FES - Take 2

On Monday, February 17, 2014 9:07:43 AM UTC-5, JJ Sinclair wrote:
On Monday, February 17, 2014 6:00:24 AM UTC-8, wrote: On Monday, February 17, 2014 8:40:22 AM UTC-5, JJ Sinclair wrote: The proposed rule change allows a MG to claim an airport bonus without actually overflying the bonus airport. The new rule only requires he show that he had sufficient altitude to glide to the approved airport, at the time of engine start. The airport bonus is given as an incentive to land at a safe airport and not attempt a shaky glide towards the next turn point. Question; What if the engine doesn't start? Not an uncommon occurrence out west where high altitude cold-soaks the engine. If the engine didn't start as the MG overflew the bonus airport, it would be a non event. If the engine fails to start half way down final glide...................? Doesn't the proposed rule change negate the reason for giving an airport bonus in the first place? :) JJ Nope- The airport bonus is a scoring incentive to encourage pilots to land safely at an airport instead of gliding on to land in a field to get more distance points. OK, the MG "glides on" to get more distance points, but gets an airport bonus anyway................. What it his engine doesn't start? Just trying to understand the RC thinking. JJ

MG has to do engine start within prescribed distance of the airport and he is effectively landed there as if he was a glider, as I understand it.
He doesn't get more distance, but does have the benefit of the bonus and avoiding a retrieve.
I would have pushed back hard on this, buit don't serve on the RC any more.
Grumpy
UH

Is this glide angle calculated with the motor out, prop windmilling but the engine failed to start (ie a giant spoiler, coming down like a lead weight), or as a pure glider? Is there a different calculation for gliders with jet engines? Would make a hell of a difference to the implied motor glider bonus in the real world.



On Thursday, February 13, 2014 5:27:03 PM UTC-7, MNLou wrote:
Although I enjoyed the discussion in my previous thread on drag and handicaps, I was trying to create a discussion about the benefit of having a reliable propulsion system versus a pure glider.



For this discussion, please assume that someone created an FES system that had no drag and no additional weight. Thus, an FES equipped ship and an non-FES equipped ship had identical polars. Also assume that the FES system was 100% reliable.



Do you think the FES ship would have a competitive advantage over a pure glider because of the ability to stretch the "safe flight" envelope?



Lou

He doesn't get more distance, but does have the benefit of the bonus and avoiding a retrieve.

I would have pushed back hard on this, buit don't serve on the RC any more.

Grumpy

UH

The rule: MG can get a 25 point airport bonus if he starts his engine within 2 miles of a qualifying airport AND at 1,000 feet AGL or greater. If you want to pull out your engine on final, you won't get the bonus.

Why? The airport bonus for regular gliders is designed as a mild safety incentive. It usually works out that you are better off stopping if you're below about 1,500' rather than glide straight in to a field like the good old days.

The MG pilots made a persuasive case that the same safety incentive should be offered to them. Rather than, as JJ suggests, glide straight over unlandable terrain and pull out the iron horse at 200', 25 points suggests that you deviate towards an airport, and pull out the engine at a reasonable altitude. The latter decision especially has been the cause of many MG accidents.

Now, before everyone goes all safety-nazi and "legislate safety" on me, recall we do this for regular gliders. If you accept the principle of a small points bonus for deviating to an airport for regular gliders, it certainly makes sense to offer it to motor gliders. If you don't accept the principle, then it makes sense to abolish the airport bonus for all gliders.

Why not do it? As UH points out, MG "avoid a retrieve." Resistance to the MG bonus came mostly from pilots who see that MG have a definite competitive advantage in avoiding the exhaustion of retrieves, and denying them the bonus is a back door way to sneak in a little bit of a MG handicap penalty.

But that really doesn't make sense. Our official philosophy is we handicap based on aerodynamics. A uniform 1-2% handicap for a motor to offset this no-landout advantage might make sense, but then let's do it forthrightly and openly, not by means of the airport landing bonus. Also, MG could get the bonus by landing. Self-launchers could then take off and avoid the retrieve.. So the "penalty" only applied to turbos.

