Analyzing US Competition Flights

On Mar 5, 12:55 pm, Sean Fidler wrote:
I have an intern currently working on a slightly different project for US flights in an effort to isolate for potential cloud flying incedents over thousands of competition flights. It has been very interesting so far. More later. He did create a batch method for adding large sets of flights (but only a few dozen at a time). Not sure what dbase he is using.


No one else seems to have jumped in on this so perhaps I’m
overreacting.

The above posting from another thread was provocative, perhaps
intentionally so. I'm concerned it could send the wrong message. In
the nearly 45 years since I began flying contests here in the US, I
have witnessed only one or two incidents that could be classified as
"cloud flying". I’m referring to extended flight in cloud primarily by
reference to instruments rather than by visual reference to the
ground, NOT the separate and--in the context of this discussion--
unrelated issue of VFR clearance from clouds. I am aware of no
incidents that could be detected using the available analytical tools
and databases. Convective cloudbases are influenced by variations in
terrain, weather, time of day, and chance and may vary by thousands of
feet in a relatively brief time over a small area. As with many things
in aviation, we leave it up to the pilot to exercise good judgment
accounting for safety and the FARs. I think this approach has served
us well.

No one would argue that the system is perfect, or that there will
always be a few pilots to whom rules, regulations, and sportsmanship
matter less than seeing their names at the top of the list, albeit
only briefly. And I don’t deny that the controversy over new IMC
capabilities in soaring software is messy. But I worry that this
posting implies a level of "problem" that I don't believe exists. I'm
not suggesting that this research be discontinued; I'm sure it’s being
done conscientiously with the best interests of our sport and the
flying public at heart. But publicizing provocative statements about
“very interesting” findings to date without any conclusions, much less
evidence, borders on being irresponsible. I have great respect for the
competent, conscientious employees of the FAA I've met (yes, there are
many despite the horror stories). But I know from experience that even
those who are soaring pilots themselves and/or support our freedom to
continue soaring feel bound to investigate further when they read
something like this. And, yes, some of them do read this newsgroup.

I'm aware that I am potentially adding to the visibility of this by
reposting it instead of contacting the author privately but I feel
strongly that we shouldn't create a problem where we can't demonstrate
that one exists. The system we have now works well. The Rules
Committee has done a good job of addressing the potential for future
problems as a result of evolving technology. As with other trends in
soaring, we should continue to monitor the situation closely to see
what further action may (and almost certainly will) be required.

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

Chip:

I was one of those in earlier discussions who made the very strong point that it is very difficult to tell if folks have flown near clouds and you certainly can't do it from an igc file. Cloudbase is not known with any precision and can vary thousands of feet over a typical contest task area. I have on at least one occasion flown over cumulus clouds without violating any FARs and know of several occasions where other pilots have done so. Comparing flight traces of pilots with each other or a reasonable guess of cloudbase isn't going to tell you very much.

An entirely different question is the practice of staying in thermals until you reach cloudbase and then exiting through the wispies. It's hard to judge when to leave a strong thermal and this can happen to the best of us. I see it a lot of this in both pleasure flights and contests. I don't know how you would make an enforceable rule to control this, unless you are going to add cockpit cameras and dew-point sensors (quite doable, by the way!)..

Mike

On Thursday, March 8, 2012 8:21:02 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote:
Chip:

I was one of those in earlier discussions who made the very strong point that it is very difficult to tell if folks have flown near clouds and you certainly can't do it from an igc file. Cloudbase is not known with any precision and can vary thousands of feet over a typical contest task area. I have on at least one occasion flown over cumulus clouds without violating any FARs and know of several occasions where other pilots have done so. Comparing flight traces of pilots with each other or a reasonable guess of cloudbase isn't going to tell you very much.

An entirely different question is the practice of staying in thermals until you reach cloudbase and then exiting through the wispies. It's hard to judge when to leave a strong thermal and this can happen to the best of us. I see it a lot of this in both pleasure flights and contests. I don't know how you would make an enforceable rule to control this, unless you are going to add cockpit cameras and dew-point sensors (quite doable, by the way!).

