Hard Deck

Agreed, my second hospital landing was prefaced by a "glide" I never wanted to do in the first part, absolutely never want me, or others, to do again.
You know the site and that route.
I think you were there for both my lawn landings.
A rusty pilot may have broken something on my second one.
I am all for trying to keep things safe, but there becomes a fine line in certain situations where it is "sorta OK" for one and a statistic for another.

I remember a "squirrel" that landed south at HHSC in a fairly new ASW-24, didn't have enough brake (really!?!?) to stop on the pavement, watched him go over the backside of the hill!
Glad he didn't hit trailers parked down there.
Peeps like that can't land in middling sized field let alone an airport.

The question is, at what level of competence do we write rules for?
Is it different for a regional vs. a nationals?
The possible assumption being that Nats is a higher level. On the other hand, with declining participation in contests, the minimums to get in may be lowered so the site can "maybe" break even.

Sorta screwed one way or another.

Would a flat 100 point penalty for each violation make it more palatable? Again, serial offenders would be exposed, which would be beneficial if they are the ones more likely to have an incident (I have no idea if that is so, but would seem likely).

I also think the start cylinder can be a place where it's very tempting to thermal low, no one wants to relight in front of the entire field, slow up the launch, etc. Tough be be penalized before you're even out on course, but I can think of one pilot who might still be alive if that were the case.

Thanks, it was time to start a proper threat. Let me put out a concrete proposal so we know what we're talking about.

The purpose of the hard deck is not to prevent bad behavior. The purpose is to remove the points incentive for very low thermaling, which has led to many crashes. It is not intended to alleviate all points incentives for all bad behavior -- such as flying too close to rocks, flying over unlandable terrain, and so forth. It is a small step, not a cure all.

Proposal. The contest organizers prepare a set of sua (special use airspace) files, just like those used to define restricted areas, class B and C, and other forbidden airspace. The SUAs denote a minimum MSL altitude for that area. The MSL altitudes should be round numbers, such as 500 foot increments. They should be roughly 500 - 1500 feet AGL, with higher values over unlandable terrain. The SUAs are designed for altitudes above valley floors, where handouts take place. In normal circumstances there is no hard deck over mountains and ridges. Specified ridge routes, where ridge soaring less than 500 feet over the valley floor, are carved out. The SUA stops short of the ridge in such areas.

These SUAs are forbidden airspace like any other. The penalty is that you are landed out at the point of entry.

Long disclaimers about pilot responsibility. The SUA may be at too low an altitude for safety. Below the SUA you are not forced to land out -- do what you want, thermal up, get home if you can. We're just not going to give contest points for anything you do after you get in the SUA.

Try it first on relatively flat sites. The SUAs may need to be more complex for mountain and ridge sites, so obviously we move there after the concept is proved at flatland sites.

Again, we're not here to forbid anything or tell pilots what to do. We just are no longer going to give points for very low altitude saves. We may not even dent the accident rate. We just want to remove it as a competitive necessity and temptation.

John Cochrane

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 2:01:01 PM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:

Specified ridge routes, where ridge soaring less than 500 feet over the valley floor, are carved out. The SUA stops short of the ridge in such areas..

John Cochrane

I'll nitpick the carve-out for ridge routes less than 500' above the valley floor. You don't want pilots stuck between the ridge and an SUA that they can't get over. Also, how low off the top of the ridge are you going to carve? Not every ridge day lets you fly over the crest. Once you make exceptions it means that someone has to go through and design the exceptions. Plus, ridge routes aren't the only gotchas.