In sum: it surely makes sense to offer the same airport landing incentive to motor operation that we do to non-motor operations. And if it makes sense to add 1-2% handicap for retrieve avoidance, let's do that out in the open as a separate issue.

The one snag that our discussion brought up: Airport databases are incomplete, many "airports" are nonexistent or unsafe, and coordinates are not always accurate. For this rule, and many other reasons, paying a little bit of attention to the outlanding database before contests makes a lot of sense.


John Cochrane

Great points! Sometimes the Winter months provide good RAS posts.
(Warning, I don't fly contests but have flown plenty of SLSP and currently own a "pure" sailplane)
Agree that the point of avoiding long retrieves with a late return is good for everyone, whether by the old fashioned chase crew on the entire task or by landing or climbing over a nice safe airport.
Another twist: How do you handicap non-MGs on weak days when a pure sailplane can dump ballast? Getting rid of the engine and fuel weight is impossible in flight.
Possibly you've already found a fair solution?
Jim

While we're at it maybe pilots with crews should get a penalty in their handicap too. After all having a dedicated crew gives them an obvious but unmeasurable advantage over their crewless peers and thats just unfair!

Another twist: How do you handicap non-MGs on weak days when a pure sailplane can dump ballast? Getting rid of the engine and fuel weight is impossible in flight.

Possibly you've already found a fair solution?

Jim

Actually, if you look at the handicap tables, it goes the other way. The scratch handicaps adjust for empty weight, so the turbo and motor versions of the same glider pay a handicap penalty, typically 0.01 (Discus 2: 0.91 Discus 2T 0.90). When conditions are strong, ok, but as you point out they can't dump it. If you think this is stronger than deserved, then you have the little anti-motor handicap you're looking for.

John Cochrane

On Monday, February 17, 2014 12:48:35 PM UTC-6, wrote:
Another twist: How do you handicap non-MGs on weak days when a pure sailplane can dump ballast? Getting rid of the engine and fuel weight is impossible in flight. Possibly you've already found a fair solution?

Or another answer to what John provided: Have you ever seen a day so weak that a non-motorized version of an otherwise IDENTICAL plane can stay up when the motorized one with an equaly experienced pilot can not stay up? And not just stay up, but climb and be able to move along?

Yes, I know there is a weight penalty. Which increases the sink rate and speed at which that sink rate happens. But, we are talking of 3-4 knots in thermalling speed, and probably less than 25 ft/min change in sink rate. Pilot technique can mask that pretty easily.

And to be totally honest, the only one ever happy with the handicap is the guy or gal on top of the scoresheet at the end of the contest. Handciaps are set based on a series of assumptions about the weather. Unless you want to really make everyone mad and change the handicaps every day based on either forecast or results submitted, I think that the system in place right now is pretty good. If there are adjustments that need to be made on the handicapping, please contact the Contest Board and the Hadicapping Committee.. Info available from ssa.org.

Steve Leonard

On Monday, 17 February 2014 19:40:33 UTC, Steve Leonard wrote:
On Monday, February 17, 2014 12:48:35 PM UTC-6, wrote:

Another twist: How do you handicap non-MGs on weak days when a pure sailplane can dump ballast? Getting rid of the engine and fuel weight is impossible in flight. Possibly you've already found a fair solution?



Or another answer to what John provided: Have you ever seen a day so weak that a non-motorized version of an otherwise IDENTICAL plane can stay up when the motorized one with an equaly experienced pilot can not stay up? And not just stay up, but climb and be able to move along?



Yes, I know there is a weight penalty. Which increases the sink rate and speed at which that sink rate happens. But, we are talking of 3-4 knots in thermalling speed, and probably less than 25 ft/min change in sink rate. Pilot technique can mask that pretty easily.



