The 11 best things at the 2015 15m/Std Class Nationals at Harris Hill

On Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 6:46:13 PM UTC-7, Sean Fidler wrote:

That said, I think the time has come to start moving the "dials" a bit more (than has been happening recently with the RC) and then assess the actual behaviors that result (rather than trying to debate what we "think" will happen). If, for example we decided to institute the start gate time limit (thirty minutes or one hour, whatever), would it really be that big of a deal? Maybe it would solve some of the problems.

RC is pretty flexible - and welcomes innovations. Waivers are not unreasonably denied. Happens every year multiple times. Feel free to try things. You might have to score by hand as we don't have unlimited capacity to change the scoring programs. Getting something as simple as a last start time implemented - like it or not - takes thought and effort to implement. Ron Gleason and I spent a couple of hours going through all the implications of how to pick a start time (and especially a start location) if a pilot starts after the gate close time - assuming you don't just DQ them. Were they headed towards vs away from the first turn, inside vs outside the cylinder when time ran out? We finally concluded you couldn't score it by hand. Many people spend their precious and limited vacation time on attending a contest, so they kind of deserve to have someone dedicate more than the time it takes to type up an idea to thinking about how (and whether) it would actually work.

Here is a thought. Why is this below max altitude so short (2 min)? Especially considering that start gates open for an UNLIMITED period of time! Have we considered, for example, a 10 minute below max altitude? Imagine how that would change the game. Or how about you have to go 500 feet below max altitude to reset? 1000 ft? At current, one can quickly spiral down from above the limit and keep a lot of energy going in that 2 minutes. Especially if the thermal is wide, strong and well marked by other competitors.. Of course this is highly dangerous. I think the problem is that 2 min is really not long enough to settle everyone down. In other common scenarios, one can keep going up, then changing your mind, going down, waiting 2 min, etc, etc, etc. With only 2 min...one can see others leave (make an obvious start) and then quickly descend, wait 2 min, climb back up and start and only be 3-4 minutes behind the "target." An almost perfect leech (draft) up position.

Generally you're better off staying below MSH than doing all of that. The 2 minute rule is intended to be the minimum time that discourages pilots trying to dive at redline into the top of the cylinder. The problem with a altitude differential is that it innocence redline dives and pull-ups. With a time limit, even at redline you'd bleed off all your energy after 2 minutes so there's not much of a point. As to extending it, anyone who has popped through the top by accident knows the frustration of waiting even 2 minutes.. There would need to be a big benefit unrelated to its current purpose to make it worthwhile to extend it. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see why you'd do that. If we could get reliable IAS data, we'd simply implement a speed limit, but GPS logs are TAS plus wind drift so it's a recipe for protest if you ding somebody for overspeed. Even so, bombing around in the cylinder can get you an unsafe flying penalty - though most CDs are loathe to do it. If it gets egregious sanctions can happen (and has happened) so please behave!

I really don't think glider contests are like software DevOps where you just try a bunch of stuff to see what works in the marketplace. It's more like traffic laws - people get upset if you monkey around with it too much without some due process.

Keep the ideas coming and keep complaining about what you don't like. Everybody wants to make contests more fair and more enjoyable for more people.

9B

The reason to extend the 2 min below max altitude limit is pretty simple in my view:

- to stop encouraging pilots from descending thru/around the pack (and above average golden thermal) over and over. It's not all straight forward up there. Examples: Pilots pull into what they think is a great climb and then, for a number of potential reasons decide to "reset" and try again. Reasons such as they think they screwed up centering and did not achieve the climb they had hoped or expected, another pack finds a better climb nearby the initial thermal. gliders below are climbing faster or better centered, a key competitor shows up 500 ft. below, a key competitor decides to reset themselves just above you, etc.

With a longer limit, a limit long enough that the gaggle would be lost, this behavior of "resetting" is greatly discouraged. Pilots would also have a greater safety factor (not get so close to max altitude in the high speed circle of death) as the penalty for breaking it is more substantial tactically.

I think it's a good idea. I honestly do. Even 5 min mould be effective.

Now imagine starts had a 10 min limit on the max altitude reset and a 30 minute time limit. Now we are talking!!! ;-)

At 01:46 12 August 2015, Sean Fidler wrote:
p position.=20

Just a thought.=20

Sean=20


Im new at this racing and the pre-start tactics but most of the advice I
have been given either in person or from books is that I want to have some
gliders out in front of me (1/3rd to 1/2 of the field). If that is good
advice for me, then it is good for other pilots too and that might drive
all of us to wait for someone to start. It seems that the waiting drives
some of the behaviors that most find objectionable.

Sean offered a thought, please allow me one.

Rather than penalizing pilots who start late let the CD award PLUS points
(Admin or good sport points) for the pilots who are among the first to
depart on course. The caveats being that the pilot has to be in the bottom
half overall (relative standing could be used for the first days of a
contest), and has to stay on course, no return for another start and it
only covers xx number of contestants. XX being decided by the CD.

