Start Anywhere

On Dec 22, 2:28*pm, "kirk.stant" wrote:
John, a couple of questions:

First, what is the difference between starting out the top and
"nicking" the front of the start cylinder (JJ's example) and starting
out the top and "bouncing" a convenient start gaggle near the front of
the start cylinder, conveniently located on your courseline - which
(according to your Contest Corner article, the new start is supposed
to prevent)? *Seems the two are for all practical purposes identical
to me - If JJ had to bounce a start gaggle where he nicked the
cylinder, would he have had to take the penalized start?

We thought hard about the tradeoff of rule complexity vs. desire to
keep "on course" traffic separate from "pre-start" traffic, and the
current rule is our best compromise. But it is a compromise.

Keep in mind that blasting through gaggles is incredibly bad form out
on course just as it is in the start cylinder. It can and should draw
the gentle reminders of your fellow pilots, then somewhat more stern
reminders, then unsafe flying penalties, and finally expulsion from
the sport. Yes, this happens. There is nothing all that special about
gaggles in vs. out of the cylinder, and traces mean that pilot
complaints can be followed up by CD penalties very quickly.

The current rule does allow two minutes of time spent within the start
cylinder, and it does allow a pilot to use any gaggles above the
cylinder. We thought about more stringent rules to require greater
separation, but they got more complicated fast. If we get a lot of bad
behavior, we will either go to those or more likely the whole project
will get abandoned and we'll go back to the old way. My experience is
that pre-start gaggles tend to mark ragged half-knot lift, and quite
often negative 1 knot lift, so it takes only a mild bit of self-
preservation to see that they're not worth bouncing in the first
place. Together with the current rule, I doubt this will be much of a
problem. Planning to go back in the cylinder, but somehow for less
than two minutes, seems just too complex to be a viable strategy.


Second, and more basic: *Why do we even allow starts out the top? *I
thought the CD was supposed to set the top high enough that it would
be unlikely that anyone could start out the top (Quote in Winning
2?). *Allowing the lucky pilot who stumbles into the one thermal that
tops out 2000' above the rest to use all of it, while the rest are
trying to stay under the top to avoid the 2 minute penalty seems a bit
counterproductive. *I've raced out West, where the selected top can be
a significant factor, and in the East, where it usually isn't, so I'm
really curious. *We setup the start opening time to allow everybody an
equal opportunity to achieve a good start, but leave a bit of a
loophole, IMHO.

Starts out the top are good for spreading pilots out -- the more
places you can start, the better. They are also great out west. If
you're heading out over boondocks, it's wonderful to leave the airport
at 17000'. However, we can't make the top of the start gate 17000', as
that would be very unfair to the poor sap who launches last and has to
climb that high in 15 minutes. The top of the start gate should be
500' below cloudbase too, and low enough not to give a huge advantage
to a few pilots who stumble on a shear wave and can climb at 1 knot to
great height.

I don't really get your scenario. If there are strong thermals inside
the start cylnder, everyone can fish around for them and then zoom out
the top at 10 knots. Ok, there is some luck there, but there is the
same luck out on course. This is not like the luck of finding a shear
wave and milking it for an hour while the other guys wait to launch.


That being said, I like the new start - just wish the computers I use
(SN10 and mSeeYou) handled it better....

The basics are easy, and all computers should have this quickly.
Detecting a start is just as before. All they have to do is program an
easier formula for your distance, from the start fix not from the
center of the start circle. Handling all the penalty options is a
programming nightmare, but that was true before.

John Cochrane
BB

On Dec 22, 5:17*pm, wrote:
On Dec 22, 2:28*pm, "kirk.stant" wrote:

John, a couple of questions:

First, what is the difference between starting out the top and
"nicking" the front of the start cylinder (JJ's example) and starting
out the top and "bouncing" a convenient start gaggle near the front of
the start cylinder, conveniently located on your courseline - which
(according to your Contest Corner article, the new start is supposed
to prevent)? *Seems the two are for all practical purposes identical
to me - If JJ had to bounce a start gaggle where he nicked the
cylinder, would he have had to take the penalized start?

We thought hard about the tradeoff of rule complexity vs. desire to
keep "on course" traffic separate from "pre-start" traffic, and the
current rule is our best compromise. But it is a compromise.

Keep in mind that blasting through gaggles is incredibly bad form out
on course just as it is in the start cylinder. It can and should draw
the gentle reminders of your fellow pilots, then somewhat more stern
reminders, then unsafe flying penalties, and finally expulsion from
the sport. Yes, this happens. There is nothing all that special about
gaggles in vs. out of the cylinder, and traces mean that pilot
complaints can be followed up by CD penalties very quickly.