There are other specific areas and situations I can think of that are problematic. Some of you will recognize them if you've flow the area. They are mostly equivalent to the Lake Tahoe example Jon mentioned - unlandable escarpments where the actual landout options require clearing the edge of the escarpment: 1) The Scofield Island turnpoint on the Wasatch plateau and most of the territory to the north of it in the Nephi task area, 2) the 20 miles of unlandable plateau to the west of the Wayne Wonderland turnpoint to the east of Parowan, 3) much of the escarpment south of Brian Head where the landouts are either a long glide down to Kanab, or though a canyon out to Cedar City or Hurricane, 4) most of the territory east of Mount Shasta as well as the wide, low pass that gets you to the home valley in the Montague task area, 4) the entire upper valley on the other side of the ridge by New Castle - if you shoot the gap you have an easy glide to the airport, but you have to clear the gap. It's a common finish route so you have to use the lower airport valley as the floor of the hard deck, but that leaves the upper valley without a hard deck. I've been low there and at least one contest accident was there IIRC.

Now, you could ignore these areas and just leave them without hard decks so that you don't have to have an expert committee of local racing pilots go through the entire task areas crafting custom SUA files for every single gotcha. In any case all of this would require a lot of education of pilots that being above the hard deck is not the same as having a landout option. I've done the landout option exercise using GlidePlan to set minimum altitude rings for the entire Montague task area based on a reasonable glide angle (35:1) to a known landing spot (mostly airports, but also landouts I scouted to fill the "no landing option" gaps). It's a sobering exercise - particularly when the task area is significantly unlandable). It also leads to a map that requires careful study to use effectively in real-world situations - situations where your mental energy might be better spent on other things..

While I wouldn't recommend it, theoretically we could contemplate setting SUAs so that every square mile of a task area always had a glide to a known good landing spot - or even an airport. It's how I typically fly and I know I pay a price for it competing with pilots who don't. Many times I watch other pilots dive into areas where I know there are no good landing options, only to connect with 8-knot climbs while I'm taking 2.5 knots back where it's safe - for me at least. I don't find any thrill in contemplating getting away with that kind of dice-rolling.

More broadly, since I've actually attempted this exercise myself as described above, I don't think it's all that easy for pilots to interpret a set of SUA's that are set up to regulate altitude from a top-down-view moving map display. Most SUA's are set to restrict horizontal position. We have class A, but that's the same everywhere so there's no looking at your altitude, then the map to find the local hard deck, followed by a search for the next lowest step, then back out to try to determine if the lower step that might buy you an extra 500-1000' in hard deck clearance actually takes you away from landout options, rather than towards them. I could easily see uneven terrain that encourages pilots to "circle the drain" of SUAs into areas that are more hazardous rather than less.

Lastly, mostly these ideas are intended to deal with relatively rare behavior and (if I hear people correctly) not even an attempt to stop that behavior, but simply the competitive impact of dice-rolling to win. If that's the case more selective and focused use of SUAs for specific risky behavior at specific locations that has an obvious competitive benefit might be a better way to go. Sergio's elevator at Lake Tahoe is pretty clearly one that I just won't do unless I'm high enough to avoid a lake landing. I've seen many flight traces of pilots who effectively committed to ditching if the elevator wasn't working - or their motor working (that one's a whole new thread).

It's not really clear to me whether there is even clarity on the objective here. It could be: 1) Discourage pilots from ever getting out of glide range to an airport, 2) Discourage pilots from ever getting out of glide range of a laudable spot, 3) Discourage pilots from circling too low in an attempt to make a save for points (but only for cases where the pilot doesn't also care about avoiding a retrieve, in which case a penalty wouldn't matter), 4) Stop pilots from placing well in contests from doing 1, 2, or 3 - but which one? For the record, I think 1, 2 or 3 either aren't practical to implement or aren't ineffective incentives, and 4 depends on on having some sort of sense of which types of behavior are specific, intentional acts of risk taking for competitive advantage. I don't think making a low save falls into the category of an intentional act very often. If you're that low most often your day is shot. The Lake Tahoe example is a notable exception - maybe we should focus on that.

It's a complex topic.

Andy Blackburn
9B

On Saturday, January 27, 2018 at 12:36:09 PM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 2:01:01 PM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:

Specified ridge routes, where ridge soaring less than 500 feet over the valley floor, are carved out. The SUA stops short of the ridge in such areas.