Perhaps this will break the surface tension on the start gate, give the
field markers to guide on, reduce leeching, and start congestion, and help
the bottom half of the field with better scores ( but not enough to change
the standings among the top competitors)

BZ

On Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 10:58:24 AM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
[snip]
By the way, there no speed limit in the U.S. rules.
[snip]

I'm an outsider to this, but in the 2015 rules at http://www.ssa.org/ContestRules , I see:

---QUOTE---
10.8.7 While inside or within 2 miles of any Start Cylinder that has been designated for use by any competition class, pilots are expected to avoid flight at indicated airspeeds greater than 115 mph and to pay particular attention to safe flight near circling sailplanes.
---END QUOTE---

The phrase "...pilots are expected to..." is strangely loose language for a rules document, but it still reads like a speed limit to me.

Cheers,
-Mark Rebuck

If the CD set the max start higher there would be no reason to decend through a thermal. Rather, the challenge would be to hang at the top. Besides, perhaps as rare as a "perfectly called task" is a thermal that would support the hipothetical scenario Sean laid oit

Now, how about a fsst clap https://youtu.be/Z571ByeNbPQ

On Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 11:44:38 AM UTC-4, wrote:
Now, how about a fsst clap https://youtu.be/Z571ByeNbPQ

Golf clap for another entirely unenforced, unenforcable "rule." my rule would truly solve the issue.

This thread refuses to die.

So...let the 2015 Rules Committee meeting reverberate with the sound of RSG ("Return to the Start Gate")! I was somewhat tongue-in-cheek when I proposed returning to the traditional start line/gate a few days ago just to get people thinking, but why not? True, the start cylinder does spread out the field and provide more opportunities to win the start. But Sean objects to races that don't keep the competitors on the same course at about the same time so if he were intellectually honest (I'm not soliciting comments), he'd be objecting to the 5 mile cylinder, not the 2 minute rule. That latter rule was installed originally to prevent pilots from climbing up high, then diving down into the cylinder, through a gaggle, and out the side of the cylinder for a high-speed start. While Sean may be able to conserve his energy from such a redline dive for TWO MINUTES, I don't know of anyone else on this planet who can unless they have a flywheel spinning in the glider that can be engaged with a ducted fan system. And the start cylinder itself, which begs for some kind of speed limit--directly enforced or not--was implemented when GPS loggers became mandatory and we dispensed with the traditional starting line/gate.

IIRC, the loud objections to the start line/gate at that time were made in great part because they aided GPS logger proponents in their campaign to dispense with the start line/gate and film cameras altogether. It wasn't unsafe, per se. With FLARM and the ability, through GPS, to enforce rules in the gate such as "no short IP" so that all competitors are aligned in a relatively narrow corridor for their start gate runs, and given the enhanced guidance that today's flight computers could provide to deliver all pilots to the line at the optimum speed and altitude, there's no reason not to consider adopting it again.

Yes, there's a tendency to cluster on the upwind side of the starting line. And for most competitors to climb up together in the same gate thermal. And to loiter there waiting for just the right moment to start. In other words, the same things that happen now in the cylinder, although I'll admit that it's easier for a pilot to slip away and start by him- or herself from an obscure part of the cylinder. But that never happens, right? We're all a bunch of sheep, following one another in single file out of the cylinder.

Yes, leeching is a problem. It was a much bigger problem when most national contests pulled 55 to 65 contestants. The only U.S. contest I know of where that happens now is Perry. We have THREE nationals scheduled simultaneously at Nephi, UT next summer and I suspect we won't come close to filling that up. Does anyone else recall that the eventual 1986 U.S. 15 Meter champion drove to Uvalde that year ON THE WAIT LIST hoping (justifiably, it turned out) that someone would drop out so he could fly?

I frankly didn't see much leeching at Elmira: fewer participants and fewer top pilots for any leeches to latch onto. It was interesting the first few days when some of the top guys started very early and it became evident that they weren't doubling back for a second start. It evoked memories of Dick Johnson's "start early and pray for rain" strategy when he regularly headed out and flew by himself all the way around, with remarkable results.

We can make competitive soaring more expensive, more complex, and more inscrutable to and intimidating for newcomers. We can continue driving participation rates down. Or we can quit trying to tweak the rules to solve non-problems and focus on preserving what we have left and perhaps attract a few enterprising souls who don't know what they're missing. I have to say, after being out of soaring for almost 4 years, I was discouraged by the gadgets I thought I'd have to buy just to be on that level playing field: i.e., FLARM, transponder, and $3,000 to $6,000 vario/flight computer system to replace my faithful Cambridge LNAV/GPS-NAV and Glide Navigator II on an ancient Compaq 1550 (blush).