The current rule does allow two minutes of time spent within the start
cylinder, and it does allow a pilot to use any gaggles above the
cylinder. We thought about more stringent rules to require greater
separation, but they got more complicated fast. If we get a lot of bad
behavior, we will either go to those or more likely the whole project
will get abandoned and we'll go back to the old way. *My experience is
that pre-start gaggles tend to mark ragged half-knot lift, and quite
often negative 1 knot lift, so it takes only a mild bit of self-
preservation to see that they're not worth bouncing in the first
place. Together with the current rule, I doubt this will be much of a
problem. Planning to go back in the cylinder, but somehow for less
than two minutes, seems just too complex to be a viable strategy.



Second, and more basic: *Why do we even allow starts out the top? *I
thought the CD was supposed to set the top high enough that it would
be unlikely that anyone could start out the top (Quote in Winning
2?). *Allowing the lucky pilot who stumbles into the one thermal that
tops out 2000' above the rest to use all of it, while the rest are
trying to stay under the top to avoid the 2 minute penalty seems a bit
counterproductive. *I've raced out West, where the selected top can be
a significant factor, and in the East, where it usually isn't, so I'm
really curious. *We setup the start opening time to allow everybody an
equal opportunity to achieve a good start, but leave a bit of a
loophole, IMHO.

Starts out the top are good for spreading pilots out -- the more
places you can start, the better. They are also great out west. If
you're heading out over boondocks, it's wonderful to leave the airport
at 17000'. However, we can't make the top of the start gate 17000', as
that would be very unfair to the poor sap who launches last and has to
climb that high in 15 minutes. The top of the start gate should be
500' below cloudbase too, and low enough not to give a huge advantage
to a few pilots who stumble on a shear wave and can climb at 1 knot to
great height.

I don't really get your scenario. If there are strong thermals inside
the start cylnder, everyone can fish around for them and then zoom out
the top at 10 knots. Ok, there is some luck there, but there is the
same luck out on course. This is not like the luck of finding a shear
wave and milking it for an hour while the other guys wait to launch.



That being said, I like the new start - just wish the computers I use
(SN10 and mSeeYou) handled it better....

The basics are easy, and all computers should have this quickly.
Detecting a start is just as before. All they have to do is program an
easier formula for your distance, from the start fix not from the
center of the start circle. Handling all the penalty options is a
programming nightmare, but that was true before.

John Cochrane
BB

Well, I'll give a resounding endorsement to the new rule. Case in
point,
day 2 at Perry last spring for Sports class was a 3 turn MAT task.
Minimum distance was 40 miles, and nominal distance to the first turn
was 19.56 miles. Some pilots were pressed to get to more than just
the first turn (it was a late day start as we had to wait for the
cloudbase
to rise to a safe height), so starting out the side was really needed
for
those pilots. My friend Roger made minimum distance by about 600 feet
thanks to starting out the side.

Thanks, BB.

Yes, I like the new rule.

-T8

Andy: Not enough review? RC has been asking pilots for a year for
feedback, we had a poll question, we've assembled all we could learn
about how it worked this year, and I can't tell you how many hours of
discussion went into talking about it.

More feedback is always welcome, but information is most useful when
it comes around poll time and before the annual rules committee
meeting in November. We're now at the stage of finalizing things for
the SSA board. As per minutes, "start anywhere" is scheduled to go to
nationals next year unless there is some nuclear disaster we don't
know about.


I don't understand how giving you credit for the actual distance from
start point to first turn meakes you want to pop the brakes and go
down to start more often. Explain please.


It sounds like you're more upset with start altitudes than "start
anywhere." Start altitudes should be low enough that the last guy to
launch has a reasonable chance to get to MSH before the gate opens.
We're also going to encourage CDs to set start heights at least 500'
below cloudbase to stop this idiotic prestart gaggling in the clouds,
and 500' below dry thermal tops so you don't have to spend 20 minutes
clawing that last few feet before start. With the option to start out
the top in a strong thermal (which was always there) I'm still not
sure what you're unhappy about.
____________________________

Sorry John - poor choice of words on my part.

I know there was a lot of discussion here (and a lot of other places
that I don't witness first-hand) prior to the 2008 season. I also know
about the survey question - which is all good and appropriate process
for RC decision-making. My observation was I hadn't seen any public
dialog about the rule 'a posteriori'. For me it helps to compare my
actual experience with the real-world observations of others. I also
find it interesting to compare actual experiences across a number of
people with the various 'a priori' hypotheses we discussed this time
last year. Not trying to second-guess the RC - I'm just curious. There
are potentially a number of interesting race strategy implications so
a broad discussion based on actual experience with the rule is a good
thing in my book.

