FLARM and Triathlon

On Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 7:30:07 AM UTC-5, Jim White wrote:
Leeching scenarios

We can't agree on the problem, much less the solution. So let me go in a different direction using another sport as the analog.

FLARM makes it easier to follow someone closely if leeching is your strategy. But I agree that's not usually, or even often, a formula for success. Far more common are those who use leeching to move out of the middle of the pack throughout a contest to finish in the top ranks.

Jim's scenarios are very interesting--and realistic. But I'm not sure I'd use the word "leeching" to describe them, however, because they involve pilots using FLARM to make decisions. The only decision made by a self-respecting leech (a contradiction in terms?) is whom to follow that day. Jim describes pilots using [FLARM] technology to get better information to make better decisions. And regarding scenario #1, the leader starting behind the 2nd place guy on the last day to shadow him and insure a win, XX, George Moffat himself--the anti-leech--did it at Marfa one year in the 60s to Wally Scott, IIRC.

Philosophically, I don't have a problem with using other gliders to make better decisions. We see markers up ahead, we listen to radio calls, and (yes) we even use FLARM in Stealth mode.

And I'm not a technophobe, notwithstanding BB's Hillaryesque insistence that anyone who opposes technology-driven change in any form must be part of a vast elderly Luddite conspiracy. We're flying with gliders, instruments, and GPS-enabled flight computers that we could only dream about when I started competing. I just don't like the fact that FLARM makes it easier to leech, in the classic sense of the word: always following, never leading out..

Many triathletes--individualists by temperament and sport--don't like their competitors drafting behind them in the cycling leg to get a free ride for long periods of time, reserving energy. Google "drafting" and "triathlon" and you'll think you're back on RAS with just a few key words swapped.

So how about taking a page from the triathlon playbook and simply banning leeching? In triathlon, the rules define a drafting zone behind a cyclist into which another cyclist can't enter unless he/she is overtaking. It's messy, with different governing bodies and rules for amateur vs. pro events. And even when illegal, it's not always enforced all that well, especially when there are a lot of nearly equivalent pro racers and not enough officials.

But in soaring, we don't need officials! We already have most of the technology to define and enforce "no leeching" rules.

We know it when we see it in the air. We can also watch two gliders on a SeeYou replay and appreciate good pilots flying together to improve their mutual performance. They spread out to cover more air on the runs. They explore different parts of the thermal early on. They climb at different rates. Whomever gets to the top leads out first. Sometimes they part and go their separate ways. Little to none of the above is true for leeches.

So can we use technology--i.e., post-flight analysis of logger traces--to impose penalties for leeching? Yeah, it sounds messy. More post-processing work. After-the-fact penalties. More protests from innocent and not-so-innocent pilots.

I don't know what the algorithms and rules should be. Points assessed based on getting to the top and allowing someone else to lead out repeatedly? Or percentage of time in a run where you're in trail? Accumulate a certain number of points and start to incur time penalties? Number of times you enter a thermal behind the same guy within X seconds at the same altitude? 9B, you must have some ideas.

Yeah, more rules complexities. More dependence on technology. But do you want to use open FLARM at major contests? Figure out a way to prevent certain pilots from abusing the benefits of that technology.

No, this isn't a troll. I'm serious. I'm sure I'm not the first to propose it. Have at it.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 4:03:18 PM UTC-8, wrote:

I don't know what the algorithms and rules should be. Points assessed based on getting to the top and allowing someone else to lead out repeatedly? Or percentage of time in a run where you're in trail? Accumulate a certain number of points and start to incur time penalties? Number of times you enter a thermal behind the same guy within X seconds at the same altitude? 9B, you must have some ideas.


Totally possible - it's dirt simple to create (and I have proposed a version) a very mild penalty system for climbing in thermals you didn't get to within 30 seconds of the first entrant. Would be interesting to try, pretty easy to calculate from IGC files and, IMHO, totally unnecessary. But that's just me.