In actuality, it was sort of like when the government warns that taxes will go up 30% and it turns out it's ONLY a 15% increase. I was actually relieved that I might get away with just a FLARM device and some open-source nav software on a cheap tablet and ONLY have to spend a few thousand dollars. That's but a few semesters worth of books for my twin daughters at college. Correlation is not causation but don't pretend cost doesn't have an impact on participation. I hope it's not presumptuous to assume that the analytical types on the Rules Committee would agree that the demand for competitive soaring is not perfectly inelastic.

Think of me and people like me with older gliders [thanks to the RC for introducing handicapping to the Standard Class, BTW], limited budgets, and finite patience to read through today's Rules when you're arguing about how to make competition "perfect". I wasn't surprised when a number of folks at Elmira got confused about some of the features of the MAT task. What was interesting was the mix of relative newcomers and old timers who had the same confusion. That tells me more about the complexity of the Rules than any annual press release by the Rules Committee, whose work I respect and appreciate.

I'd love to see Andy focus his considerable analytical abilities on investigating the factors that impact contest participation rates: economics--including not just the cost of gliders and equipment and operating expenses but the role of exchange rates and the ability (as with houses) to move up the ladder by selling one's used glider for more than original price to help purchase a new one; rules complexity; proliferation of classes; trends in Europe; geographic siting; changing lifestyles and alternative uses for discretionary income and time; etc. I believe I'm on solid ground in saying that one of those factors is NOT whether the dwell time for the start cylinder should be 2 minutes or 4 1/2 minutes or 10 minutes.

With good wishes for all involved,

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

On Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 12:30:02 PM UTC-7, wrote:

I'd love to see Andy focus his considerable analytical abilities on investigating the factors that impact contest participation rates: economics--including not just the cost of gliders and equipment and operating expenses but the role of exchange rates and the ability (as with houses) to move up the ladder by selling one's used glider for more than original price to help purchase a new one(THAT'S COMPLICATED); rules complexity (YUP); proliferation of classes (YUP); trends in Europe (NOT SURE WHAT THIS IS); geographic siting (YUP); changing lifestyles and alternative uses for discretionary income and time (ONLY AIN A GENRAL SENSE); etc. I believe I'm on solid ground in saying that one of those factors is NOT whether the dwell time for the start cylinder should be 2 minutes or 4 1/2 minutes or 10 minutes. (STILL THINKING ABOUT THAT ONE - IS IT BETTER OR WORSE TO HAVE 100%OF THE GLIDERS BOMBING AROUND AT 100 FEET BELOW MSH, HALF IN AND HALF OUT OF THE BEST THERMAL AROUND - INSTEAD OF SOME OF THEM CLIMBING UP HIGHER AND COMING DOWN IN SOME SORT OF SEQUENCE?).

I know you were being tongue-in-cheek, but we do think about the issue of participation - a lot. It's not much of a race if nobody shows up.

9B

Let's remember where the start gate came from.

Faced with the technology of the time, our forebears wanted to figure out how to do an aerial start of the race, so that tow realease time was not start time, and we could tow everybody up in an orderly way and then start the race.

They hit on a great solution: the IP call, and passage of a start line, altitude and passage measured by Charlie Spratt. Altitude had to be low, even heading out over boonies, as one could not reliably measure 6000' starts. Also, there being no way to monitor prestart altitude or speed, a brillaint game developed of getting just the right altitude and blasting through the gate at VNE.

It was a great solution for the technology of the time.

But we don't have that technology. We have recording GPS. If you were to start from scratch and invent glider racing with GPS, you would not invent anything of the sort. It's a solution to a problem with different constraints.

Why go back to something developed on the constraints of visual starts and stretched wire altitude measurement? Just for historic preservation, or because we always did it that way?

If we want to reform starts, think about how we would run races if we were inventing them from scratch, and we will be controlling position and altitude with GPS.

Given that we record GPS, it strikes me the most obvious simplification, and the way we might do things starting from scratch, is a "roll out and go" start. Why start the race when you cross some plane in space, especially given that all the turnpoints are just fixes? Why all the tension about getitng one fix above the cylinder, or maxing your glide to the edge? Why not just have a cylinder, and your best fix in the cylinder is a start, just as an area turnpoint your best fix is the turnpoint. Just roll out and go.

Absent that somewhat simpler system, the current start cylinder does a good job, I think, of controlling a start in a way that is simple for pilots and scorers using GPS technology. A straight line often moves the best start point far away from the airport. Start out the top is brilliant. Measuring speed in the cylinder is impractical: the thing on which you are scored must be easily visible in the cockpit, and with unknown wind there is no way to display the speed on which you will be scored. Diving for a line is a barbaric relic of outdated technology.

The same holds for finishes by the way. The finish line is a brilliant solution to the problem, how do you measure the end of the race by hand and stopwatch. It is not what anyone would invent if they are thinking about the problem from scratch given that we measure races with GPS. It is surely not what anyone would invent in an environment in which all approaches to non-towered airports follow the AIM and arrive for downwind at 800 feet. It was a lot of fun, but we're not necessarily here for historic preservation.

John Cochrane BB