2014 SSA/US Tasking Analysis

2014: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

2013: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

2014 US Tasking Highlights
Total Number of Tasks - 189
TATs - 122 or 65%
MATs - 63 or 33%
ASTs - 4 or 2%

2014 US Nationals Tasking Highlights
Total Number of Tasks - 36
TATs - 17 or 47%
MATs - 17 or 47%
ASTs - 2 or 5% (Club Class Nationals)

Of the Modified Assigned Tasks (63)...
49% (thats right, 49) were ONE or ZERO TP's (aka HAT or Half Ass Tasks)
9 Zero Turn MATs
22 One Turn MATs

Number of TATs with Average Turn Area Radius 20 miles - 16 or 13%
Number of TATs with all 30 mile Turn Areas - 10 or 8%

This week I will work on further analysis of the average climb rates, raw speeds and distances covered for the all tasks.

I will try to correlate this with information on forecasted conditions. It should be recommended that anyone writing daily contest reports include basic forecast information. Or, perhaps the Winscore scoring software could require/offer inputs for soaring forecast and task call "reasoning." Information such as what was the forecasted soaring conditions used to design the task? Thermal strength, thermal height AGL, wind strength, etc. What factors influenced the task call (thdrsms, handicap range, skill level range, terrain, high cirrus, OD, blue, etc).

I would guess that only 5-10% of the 2014 tasks had even a chance of thunderstorms forecasted for that day (John Cochrane).

One interesting statistic will be the percentage of US MAT (HAT) tasks that are assigned and unassigned. Example: a zero TP MAT would be (ironically) 0% assigned and 100% unassigned (say that real slow 2 or 3 times so it sinks in...). A one turn point MAT would be 20% assigned and 80% unassigned if 5 turn points were achieved (and so on). It will be very interesting to see the reality of our typical "modified" assigned tasks. Maybe we rename the zero TP MAT a BAT? The "*******ized (not at all) Assigned Task." Why do we have the words "assigned task" in a ZERO turn "modified?" assigned? task again?

The IGC/FAI has a required ratio of tasking types in order to ensure quality? Does the US/SSA have required or even recommended task type ratio? At this point, I would be very satisfied with 10% assigned tasks at regionals and 20% at Nationals? The rest can be OLC (MAT, BAT) and TAT. I think this may have something to do with our top pilots struggling at the World Championships as well. They are almost never challenged with racing tasks. This is a fact.

Oddly, the only work being done in the US in regards to tasking (so I am told) is consideration of the introduction of OLC tasks. If that is true, I am confused. Isn't OLC tasking what a zero TP MAT already is? Isn't OLC (one/zero turn MAT) really a "modern" free-distance task? Or are "they" simply discussing a name change from MAT to OLC?

Signing off from the land of 2% assigned tasks, soon to be ZERO.

This week I will work on further analysis of 2014 US tasks. Task flight data such as average climb rate, distances flown, speeds achieved, etc.

I will also try to correlate this with available forecast archives. The SSA should, in its contest management guidelines, recommend that anyone writing daily contest reports should include detailed forecast (task decision) information. Perhaps the Winscore scoring software could be enhanced to offer inputs for forecast data used to call the task. This will provide the scorer something to do after the pilots meeting. Useful information such as forecasted thermal strength, forecasted thermal strength per quadrants (weaker to the north, etc), forecasted cloudbase (MSL, AGL), wind strength, etc, etc. The goal here would be to document what factors influenced the task call (convective potential, handicap range, pilot skill level range, terrain, high cirrus encroachment, over-development concern, blue day, etc).

I would guess that only 5-10% of the 2014 tasks had even a slight chance of thunderstorms for the task (John Cochrane). I would guess that a vast majority of 2014 tasks had good forecasts. The performance data will help illustrate this.

One very interesting statistic will be the percentage of a given US MAT (HAT) task that was assigned vs. unassigned. Example: a zero TP MAT would be (ironically) 0% assigned and 100% unassigned (say that real slow 2 or 3 times so it sinks in...). A one turn point MAT would be 20% assigned and 80% unassigned if 5 turn points were achieved (and so on). It will be very interesting to see the reality of our typical "modified" assigned tasks. US MAT's are mainly (ironically) NOT ASSIGNED!!!!!!!! Maybe we should rename the zero TP MAT a BAT? The "*******ized (not at all) Assigned Task." Why do we have the words "assigned task" in a ZERO turn "modified?" assigned? task again? This is ridiculous.

The IGC/FAI requires a certain ratio of task types in its soaring events? Does the US/SSA have required (or even recommended) task type ratios? Why not? At this point, I would be very satisfied with 10% assigned tasks at regionals and 20% at Nationals? The rest can be OLC (MAT, BAT) and TAT. MAT's are mainly unassigned tasks! I think this may have much to do with our top US pilots struggling at the World Championships. They are almost never challenged with racing tasks. This is a fact.

