Small Club XC contest format & rules

Our club is ready to conduct a seasonal XC contest for the club members. =
Most members are fledgling XC pilots. We want to have a simple XC =
contest for 2004. We are interested in some format and rules documents =
that other clubs are using to incorporate into ours. Any help would be =
appreciated.=20
Thanks and Good Lift, SAM

Please send comments and any documents to

The "Northern Illinois Soaring Championships" NISC has worked well for the
regional soaring sites of the Chicagoland Glider Council for many years. See
this website for details.

http://aerotow.evl.uic.edu/nisc/

Curt Lewis - 95
Genesis 2

The "Northern Illinois Soaring Championships" NISC has worked well for the
regional soaring sites of the Chicagoland Glider Council for many years. See
this website for details.

http://aerotow.evl.uic.edu/nisc/

Curt Lewis - 95
Genesis 2

The basic structure of the Northern Illinois contest is
straightforward. Every task is a PST with a 1 hour minimum. There is a
bonus for longer flights. The low minimum is designed to make it
accessible to club gliders and beginners. More experienced pilots tend
to set and fly longer tasks. Communication is encouraged and groups of
pilots of similar skill tend to set tasks and fly together.

Pilots can start from any airport in Northern Illinois and use any
airport on the sectional as a turnpoint. We have a database on John
Leibacher's website. There's a mandatory 500 foot 1 mile out finish
for speed points, of course.

Turn in your trace and the scorer (me) tallys it all up. (Cameras
welcome too; time on the honor system.) Any day that 3 pilots complete
a task is a contest day. Your total score is the best 8 days in the
season. Herb Kilian (J7) won last year against some determined
opposition.

This has worked very well. Every single flight most of us make is now
done in a contest environment. It's especially good in getting us
going on weak days, where otherwise you might not even go cross
country. Lots of experience on weak days really helps in "real"
contests.

This year we're contemplating a number of changes to make it more
attractive to new pilots. We might have a "pro" and "beginner" class,
we might have two contests, early and late season, and we might move
to a handicap system, in which the winner is the one who does best
against his handicap. Pilots in Northern Illinois should come to the
Feb 10 Chicago Glider Council meeting to discuss these ideas and the
contest in general.

The contest was originated by Rudy Kunda, who just passed away, and
Neal Ridenour. We owe them many thanks for starting a great thing.

John Cochrane BB
(scorer)

How about the easy way. Hand out a bunch of turnpoints
(easy to see from the air), including some that are REAL close
(house thermals, stuff only 4 miles away, etc.)

Fly to whatever points you want in whatever order and then
make it back to the IP at about normal pattern altitude,
and then do a regular pattern, and land. Then tell
where you flew.

A teenage boy and girl can time releases and landings
from the ground, and get the release altitudes from the
tug driver. Or you can fudge it from the towpilot and
pilot recollections.

To make it interesting, square the handicaps, so use of
lower performance gliders is encouraged. This will get the
PW-2s out there... Make up some rules about release
altitudes and landouts, but don't tell anybody,
and just factor them into the scores (this is about
how it works at a real contest anyway).

An award (Marathon bar) for distance, and one (Jolt cola)
for speed.

Ours was simple, just a few local turnpoints and we used the SSA Handicaps
for the speed. Our original idea was to get people to get away from the
gliderport. A lot of the turnpoints could be used with the gliderport never
more than 8-10 miles away. The winner each month got a free tow.

Fred

We've been running a couple of contests up here in Region II for a long
time. For the true beginners, Aero Club Albatross has the DIY - a short
(20 - 30 miles) task that may only be done in a 1-26 or 2-33. Completely on
the honor system (ie. no logs), but hotly and fairly contested nevertheless.
You accumulate 1 point for each turnpoint rounded; maximum turnpoints for
the period (two months) wins. It's designed to be fun. Tasks often are
thematic - one month is restaraunts, another is lakes, another is towers,
etc. Also, Ron Schwartz, 1-26 champion and craftsman makes beautiful
stained glass trophies for the winners.

For the post Silver C crowd, the Governor's Cup is going into its eighth
year. Fixed course of 5 turnpoints covering around 150 miles. Your best 3
speeds of the year count; scored using handicapped performance. For 2004,
thinking of moving to a 2hr MAT with 10 mi turnpoint radius - would give
tasks from around 110 mi to 200 mi.
See: http://home.netcom.com/~pappa3/rules02.html

P3

"Sam Discusflyer" wrote in
message ...
Our club is ready to conduct a seasonal XC contest for the club members. =
Most members are fledgling XC pilots. We want to have a simple XC =
contest for 2004. We are interested in some format and rules documents =
that other clubs are using to incorporate into ours. Any help would be =
appreciated.=20
Thanks and Good Lift, SAM

Please send comments and any documents to