John Cochrane

I'll nitpick the carve-out for ridge routes less than 500' above the valley floor. You don't want pilots stuck between the ridge and an SUA that they can't get over. Also, how low off the top of the ridge are you going to carve? Not every ridge day lets you fly over the crest. Once you make exceptions it means that someone has to go through and design the exceptions. Plus, ridge routes aren't the only gotchas.

There are other specific areas and situations I can think of that are problematic. Some of you will recognize them if you've flow the area. They are mostly equivalent to the Lake Tahoe example Jon mentioned - unlandable escarpments where the actual landout options require clearing the edge of the escarpment: 1) The Scofield Island turnpoint on the Wasatch plateau and most of the territory to the north of it in the Nephi task area, 2) the 20 miles of unlandable plateau to the west of the Wayne Wonderland turnpoint to the east of Parowan, 3) much of the escarpment south of Brian Head where the landouts are either a long glide down to Kanab, or though a canyon out to Cedar City or Hurricane, 4) most of the territory east of Mount Shasta as well as the wide, low pass that gets you to the home valley in the Montague task area, 4) the entire upper valley on the other side of the ridge by New Castle - if you shoot the gap you have an easy glide to the airport, but you have to clear the gap. It's a common finish route so you have to use the lower airport valley as the floor of the hard deck, but that leaves the upper valley without a hard deck. I've been low there and at least one contest accident was there IIRC.

Now, you could ignore these areas and just leave them without hard decks so that you don't have to have an expert committee of local racing pilots go through the entire task areas crafting custom SUA files for every single gotcha. In any case all of this would require a lot of education of pilots that being above the hard deck is not the same as having a landout option. I've done the landout option exercise using GlidePlan to set minimum altitude rings for the entire Montague task area based on a reasonable glide angle (35:1) to a known landing spot (mostly airports, but also landouts I scouted to fill the "no landing option" gaps). It's a sobering exercise - particularly when the task area is significantly unlandable). It also leads to a map that requires careful study to use effectively in real-world situations - situations where your mental energy might be better spent on other things.

While I wouldn't recommend it, theoretically we could contemplate setting SUAs so that every square mile of a task area always had a glide to a known good landing spot - or even an airport. It's how I typically fly and I know I pay a price for it competing with pilots who don't. Many times I watch other pilots dive into areas where I know there are no good landing options, only to connect with 8-knot climbs while I'm taking 2.5 knots back where it's safe - for me at least. I don't find any thrill in contemplating getting away with that kind of dice-rolling.

More broadly, since I've actually attempted this exercise myself as described above, I don't think it's all that easy for pilots to interpret a set of SUA's that are set up to regulate altitude from a top-down-view moving map display. Most SUA's are set to restrict horizontal position. We have class A, but that's the same everywhere so there's no looking at your altitude, then the map to find the local hard deck, followed by a search for the next lowest step, then back out to try to determine if the lower step that might buy you an extra 500-1000' in hard deck clearance actually takes you away from landout options, rather than towards them. I could easily see uneven terrain that encourages pilots to "circle the drain" of SUAs into areas that are more hazardous rather than less.

Lastly, mostly these ideas are intended to deal with relatively rare behavior and (if I hear people correctly) not even an attempt to stop that behavior, but simply the competitive impact of dice-rolling to win. If that's the case more selective and focused use of SUAs for specific risky behavior at specific locations that has an obvious competitive benefit might be a better way to go. Sergio's elevator at Lake Tahoe is pretty clearly one that I just won't do unless I'm high enough to avoid a lake landing. I've seen many flight traces of pilots who effectively committed to ditching if the elevator wasn't working - or their motor working (that one's a whole new thread).