9B

The other direction. The penalty would apply to someone who enters a thermal LESS than, say, 20 seconds after the guy in front of him/her over and over again. I don't think it's dirt simple, although not hugely complex. It's a form of pattern recognition. No problem using someone else's thermal. But if that's all you do, especially if the same 1 or 2 or 3 pilots keep finding the thermals, and especially if there's not much vertical separation, then you're leeching and you shouldn't get the winner's time.

Not a drastic penalty. Just a disincentive to lock in behind one of the leaders and get towed around the course.

How's this for an incentive? Try it and I'll shut up about stealth.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

Chip, I'm very interested that you say you don't consider the behavior Jim White described as "leeching".

If we can all agree that "leeching" is when someone follows someone else around the course and never makes his own decisions, we can assign time and altitude limits to define "following" and automatically scan IGC files to identify when possible leeching is occurring.

I've been playing around with a computer program that attempts to do this. The program needs a lot more work, but I haven't been putting much effort into it because until now there hasn't been a usable definition of "leeching".

Perhaps it's possible to agree on a way forward to permit the solving of the issue I think is behind all of the "stealth" angst expressed in many recent RAS posts...

-John, Q3

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 7:03:18 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Lots of snipping to show subject

Jim's scenarios are very interesting--and realistic. But I'm not sure I'd use the word "leeching" to describe them, however, because they involve pilots using FLARM to make decisions. The only decision made by a self-respecting leech (a contradiction in terms?) is whom to follow that day. Jim describes pilots using [FLARM] technology to get better information to make better decisions. And regarding scenario #1, the leader starting behind the 2nd place guy on the last day to shadow him and insure a win, XX, George Moffat himself--the anti-leech--did it at Marfa one year in the 60s to Wally Scott, IIRC.

So can we use technology--i.e., post-flight analysis of logger traces--to impose penalties for leeching? Yeah, it sounds messy. More post-processing work. After-the-fact penalties. More protests from innocent and not-so-innocent pilots.

No, this isn't a troll. I'm serious. I'm sure I'm not the first to propose it. Have at it.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

On Wednesday, 23 December 2015 21:08:04 UTC-7, John Carlyle wrote:
Chip, I'm very interested that you say you don't consider the behavior Jim White described as "leeching".

If we can all agree that "leeching" is when someone follows someone else around the course and never makes his own decisions, we can assign time and altitude limits to define "following" and automatically scan IGC files to identify when possible leeching is occurring.

I've been playing around with a computer program that attempts to do this.. The program needs a lot more work, but I haven't been putting much effort into it because until now there hasn't been a usable definition of "leeching".

Perhaps it's possible to agree on a way forward to permit the solving of the issue I think is behind all of the "stealth" angst expressed in many recent RAS posts...

-John, Q3

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 7:03:18 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Lots of snipping to show subject

Jim's scenarios are very interesting--and realistic. But I'm not sure I'd use the word "leeching" to describe them, however, because they involve pilots using FLARM to make decisions. The only decision made by a self-respecting leech (a contradiction in terms?) is whom to follow that day. Jim describes pilots using [FLARM] technology to get better information to make better decisions. And regarding scenario #1, the leader starting behind the 2nd place guy on the last day to shadow him and insure a win, XX, George Moffat himself--the anti-leech--did it at Marfa one year in the 60s to Wally Scott, IIRC.

So can we use technology--i.e., post-flight analysis of logger traces--to impose penalties for leeching? Yeah, it sounds messy. More post-processing work. After-the-fact penalties. More protests from innocent and not-so-innocent pilots.

No, this isn't a troll. I'm serious. I'm sure I'm not the first to propose it. Have at it.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

There is another way to look at this. Our brothers and sisters in hang gliding and paragliding world use the concept of 'Leading Points' to reward folks that start first and stay out in front.

explanation

11.3 Leading points
Leading points are awarded to encourage pilots to start early and to reward the risk involved in flying in the leading group. Pilots will get leading points even if they landed before goal or the end of speed section.