Mike

There's a wonderful picture that pops up on the rotating SSA photo board taken during the prestart period at a Mifflin contest a few years back. The photographer and several others (including yours truly) were lolling around in wave a couple thousand feet above the clouds enjoying the warm sun while the masses engaged in thermal warfare down in the boundary layer. Not sure what analyzing those traces would tell you...

On Mar 9, 7:34*am, Papa3 wrote:
On Thursday, March 8, 2012 8:21:02 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote:
Chip:

I was one of those in earlier discussions who made the very strong point that it is very difficult to tell if folks have flown near clouds and you certainly can't do it from an igc file. *Cloudbase is not known with any precision and can vary thousands of feet over a typical contest task area. *I have on at least one occasion flown over cumulus clouds without violating any FARs and know of several occasions where other pilots have done so.. *Comparing flight traces of pilots with each other or a reasonable guess of cloudbase isn't going to tell you very much.

An entirely different question is the practice of staying in thermals until you reach cloudbase and then exiting through the wispies. *It's hard to judge when to leave a strong thermal and this can happen to the best of us. *I see it a lot of this in both pleasure flights and contests. *I don't know how you would make an enforceable rule to control this, unless you are going to add cockpit cameras and dew-point sensors (quite doable, by the way!).

Mike

There's a wonderful picture that pops up on the rotating SSA photo board taken during the prestart period at a Mifflin contest a few years back. * The photographer and several others (including yours truly) were lolling around in wave a couple thousand feet above the clouds enjoying the warm sun while the masses engaged in thermal warfare down in the boundary layer. * Not sure what analyzing those traces would tell you...

"engaged in thermal warfare down in the boundary layer"

What a great line!

On Friday, March 9, 2012 9:34:34 AM UTC-5, Papa3 wrote:
On Thursday, March 8, 2012 8:21:02 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote:
Chip:

I was one of those in earlier discussions who made the very strong point that it is very difficult to tell if folks have flown near clouds and you certainly can't do it from an igc file. Cloudbase is not known with any precision and can vary thousands of feet over a typical contest task area. I have on at least one occasion flown over cumulus clouds without violating any FARs and know of several occasions where other pilots have done so. Comparing flight traces of pilots with each other or a reasonable guess of cloudbase isn't going to tell you very much.

An entirely different question is the practice of staying in thermals until you reach cloudbase and then exiting through the wispies. It's hard to judge when to leave a strong thermal and this can happen to the best of us. I see it a lot of this in both pleasure flights and contests. I don't know how you would make an enforceable rule to control this, unless you are going to add cockpit cameras and dew-point sensors (quite doable, by the way!).

Mike

There's a wonderful picture that pops up on the rotating SSA photo board taken during the prestart period at a Mifflin contest a few years back. The photographer and several others (including yours truly) were lolling around in wave a couple thousand feet above the clouds enjoying the warm sun while the masses engaged in thermal warfare down in the boundary layer. Not sure what analyzing those traces would tell you...

Found it: http://www.ssa.org/sport/PhotoGaller...p?PhotoID=1186

On Mar 9, 9:50*am, Papa3 wrote:
On Friday, March 9, 2012 9:34:34 AM UTC-5, Papa3 wrote:
On Thursday, March 8, 2012 8:21:02 PM UTC-5, Mike the Strike wrote:
Chip:

I was one of those in earlier discussions who made the very strong point that it is very difficult to tell if folks have flown near clouds and you certainly can't do it from an igc file. *Cloudbase is not known with any precision and can vary thousands of feet over a typical contest task area. *I have on at least one occasion flown over cumulus clouds without violating any FARs and know of several occasions where other pilots have done so. *Comparing flight traces of pilots with each other or a reasonable guess of cloudbase isn't going to tell you very much.

An entirely different question is the practice of staying in thermals until you reach cloudbase and then exiting through the wispies. *It's hard to judge when to leave a strong thermal and this can happen to the best of us. *I see it a lot of this in both pleasure flights and contests. *I don't know how you would make an enforceable rule to control this, unless you are going to add cockpit cameras and dew-point sensors (quite doable, by the way!).