It's not really clear to me whether there is even clarity on the objective here. It could be: 1) Discourage pilots from ever getting out of glide range to an airport, 2) Discourage pilots from ever getting out of glide range of a laudable spot, 3) Discourage pilots from circling too low in an attempt to make a save for points (but only for cases where the pilot doesn't also care about avoiding a retrieve, in which case a penalty wouldn't matter), 4) Stop pilots from placing well in contests from doing 1, 2, or 3 - but which one? For the record, I think 1, 2 or 3 either aren't practical to implement or aren't ineffective incentives, and 4 depends on on having some sort of sense of which types of behavior are specific, intentional acts of risk taking for competitive advantage. I don't think making a low save falls into the category of an intentional act very often. If you're that low most often your day is shot. The Lake Tahoe example is a notable exception - maybe we should focus on that.

It's a complex topic.

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy, I hate it when you are the voice of reason . My motivation is to prevent having to fly blatantly unsafely in order to feel competitive. I don't do it, and I'm not competitive. There are guys who are always going to be faster than me on skill alone, I accept that. There are other guys who are willing to take far more chances and are faster because of it. There is some overlap in the two groups. I've become pretty good at predicting which of the latter will eventually come to grief (a skill honed in the old hang gliding days when I lost perhaps 20 friends in just a few years).

Dan's point from before is that contests are usually won with consistency, but the way the scoring is done (as stated in Dave's article) if a guy gets a lucky and unsafe save on a day when many landout safely, that one event can change the finish order dramatically. Maybe changes to the scoring methods address the problem more simply. For example throwing out the best and worst score for each pilot, or using a low points scoring system as they do in sailing regattas. That tends to reward consistent performance above one lucky or unlucky day. There is always the possibility that one pilot will win with a series of unlikely and dangerous low saves, but that is far less probable than the order changing due to just one.

Sergio's elevator is a good example. I know several pilots who will attempt to utilize that when the rest of us will be in Carson. I also know one pilot who died there trying, and another who didn't make it out of the basin. I've seen a number exit through Spooner barely clearing the tops of the cars on the highway, a few more feet of sink and they'd have had a mid air with a truck. There are other ways to address that simpler than a hard deck, for example a a steering turn at the elevator at say 10,300 ft min. Perhaps at many contests, addressing a half dozen problematic areas in that way would be sufficient, any particular task might only involve one or two. Another at Truckee is returning through the Verdi gap from the north east. Again there are a few pilots I know that will come through there very low hoping for ridge lift, their backup plan is the lake at Boca. Not my cup of tea. A steering turn there would help, but it might still be practical (though foolhardy) to go through low, do a low save at Boca International, hit the steering turn at Verdi peak, and get home.

On Saturday, January 27, 2018 at 5:37:46 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
My motivation is to prevent having to fly blatantly unsafely in order to feel competitive.

Your ignorance is showing.

T8

9B can always be counted on to do a good job of thinking out the ramifications. It's a very good thing to finally have Andy on the rules committee.

I'm also glad to find something to agree with Jon Fitch about here. Going to the lake side of the Tahoe ridge is a concept that I abhor and will absolutely never do intentionally. It sounds like there are a bunch of us that feel that way. You local guys need to please come up with a steering turn concept like you are suggesting or some other way to take that particular option off the table before the next Region 11. I really don't want to be around when we're fishing a glider and its contents out of the lake. As you say, there are ways to address those sorts of particular site specific hazardous temptations within the present framework of rules.

There you go again overcomplicating things ... Just because it's hard to define a SUA that rules out all the problematic high terrain out of Logan or Nehphi does not argue against a simple altitude floor at Hobbs, Uvalde, or all the east coast flatland sites. It does not argue against valley floor SUAs even at those complex sites. Again, we are not here to stop bad behavior, to control what pilots do, and so forth. We are just, where we can with a simple transparent means, removing the strong incentive for SOME dangerous flying. Not all. Not at all sites. Not at all parts of all sites.