Oddly, the only work being done in the US in regards to tasking (so I am told) is consideration of the introduction of "OLC tasks." If that is true, I am even more confused. Isn't OLC tasking what a ZERO TP MAT already is? Isn't OLC (one/zero turn MAT) really a return back to a "modern" free-distance task? Or are "we" simply discussing a name change from MAT to OLC? I won't hold my breath but I would love to hear more about this.

Signing off from the land of 2% Assigned Tasks, soon to be ZERO!

Sean, I am a old competition pilot that was raised on assigned tasks, often quite long, and often called hours before the soaring for the day was evaluated by advisors. Charlie Spratt introduced the concept of calling tasks in the air based on feedback from sniffers or already airborne competitors.. That was a significant improvment. Then came POST ( pilot option speed tasks) , then AAT's and MAT's. I have been a competition director or pilot numerous times in all of those formats. At one time the competition directors guide to the rules acutally recommended strliving for 20% land outs. The old way was not better for most pilots and definitely not better for organizers and competition directors. The MAT can do anything that an AT can do but better. The CD just needs to choose enough turnpoints so that the better pilots will run out of time before they run out of turnpoints and you effectively have a AAT while allowing slower or less experienced pilots to come home after any turnpoint and still get speed points.
The best strategy for a CD now, is to Task multi turn MAT's on consistant soaring days, AAT's on strong days with storms in the forecast and one turn MAT's for days when soaring is marginal and a task is needed for a complete contest.
Dale Bush DLB

Intentionally trying to produce landouts was a poor way of stating the objective. I think the real objective was to ensure that the top 50% of competitors were thoroughly tested. Back then (I believe) the gliders were of vastly different performance with no handicaps (correct me if I am wrong here). That is very different from todays pure classes (15, 18, Open, Std, 20m 2 place even Club and 13.5m). On the other hand, the SSA is now trying to absolutely prevent all land outs, even at our National Championships! This is resulting in WAY to many boring, short, luck influenced, OLC like , 0 or 1 turn MAT, wide turn area TAT, non-racing tasks. It is also resulting in, I believe, our best US pilots struggling at the World Championships. I believe that they are not getting enough challenging competition practice (in addition to being less experienced with FAI rules).

The deflating reality (see data) is that most US MATs (2014) have much more in common with OLC than assigned tasks. 50% of all MATs are HATs. That is one or ZERO turn MATS. If you look at all 2014 US MATs, you see that the overall percentage of assigned turnpoints to "unassigned" or "free" turnpoints, is roughly 30% assigned to 70% unassigned. So our modified ASSIGNED TASKS are, in reality, 70% OLC!

The only possible salvation is OUTLAWING short MATs. I agree with you that long MATs (enough turn points to ensure nobody hits all of them) allows assigned "like" tasks varying skill levels and even wide handicap range. When you have had enough you can just head home! I can live with that if assigned tasks were also called 10-20% of the total tasks. The problem is that very few long MATs are being called in the US (2014). Call me selfish, but I am not 100% worried about beginners. Im worried about enjoying competition with the experienced racers and improving as a glider pilot.

I have seen CD's and task advisors do a good job of estimating speed and "wrapping in" the later turnpoints (of a long MAT) closer and closer to the airfield to minimize the chance of landouts. I am fine with this. But again, long MAT's are actually extremely rare in the US. Only 21 of 63 MATS in 2014 had 5 or greater turnpoints! Again, in contrast, 31 of 63 (50%) 2014 MATS had one or zero turnpoints!!! So, 50% OLC MATS, 33% moderate or long MAT's! Sad.

This is damning evidence. Frankly, it is fairly embarrassing. No other country on earth (that I understand) does MAT's. Let alone 50% ZERO or ONE turn (aka OLC, HAT) MATS.

One turn or zero turn MATS should be (out of respect for our country) renamed OLC free turn point tasks. They have about as much to do with assigned tasks as an aerobatics competition. They should only be allowed in regionals. They should be "OUTLAWED" in Nationals just as the AST has been "OUTLAWED" by the RC in Sports class.

I have never heard of POST. Interesting. Thanks for bringing it up and I appreciate your comments. I still very much want 10-20% Pure Assigned Tasking in 2015 US Contests.