Mike

There's a wonderful picture that pops up on the rotating SSA photo board taken during the prestart period at a Mifflin contest a few years back. * The photographer and several others (including yours truly) were lolling around in wave a couple thousand feet above the clouds enjoying the warm sun while the masses engaged in thermal warfare down in the boundary layer. * Not sure what analyzing those traces would tell you...

Found it: *http://www.ssa.org/sport/PhotoGaller...p?PhotoID=1186

I knew there would be some Glickin' trouble maker involved.

T8

On Mar 9, 9:34*am, Papa3 wrote:

There's a wonderful picture that pops up on the rotating SSA photo board taken during the prestart period at a Mifflin contest a few years back. * The photographer and several others (including yours truly) were lolling around in wave a couple thousand feet above the clouds enjoying the warm sun while the masses engaged in thermal warfare down in the boundary layer. * Not sure what analyzing those traces would tell you...

Cool photo!

I recall waiting in the pre-start wave at the Fairfield regional a few
years ago well above the convective clouds and looking down to see my
first circular rainbow! Of course, I had to share this experience on
the radio with my fellow competitors. I couldn't understand why they
weren't all happy for me.

It's true that some of my flight path would show up as climbing while
stationary over the ground but the wind was relatively weak and I was
doing S turns and even lazy circles to maintain position in the wave,
which would have no doubt confused any algorithyms designed to filter
out this kind of thing.

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

I also got lucky in the mifflin wave pre start. Listening to the
anguished calls from fellow competitors as they relit and struggled to
stay up while I admired the view from 10,000' was just lovely. Then I
cursed the rules committee who put in this darn altitude-limited start
when I had to open the spoilers go back down again!

Seriously, if Sean does get the data mining program working I hope he
will share it with the rest of us. IMC flying is a non issue as many
have pointed out. But I can think of all sorts of great things to do
with traces if I could only get them in my computer easily. Hot spots,
statistical evaluation of glide probabilities, analysis of tactics,
"near miss" analysis, analysis of course deviations, how to make
transitions,... many winters could be spent productively.

John Cochrane

On Mar 9, 9:08*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
I also got lucky in the mifflin wave pre start. Listening to the
anguished calls from fellow competitors as they relit and struggled to
stay up while I admired the view from 10,000' was just lovely. Then I
cursed the rules committee who put in this darn altitude-limited start
when I had to open the spoilers go back down again!

Seriously, if Sean does get the data mining program working I hope he
will share it with the rest of us. IMC flying is a non issue as many
have pointed out. But I can think of all sorts of great things to do
with traces if I could only get them in my computer easily. Hot spots,
statistical evaluation of glide probabilities, analysis of tactics,
"near miss" analysis, analysis of course deviations, how to make
transitions,... many winters could be spent productively.

John Cochrane

Hypothetically, data mining traces for a given contest day could yield
something like a "soarability index" which could reveal the relative
advantage of one handicapped glider over another given the average
thermal strength, height, distance between thermals etc... This index
might inform tilting the handicaps to level the playing field for the
day's weather.

On Mar 9, 11:08*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
But I can think of all sorts of great things to do
with traces if I could only get them in my computer easily. Hot spots,
statistical evaluation of glide probabilities, analysis of tactics,
"near miss" analysis, analysis of course deviations, how to make
transitions,... many winters could be spent productively.


I've used flight traces to analyze "near misses" on several occasions,
including for a safety talk using a multii-media projector that
elicited sharp intakes of breath from the assembled pilots when two
blips appeared to merge briefly. I also emailed my trace to another
pilot with a copy of his to explain why I'd gotten a little agitated
one day. And on more than one occasion I've replayed situations where
sailplanes appeared rather suddenly to see what I'd missed and how I
could have avoided being surprised. This doesn't tell you what a pilot
was looking at or whether the sun was reflecting off the canopy or if
it was hazy that day but it does help explain the events that led up
to one or more pilots briefly experiencing a rapid heart rate. And all
of this can help lead to greater awareness of how to avoid becoming a
statistic of a different sort.

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