There is a lot of speculation around here. I used to do the numbers for the SSA safety report. We had a seriously damaged glider or worse in about one of every two contests. Almost all the damage was off field landings gone wrong, and almost all the traces showed low altitude thermaling attempts before crash. The reports are still on the SSA webpage. (Before the cylinder, we used to have regular crashes at and around the finish too.) Smacking into terrain or midair collisions are present, but quite rare.

On the elevator. I was skeptical too. Then I tried it. It's pretty benign. You float down the eastern shore of Tahoe with an easy bail out to minden or carson most of the way. The ridge lift is very predictable. If there are whitecaps on tahoe, there will be ridge lift. The wind has to go somewhere. If there are not whitecaps on tahoe, it's not going to work. Smooth ridge lift gives you enough for a very comfortable glide back in to Truckee.

I see how it can be overdone. I have seen some traces of pilots shooting through the gap from the west, coming around the corner very low and squeezing lift out of the elevator from low altitude. That's a little hardy for me, in part that the back through the gap escape is gone. So far I have only tried it from about ridge top height up.

John Cochrane

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 7:38:49 AM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:
There you go again overcomplicating things ... Just because it's hard to define a SUA that rules out all the problematic high terrain out of Logan or Nehphi does not argue against a simple altitude floor at Hobbs, Uvalde, or all the east coast flatland sites. It does not argue against valley floor SUAs even at those complex sites. Again, we are not here to stop bad behavior, to control what pilots do, and so forth. We are just, where we can with a simple transparent means, removing the strong incentive for SOME dangerous flying. Not all. Not at all sites. Not at all parts of all sites.

There is a lot of speculation around here. I used to do the numbers for the SSA safety report. We had a seriously damaged glider or worse in about one of every two contests. Almost all the damage was off field landings gone wrong, and almost all the traces showed low altitude thermaling attempts before crash. The reports are still on the SSA webpage. (Before the cylinder, we used to have regular crashes at and around the finish too.) Smacking into terrain or midair collisions are present, but quite rare.

On the elevator. I was skeptical too. Then I tried it. It's pretty benign.. You float down the eastern shore of Tahoe with an easy bail out to minden or carson most of the way. The ridge lift is very predictable. If there are whitecaps on tahoe, there will be ridge lift. The wind has to go somewhere. If there are not whitecaps on tahoe, it's not going to work. Smooth ridge lift gives you enough for a very comfortable glide back in to Truckee.

I see how it can be overdone. I have seen some traces of pilots shooting through the gap from the west, coming around the corner very low and squeezing lift out of the elevator from low altitude. That's a little hardy for me, in part that the back through the gap escape is gone. So far I have only tried it from about ridge top height up.

John Cochrane

John, above the ridge at Tahoe is one thing. Well below it is another entirely. The ridge starts at 9200 MSL Snow Peak and slopes down a little as you go north. From 9200' - even with the top - by the numbers you can glide through 7200' Brockway pass (10 nm away) at 40:1 and still be 400' above the power lines though it's going to take balls to do it. Or go 3 miles back through 7200' Spooner. At 9200' you are getting some ridge lift but you are not down on the Elevator, it is down at 8000'. I have watched people fly through Spooner at 8000', 1200' below the top, hook a right and ridge soar up.. So far we've only had one pilot killed trying it. Again by the numbers, from 8000' you can take one pass and still just clear the cars on Spooner on your way out. That is an "everything needs to go exactly right" plan. If you maintain the 9200' on the ridge going north, the ridge is getting slightly lower and you are getting closer to home, there is the option to bail out east to Carson if you can make it through the sink.

My personal limit is 10,300 or so leaving the Elevator area at Marlette Lake. At 50:1 that gives me about 300 ft over Martis peak with no help, if that isn't working I can continue towards Brockway which is 1000' lower (but a little further, too). Not an ultra conservative strategy but reasonably safe. That's where I got the 10,300' steering turn from. When I used to fly 40:1, that was a bit of a nail biter sometimes and I wanted to be higher. If we want to make it 9200 ft, then OK. It's the people entering Tahoe at 8000 that I don't want to compete with. The problem with 9200 is that, if the elevator is working, you can ridge soar it up to 9200, take the TP, and you're risk is made good. On that kind of day you aren't going to ridge soar it to 10,300. Or we could make the TP cylinder large enough, and ding any entry into it preventing a low entry.