Explanation with equations for calculations etc can be found on page 32 of this document http://www.fai.org/downloads/civl/SC7_GAP



It has been used for a number of years now with positive results. Of course it is not perfect but what is

Ron Gleason

I meant more than some number of seconds that constitutes a tie so that pilots don't do crazy stuff to establish primacy on thermal entry - probably less than 30 seconds. But you'd have to count as leeching spying a thermal from 5 miles away and using it even if the marking glider was gone by the time you got there and the penalty time would have to persist for some duration after the prior glider(s) had left. I think the math worked out if you added around 5-7 seconds for each minute of climbing in a leeched thermal.

It would be straight forward to write code to look at IGC files and calculate time penalties, I just don't think anyone would like it because I don't think the stealth debate is principally about leeching. If it were a fix would have been implemented 20 years ago.

9B

On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 1:33:21 AM UTC-8, Ron Gleason wrote:
On Wednesday, 23 December 2015 21:08:04 UTC-7, John Carlyle wrote:
Chip, I'm very interested that you say you don't consider the behavior Jim White described as "leeching".

If we can all agree that "leeching" is when someone follows someone else around the course and never makes his own decisions, we can assign time and altitude limits to define "following" and automatically scan IGC files to identify when possible leeching is occurring.

I've been playing around with a computer program that attempts to do this. The program needs a lot more work, but I haven't been putting much effort into it because until now there hasn't been a usable definition of "leeching".

Perhaps it's possible to agree on a way forward to permit the solving of the issue I think is behind all of the "stealth" angst expressed in many recent RAS posts...

-John, Q3

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 7:03:18 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Lots of snipping to show subject

Jim's scenarios are very interesting--and realistic. But I'm not sure I'd use the word "leeching" to describe them, however, because they involve pilots using FLARM to make decisions. The only decision made by a self-respecting leech (a contradiction in terms?) is whom to follow that day. Jim describes pilots using [FLARM] technology to get better information to make better decisions. And regarding scenario #1, the leader starting behind the 2nd place guy on the last day to shadow him and insure a win, XX, George Moffat himself--the anti-leech--did it at Marfa one year in the 60s to Wally Scott, IIRC.

So can we use technology--i.e., post-flight analysis of logger traces--to impose penalties for leeching? Yeah, it sounds messy. More post-processing work. After-the-fact penalties. More protests from innocent and not-so-innocent pilots.

No, this isn't a troll. I'm serious. I'm sure I'm not the first to propose it. Have at it.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"
U.S.A.

There is another way to look at this. Our brothers and sisters in hang gliding and paragliding world use the concept of 'Leading Points' to reward folks that start first and stay out in front.

explanation

11.3 Leading points
Leading points are awarded to encourage pilots to start early and to reward the risk involved in flying in the leading group. Pilots will get leading points even if they landed before goal or the end of speed section.

Explanation with equations for calculations etc can be found on page 32 of this document http://www.fai.org/downloads/civl/SC7_GAP



It has been used for a number of years now with positive results. Of course it is not perfect but what is

Ron Gleason

I like this idea! reward the bold leader. Kind of hard to score on a TAT or MAT though...

On Wednesday, December 23, 2015 at 7:03:18 PM UTC-5, wrote:

Yeah, more rules complexities.

There's no conceivable cure here that isn't at least 87 times worse than the "disease".

Evan Ludeman / T8

Bonus points for first person to each turnpoint!

On Thursday, December 24, 2015 at 10:12:12 AM UTC-8, Tony wrote:
Bonus points for first person to each turnpoint!

We do this in a local contest held yearly. It is three laps of a course and there are points awarded for place at the line crossing on each lap. Enough so you can win the race while coming in second on the last lap, under the right circumstances. It is quite fun, and leads to different tactics. Certainly, following around the course does not pay.

On some kinds of tasks, you could award points for speed on each leg, that would be easy to score, easy to understand, and tend to discourage following.