And to be totally honest, the only one ever happy with the handicap is the guy or gal on top of the scoresheet at the end of the contest. Handciaps are set based on a series of assumptions about the weather. Unless you want to really make everyone mad and change the handicaps every day based on either forecast or results submitted, I think that the system in place right now is pretty good. If there are adjustments that need to be made on the handicapping, please contact the Contest Board and the Hadicapping Committee. Info available from ssa.org.



Steve Leonard

So to recap, unless I have missed something, a glider with an engine has two disadvantages - it cannot fly light for when conditions are weak (can be relevant where I fly, and can make an enormous difference to scores on a very weak day) and if flown by a cautious/prudent pilot it will abandon the task higher than a pure glider will commit to a field landing. It has one big advantage - that the pilot will not have to cope with late and tiring retrieves. As mentioned the extent of benefit or disadvantage for each difference will depend entirely on conditions. I don't believe there could be a fair way to adjust handicap ratings.

If motor glider handicap ratings were adjusted adversely I suspect keen pilots flying handicapped comps would take their engines out.

BTW, I fly a self-launcher in Regionals in the UK. The rules say the engine must be off not more than 100 feet above designated launch height. Obviously one wants to leave a little safety margin, and cooling and putting the engine away can cost significantly more than 100 feet. This is a high workload and stressful start to a competition flight, although it is not likely to affect the results. On the other hand, when I needed a relight, the ability to taxi back to the launch point was a significant advantage (once at the launch point you obviously have to wait for your place in the grid before relaunching).

Mark Burton

On Sunday, February 16, 2014 8:53:39 PM UTC-5, kirk.stant wrote:
On Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:11:52 PM UTC-7, Steve Koerner wrote:
Another point of view would be that it is a pity that so many gliders sold of late are being equipped with expensive, stinky, loud, unreliable, high maintenance motors so as to get a wee advantage in competition (or whatever reason). Seems like JJ's rule to negate part of that competition advantage would actually be good for the sport. Since motorgliders crash a lot more often than pure gliders, it would also be good for our insurance rates..

Could we narrow the argument to sustainers vs pure gliders? There is a huge difference between "turbos" (which includes the FES) and motorgliders. With racing sailplanes costing as much as a house these days, and not being as landout-friendly and the older ships, it makes sense to have a "get-home" capability. And the weight penalty of a sustainer (especially the newer jets) is a lot less, so taking away the "I cant climb as well as a pure glider" argument.

While I fly a pure glider, the first thing I would get if I won the Lottery is a jet sustainer glider. But I have NO interest in a self-launching glider.

Kirk
LS6 66

no

On Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:52:03 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:27:03 PM UTC-5, MNLou wrote:
Although I enjoyed the discussion in my previous thread on drag and handicaps, I was trying to create a discussion about the benefit of having a reliable propulsion system versus a pure glider. For this discussion, please assume that someone created an FES system that had no drag and no additional weight. Thus, an FES equipped ship and an non-FES equipped ship had identical polars. Also assume that the FES system was 100% reliable. Do you think the FES ship would have a competitive advantage over a pure glider because of the ability to stretch the "safe flight" envelope? Lou

Of course it does for the simple reason that there are always opportunities to improve the score by adding risk to the flight. For the purpose of my comment let's assume that we are talking about risk of not completing the task and not of extending the risk to potential accident. Many times we might consider risking the flight, but don't because of the added issue of landing out and needing a retrieve, on top of getting a poor score. For crewless pilots this can be an even bigger consideration.
If I have a way to retrieve myself, and I think it will probably will work, of course I might cross that dead area. Without the retreive capability, it is a much harder decision.
Throw in high risk weather, or bad terrain, and the potential advantage is obviously increased.
Is there a way to quantify it? Not that we've found yet.
Why let them play in our races? Easy, we're too small a sport to send people home.
The guys with engines will also argue that they have to quit higher in order to safely use the engine. Obviously not so with FES.
And we even like some of them. LOL

UH

Yes, and few years later pure glider pilots will be considered kamikaze.
We have to change this before our grandchildren can ask us about it !