On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 10:57:05 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Sean, I am a old competition pilot that was raised on assigned tasks, often quite long, and often called hours before the soaring for the day was evaluated by advisors. Charlie Spratt introduced the concept of calling tasks in the air based on feedback from sniffers or already airborne competitors. That was a significant improvment. Then came POST ( pilot option speed tasks) , then AAT's and MAT's. I have been a competition director or pilot numerous times in all of those formats. At one time the competition directors guide to the rules acutally recommended strliving for 20% land outs. The old way was not better for most pilots and definitely not better for organizers and competition directors. The MAT can do anything that an AT can do but better. The CD just needs to choose enough turnpoints so that the better pilots will run out of time before they run out of turnpoints and you effectively have a AAT while allowing slower or less experienced pilots to come home after any turnpoint and still get speed points.
The best strategy for a CD now, is to Task multi turn MAT's on consistant soaring days, AAT's on strong days with storms in the forecast and one turn MAT's for days when soaring is marginal and a task is needed for a complete contest.
Dale Bush DLB

On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 9:41:34 PM UTC-8, Sean Fidler wrote:
Back then (I believe) the gliders were of vastly different performance with no handicaps (correct me if I am wrong here). That is very different from todays pure classes (15, 18, Open, Std, 20m 2 place even Club and 13.5m)..

Way back before 15M you had Std Cirrus, Libelle, LS-1, then you had ASW-19, LS-4, Discus (a bit later) and LS-3, ASW-20, Ventus (over a window of time). Take a look at the current handicaps for these ships and I believe you'll find a pretty tight handicap range. Yes you had the occasional Austria or Ka-6 or HP-14 turning up but generally with fewer generations of (particularly glass) in existence the spacing of performance felt reasonably tight.


The only possible salvation is OUTLAWING short MATs.

Be careful what you wish for - one potential outcome is more cancelled contest days or VERY short ATs or AATs with more devaluation. With uncertain weather you have to think about what CDs and advisors are going to do if you tie their hands that way. It seems unlikely that they will be able to wish their way to better weather so they will deal with it potentially with more conservative calls. One potential outcome given today's crewless environment is that calling more ATs will translate into fewer on-course hours per contest as CD's compensate for the AT's lack of pilot flexibility with more grid squatting waiting for conditions to improve and shorter tasks - especially should AT's be mandated in some way.

You might be well advised to reach out to CD's and/or advisors for a sample of contests where lots of TATs or no-turn MATs were called. I'm thinking it might be rather difficult to recreate the richness of information that was available to those calling tasks at the time and even spending several hours per contest day reviewing whatever data was available prior to launch (not after) might yield an incomplete or distorted version of the information that was used to make the task call. I didn't fall into either category (CD or advisor) last year but I'd be happy to review what actually happened each day at Montague and Nephi last year. There was a fair amount of weather uncertainty in both cases and at least for Montague an explicit goal of calling 1/3 AT's if the weather cooperated. It didn't cooperate except on a couple of days, including the last where we had an exquisitely called (drum roll) Long MAT.

Could more AT's be called - sure. I'm reasonably sure that pushing it hard will result in shorter races on average. That may be okay as a break from the longer days and will also have more leeching and tight finishes/speeds/scores. In the end, the contests will likely be decided on the days when pilot have to judge the weather too and the points spreads are greater. The AT days will be the days where excellent tactics can pick up a few points but mostly they will be days to play it safe and not stray away from the pack.

Also keep in mind that pushing the landout dimension too hard as part of implementing more ATs may result in more pilots elect to go to the OLC events like Nephi and Ionia are doing in 2015.

9B

On Sunday, 25 January 2015 19:32:26 UTC-7, Sean Fidler wrote:
This week I will work on further analysis of 2014 US tasks. Task flight data such as average climb rate, distances flown, speeds achieved, etc.

I will also try to correlate this with available forecast archives. The SSA should, in its contest management guidelines, recommend that anyone writing daily contest reports should include detailed forecast (task decision) information. Perhaps the Winscore scoring software could be enhanced to offer inputs for forecast data used to call the task. This will provide the scorer something to do after the pilots meeting. Useful information such as forecasted thermal strength, forecasted thermal strength per quadrants (weaker to the north, etc), forecasted cloudbase (MSL, AGL), wind strength, etc, etc. The goal here would be to document what factors influenced the task call (convective potential, handicap range, pilot skill level range, terrain, high cirrus encroachment, over-development concern, blue day, etc).

I would guess that only 5-10% of the 2014 tasks had even a slight chance of thunderstorms for the task (John Cochrane). I would guess that a vast majority of 2014 tasks had good forecasts. The performance data will help illustrate this.

One very interesting statistic will be the percentage of a given US MAT (HAT) task that was assigned vs. unassigned. Example: a zero TP MAT would be (ironically) 0% assigned and 100% unassigned (say that real slow 2 or 3 times so it sinks in...). A one turn point MAT would be 20% assigned and 80% unassigned if 5 turn points were achieved (and so on). It will be very interesting to see the reality of our typical "modified" assigned tasks. US MAT's are mainly (ironically) NOT ASSIGNED!!!!!!!! Maybe we should rename the zero TP MAT a BAT? The "*******ized (not at all) Assigned Task." Why do we have the words "assigned task" in a ZERO turn "modified?" assigned? task again? This is ridiculous.

