOT change your safety attitude or
comfort margins. This is _hard_. I did not intend to fly
aggressively in my first contest; yet the desire to not land out led
me to a couple of close shaves and some unnecessary risks. Learn when
to recognize that you can't win the day (or even significantly improve
your finishing position), and fly safe.

5) Never stop asking questions. Some guys will complain about
"leeches" when they're bellyaching to the world - but I've found that
almost every contest pilot is willing to answer the polite questions
of a newbie (as long as they aren't asked during a critical phase of
the morning's preparations). Seek out the hot pilots who are local to
the contest area and milk them for a little bit of knowledge every
single day. Whenever a contest day can't happen, take one of those
guys out for a long lunch and turn the "lost day" into some positive
experience and knowledge!

Have fun!

--Noel

On Jan 18, 6:01*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
"Travel by road or rail"

It turned out to be oh, so true, but that's a long story

John Cochrane BB

I have the same cookie fortune
"Travel by road or rail"
taped to the instrument panel of
my RHJ-8. Some passengers have
found it worrying.

See ya, Dave "YO whale"

On Jan 18, 10:34*am, Scott Alexander
wrote:

Anyone want to chime in on some good contest strategies or tactics?

Get a copy of Condor soaring simulator (www.condorsoaring.com) and
start flying some races (Monday Night Soaring 7 &10pm ET Mondays -
friendly to first-timers)

Figure out how to connect your regular flying PDA to Condor. Condor
outputs GPGGA, GPRMC, and LXWP0 sentences to a COMM port, and most if
not all soaring PDA programs accept these by default. You may need a
USB-to-serial adaptor for this.

Design some short AAT and/or MAT races in Condor and fly them using
your actual PDA. You'll be surprised how hard it is to make the PDA
work for you instead of against you, and this is something you do not
want to discover in an actual contest.

IMHO Condor is by far the best way to prepare for cross-country
racing, as opposed to cross-country flying.

TA

Just wanted to also put in a plug for Condor, with one caveat:

Do _not_ use Condor to soar your local area, or your intended contest
area. At the least you'll find it annoying because of the
inaccuracies. At worst you'll make bad decisions in real life because
you got used to referencing the terrain in Condor and try to apply it
to the real world!

Condor Soaring is awesome for developing general soaring techniques
and (as TA pointed out) working with a PDA/flight-computer. It is NOT
designed to give you ground-reference familiarity.

--Noel

On Jan 19, 1:38*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:
Just wanted to also put in a plug for Condor, with one caveat:

Do _not_ use Condor to soar your local area, or your intended contest
area. *At the least you'll find it annoying because of the
inaccuracies. *At worst you'll make bad decisions in real life because
you got used to referencing the terrain in Condor and try to apply it
to the real world!

Condor Soaring is awesome for developing general soaring techniques
and (as TA pointed out) working with a PDA/flight-computer. *It is NOT
designed to give you ground-reference familiarity.

--Noel

Well, I have actually found Condor to be quite helpful for area
familiarization, as Condor uses the same terrain database used for all
other terrain mapping programs, including Google Earth. Flying a
terrain in Condor is much more helpful to me than 'flying' it in
Google Earth or staring at a map.

However, as Noel pointed out, no terrain database is entirely
accurate, and location/elevation errors of hundreds of meters are
common, so assuming that a ridge line goes just so, or that a mountain
pass is just this high, could lead to some very embarrassing moments
in real life. Also, thermals in Condor aren't always where you would
find them in real life, although thermals do tend to favor high ground
as expected. In flat terrain, thermals are distributed more or less
randomly, and don't correspond to infrastructure features like road,
towns, lakes, etc.

TA

Well, I have actually found Condor to be quite helpful for area
familiarization, as Condor uses the same terrain database used for all

NEGATIVE. This is NOT TRUE. Some people use the NASA "SRTM" data for
terrain elevation; but there are different resolutions for that data
that can provide different levels of accuracy. And Condor maps are
all user-created and not necessarily based on real-world locations.
It is totally up to the map's creator to define the terrain and the
scenery. Satellite photos _are_ used for some maps; but others are
semi-random repeating patterns of texture & color to make lowlands
look lush and high ground look rocky - with no regard for the real
world.

Condor is the product of just 2 people. And it is AMAZING for the
small team that produces it. But the maps are not like MS Flight
Simulator where a large dedicated team of people has spent years
poring over the entire world and building it up as accurately as
possible. Some map-makers are obsessive and realistic; other map-
makers provide scenery that is inaccurate or is a wholly fantastic
setting (and there's nothing wrong with that).

As Frank points out, thermals are not always accurately placed in
Condor, either. The map files have hidden values that tell Condor
what probability to assign to a thermal popping up in any given
location... Those hidden values are specified by the map-maker and are
not necessarily tied to any real-world data. Condor tries to simulate
the effects of wind and terrain, but it uses those hidden values as
its primary guide to thermal generation. So again, if the map-maker
is obsessive and makes the house thermal spot (in real life) a likely
place for thermals to form in Condor - then its probably fairly
accurate.

Runways and buildings are the same way. Its not based on exact real-
world data; its based on whatever the map-maker says. And with dozens
of small/outlying airfields in most Condor maps, you can bet that a
certain percentage of them bear no resemblance to their real-world
counterparts. Heck, some of them don't even have the runway pointing
in the correct direction.

NOW, having said all of that - let me make it clear: CONDOR IS AN
AWESOME PROGRAM. Any pilot who wants to work on his/her cross-country
soaring or racing skills should have this simulator and use it. But
use it to develop your sense of timing and flying skills - do NOT try
to use it as a guide for what the "real world" will look like when you
get there.

Enjoy,

--Noel