Not everyone will agree with me (including the CD I think) but I'd have a 3 mile cylinder on Snow Peak with a 10,300 (or maybe 10,000) bottom. Points penalty down to 9200, below that scored as a landout at Carson City. I'm pretty confident that would get voted up at the pilot's meeting if they had the chance, though it would not be unanimous.

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 8:38:49 AM UTC-7, John Cochrane wrote:
There you go again overcomplicating things ... Just because it's hard to define a SUA that rules out all the problematic high terrain out of Logan or Nehphi does not argue against a simple altitude floor at Hobbs, Uvalde, or all the east coast flatland sites. It does not argue against valley floor SUAs even at those complex sites. Again, we are not here to stop bad behavior, to control what pilots do, and so forth. We are just, where we can with a simple transparent means, removing the strong incentive for SOME dangerous flying. Not all. Not at all sites. Not at all parts of all sites.

There is a lot of speculation around here. I used to do the numbers for the SSA safety report. We had a seriously damaged glider or worse in about one of every two contests. Almost all the damage was off field landings gone wrong, and almost all the traces showed low altitude thermaling attempts before crash. The reports are still on the SSA webpage. (Before the cylinder, we used to have regular crashes at and around the finish too.) Smacking into terrain or midair collisions are present, but quite rare.

On the elevator. I was skeptical too. Then I tried it. It's pretty benign.. You float down the eastern shore of Tahoe with an easy bail out to minden or carson most of the way. The ridge lift is very predictable. If there are whitecaps on tahoe, there will be ridge lift. The wind has to go somewhere. If there are not whitecaps on tahoe, it's not going to work. Smooth ridge lift gives you enough for a very comfortable glide back in to Truckee.

I see how it can be overdone. I have seen some traces of pilots shooting through the gap from the west, coming around the corner very low and squeezing lift out of the elevator from low altitude. That's a little hardy for me, in part that the back through the gap escape is gone. So far I have only tried it from about ridge top height up.

John Cochrane

John - Thanks for the discussion on the "Elevator". I suspect that Sergio, at one point or another, did a good job of explaining that conservative approach and it didn't sink in with me. I'm certainly willing to try it the way you describe.

Regarding the hard deck idea, there have been two rationales expressed. One relates to safety -- protecting us from temptation of dangerously low saves. The other rationale relates to fairness -- not wanting a fellow competitor to get advantage by doing something that I would never do. Let's dissect that second rationale a bit.

I think the difference in AGL altitude at which BB or GW would safely quit turning and start landing and the lower altitude at which dangerous Joe Blow might risk his life and limb is not really very great. Wouldn't you say it's only around 150 feet? In most cases Joe Blow won't get any sort of advantage from doing so because he'll end up landing at that location regardless of his treachery. In the scheme of things, 150 feet isn't much. Certainly it is less than the typical variation in starting height between gliders on any given day.

The hard deck idea introduces an uncertain stopping point which is actually a lot greater than 150 ft. It's uncertain because, when low, we are normally gliding to or around landing alternates based on visual clue. Hard deck cannot be so easily judged or anticipated along the way. The height at which you are hit by hard deck would depend on where exactly the glide-to terrain elevation is in your step structure and it would depend on the present error of your pressure altimeter. There would be considerable variation in those factors between competitors who might be snagged by the hard deck and that is itself unfair.

In considering the fairness rationale, it would seem that this is a case that the cure is worse than the disease. If the fairness argument doesn't really work, the discussion needs to focus exclusively on whether or not there would be a realistic improvement in safety and whether or not added rules and complications are worth that improvement and whether or not the reduction in each pilot's liberty to find his own way to the finish line is worth it, as well.