I definitely took a lot more starts at Region 9 last year than in
years past and on a couple of days was the last starter by something
like 20 minutes as I struggled to get a start I was happy with. I
think there were a couple of reasons behind this. My experience was
that on many days there was a lot of variability in the strength and
height of the lift around the start cylinder. With start anywhere you
don't have the usual clustering of gliders trying to find the best
thermal in a relatively small sector of the cylinder near the first
leg. That's because under the old rules there is a tradeoff between
taking the best lift you can find in that sector and taking a distance
'penalty' to take a start with a stronger climb through the top from
further back. The probability that someone would find a superior
thermal undetected by others in that sector was relatively small.
Lastly, under the old rule if you didn't find a great thermal pre-
start you'd just start out the side as near to MSH as you can get and
look for a good climb on course. Now, under the new rule you are much
more likely to take a start through the top of the cylinder because
you have 75 square miles to explore and you can eliminate risk, as
well as the search and centering time associated with trying to get a
great first climb out on course. Under the new rule the odds are much
higher that someone is going to find a superior thermal somewhere in
those 75 square miles, possibly undetected by many or any others. If
that person is someone other than you, you will be at a disadvantage
right out of the gate. I could have dismissed this as paranoia, except
for those cases when I saw gliders heading out on course 2,000' higher
than the top of my miserable thermal.

As to the MSH issue - I'm not upset and you are right, the issue is
more about setting a proper MSH than the rule per se, though I think
there is some interaction between the two. If people can start
anywhere and if they are making more starts through the top of the
cylinder where they want some room to get centered in the thermal
before going through MSH then the CD is well advised to consider
terrain clearance (including the 'thermal centering buffer') across
the whole cylinder rather than just near the first leg course line.
The situation I experienced had to do with the fact that on a couple
of days the best thermals were up in the high ground or even on the
far side of the 10,000' ridge east of the field. With an 11,000' MSH,
several of us faced some terrain-induced pucker trying to connect
enough below MSH to center the lift without losing our ability to get
back to the airport side of the ridge. Setting the MSH at 12,000'
resolved that issue, but not before one pre-start outlanding on the
far side of the ridge. Obviously, the issue can be very site-specific
and (as you point out) could happen under the old rules too - it just
is a bit more widespread now with increased through-the-top starts
across the whole cylinder.

It would be interesting (by looking at flight traces) to see if the
new rule creates more spread in the field over the first few miles
than the old rule - my hypothesis is that it does. That's not a
negative judgement as personally I prefer the new rule.

9B

It would be interesting (by looking at flight traces) to see if the
new rule creates more spread in the field over the first few miles
than the old rule - my hypothesis is that it does. That's not a
negative judgement as personally I prefer the new rule.

9B

To clarify, by "spread" I meant spread in speed on course, not traffic
separation - though I would observe that was also true in the tasks I
flew.

9B

Andy: the next improvement to the start anywhere rule -- use a start
hemisphere instead of a cylinder!

(ducking)

..02NO

On Dec 23, 5:26*am, Tuno wrote:
Andy: the next improvement to the start anywhere rule -- use a start
hemisphere instead of a cylinder!

(ducking)

.02NO

Technically, the top of the start cylinder is spherical - it's just
got the radius of the earth plus MSH.

Ha! I think nicked your cylinder.

..029B

You both mean a "sphericonical pyramid". Why nick when you can nuke.
R

As usual, Andy phrases the argument much more eloquently than I ever
could.

It's interesting that over the past 10-12 years, we have evolved from
the height-limited gate start, that for all it's safety issues
(crowding at the IP, redline plus start speeds, leeching, to name a
few) was pretty fair in that everyone started on course at the same
place and pretty much the same altitude, to a start system that,
coupled with AAT and MAT tasks, can result in a race where you never
see anybody on course!

Of course this is the same old argument about "what is a glider race"
- and I confess I enjoy flying with a lot of other gliders around -
even start gaggles can be fun, if the pilots involved are skilled!

I guess I still think the provision to start out the top is basically
unfair, especially for late launchers, who have a lot less time to
explore those 75 square miles for that killer start thermal. I too
have been frustrated making a start out the side of the cylinder, only
to see someone way up higher heading out on course.

I hope I get the opportunity to be one of those "out the top" guys
this year!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

Kirk,

When you evaluate the "unfairness" you feel when you see somebody
2000' overhead who started out the top, remember that their leg
started when they went out the top; they only have an advantage if
their thermal was better than the first one you choose to take.

If you hit a better thermal than the one the other guy took out the
top, who will be having the faster leg?

..02NO