The IGC/FAI requires a certain ratio of task types in its soaring events? Does the US/SSA have required (or even recommended) task type ratios? Why not? At this point, I would be very satisfied with 10% assigned tasks at regionals and 20% at Nationals? The rest can be OLC (MAT, BAT) and TAT. MAT's are mainly unassigned tasks! I think this may have much to do with our top US pilots struggling at the World Championships. They are almost never challenged with racing tasks. This is a fact.

Oddly, the only work being done in the US in regards to tasking (so I am told) is consideration of the introduction of "OLC tasks." If that is true, I am even more confused. Isn't OLC tasking what a ZERO TP MAT already is? Isn't OLC (one/zero turn MAT) really a return back to a "modern" free-distance task? Or are "we" simply discussing a name change from MAT to OLC? I won't hold my breath but I would love to hear more about this.

Signing off from the land of 2% Assigned Tasks, soon to be ZERO!

Requiring or recommending more work for the organizers and workers is dead on arrival. Never enough people, never enough time to get workload done.

On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 11:50:03 PM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 9:41:34 PM UTC-8, Sean Fidler wrote:
Back then (I believe) the gliders were of vastly different performance with no handicaps (correct me if I am wrong here). That is very different from todays pure classes (15, 18, Open, Std, 20m 2 place even Club and 13.5m).

Way back before 15M you had Std Cirrus, Libelle, LS-1, then you had ASW-19, LS-4, Discus (a bit later) and LS-3, ASW-20, Ventus (over a window of time). Take a look at the current handicaps for these ships and I believe you'll find a pretty tight handicap range. Yes you had the occasional Austria or Ka-6 or HP-14 turning up but generally with fewer generations of (particularly glass) in existence the spacing of performance felt reasonably tight..


The only possible salvation is OUTLAWING short MATs.

Be careful what you wish for - one potential outcome is more cancelled contest days or VERY short ATs or AATs with more devaluation. With uncertain weather you have to think about what CDs and advisors are going to do if you tie their hands that way. It seems unlikely that they will be able to wish their way to better weather so they will deal with it potentially with more conservative calls. One potential outcome given today's crewless environment is that calling more ATs will translate into fewer on-course hours per contest as CD's compensate for the AT's lack of pilot flexibility with more grid squatting waiting for conditions to improve and shorter tasks - especially should AT's be mandated in some way.

You might be well advised to reach out to CD's and/or advisors for a sample of contests where lots of TATs or no-turn MATs were called. I'm thinking it might be rather difficult to recreate the richness of information that was available to those calling tasks at the time and even spending several hours per contest day reviewing whatever data was available prior to launch (not after) might yield an incomplete or distorted version of the information that was used to make the task call. I didn't fall into either category (CD or advisor) last year but I'd be happy to review what actually happened each day at Montague and Nephi last year. There was a fair amount of weather uncertainty in both cases and at least for Montague an explicit goal of calling 1/3 AT's if the weather cooperated. It didn't cooperate except on a couple of days, including the last where we had an exquisitely called (drum roll) Long MAT.

Could more AT's be called - sure. I'm reasonably sure that pushing it hard will result in shorter races on average. That may be okay as a break from the longer days and will also have more leeching and tight finishes/speeds/scores. In the end, the contests will likely be decided on the days when pilot have to judge the weather too and the points spreads are greater. The AT days will be the days where excellent tactics can pick up a few points but mostly they will be days to play it safe and not stray away from the pack.

Also keep in mind that pushing the landout dimension too hard as part of implementing more ATs may result in more pilots elect to go to the OLC events like Nephi and Ionia are doing in 2015.

9B

More pilots are all ready electing to go to OLC events.

Richard

More pilots are all ready electing to go to OLC events.

Richard

Location, Location, Location... (Sorry, not intended to hijack this thread)
Utah is an incredible place to fly AND vacation. It has consistently had huge success in drawing pilots from around the country over the past 10 years.. The OLC format allows a broader range of pilot skills and interests than a pure contest, ala Sports Class Nationals. Hence, large turnouts. I am very curious how the Ionia and Moriarty events will turn out.

On Monday, January 26, 2015 at 8:04:46 AM UTC-8, Craig Reinholt wrote:
More pilots are all ready electing to go to OLC events.

Richard

Location, Location, Location... (Sorry, not intended to hijack this thread)
Utah is an incredible place to fly AND vacation. It has consistently had huge success in drawing pilots from around the country over the past 10 years. The OLC format allows a broader range of pilot skills and interests than a pure contest, ala Sports Class Nationals. Hence, large turnouts. I am very curious how the Ionia and Moriarty events will turn out.

Format Format Format

Richard