Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team Selection Policy Changes

On Sep 26, 8:33*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
To give a simplistic/extreme example. * We have a guy in our club who
flies a 1-26. *For a while, he also owned an ASW-20. * When he owned
the 20, he was always in the top 5 in both handicapped and
unhandicapped contests. *He also routinely wins the 1-26 Nationals.
Now, put him in a 1-26 (with it's 1.6 handicap) flying against an
ASG-29, and he's likely to finish near the bottom of that contest if
there is even one weak day. * Given that many of our nationals are
decided with only 4 or 5 days of flying, that makes it pretty unlikely
that a great pilot would be rewarded by flying the 1-26.

While that's probably the extreme example, it's useful for
illustrating the point. * You have to draw a line somewhere in terms
of "bunching" ships into a handicapped class that's close enough to
eliminate the majority of the luck factor involved in having the right
ship for the conditions. * For better or worse, the IGC has already
drawn that line, so why reinvent it?

I think there is a bit of a misconception here. You need to focus on
the whole contest, not just the particular day. The handicaps not only
try to compensate for speed differences on a consistent day, they also
try to compensate for the impossible days, and are pretty succcessful
at it. The high performance gliders have handicaps that are way too
punitive based on their polars. That is to compensate for their
greater chance of making it home, as well as a little bit of
affirmative action.

On (say) 1 out of 5 days, the 1-26 can't cross the blue hole, gap,
etc. and lands out and the asg 29 wins. On (say) 1 out of 5 days, the
1-26 gets to play on the local ridge / stay in the cloudstreet etc.
while the asg29 has to go cross some horrendous blue hole; the asg 29
finishes but with a terrible score. On (say) 3 out of 5 days, both
pilots make it home in consistent weather, but the 1-26 handicap is so
huge that it comes out ahead by 50 points or so. (This is pretty much
the story of the last sports nationals I competed in, substitute "KA6"
for "1-26" and "ASW27" for "ASG29")

Over a long contest, the two gliders even out if piloted equally well.
The issue is variance, not mean (yes, we are techies, are we not) A
contest with more consistent days favors the 1-26; a contest with more
weak days favors the ASG29, a contest with more days/tasks that allow
the 1-26 to stay in small areas of good weather favor it again.

Thus the real problem with a wide handicap range is not that one or
another kind of glider is favored on average, it is that there is even
more weather and task related luck than usual. Dave Stephenson did
great in sports class in Foka, Ka-6 and associated gliders, proving
those can compete. In part this was great piloting, in part it was a
bet on consistent weather.

Splittiing gliders up into narrower handicap ranges will certainly
produce races with less luck. On the other hand, it also produces
smaller contests. I'm dismayed that the average regional seems to have
7 gliders per class, and the average national seems to be struggling
to keep in the two digits.

If we had enough gliders, I'd be all for *three classes -- "FAI" for
handicaps above 0.90 or so, "club" for the middle range, and "ex-word-
class" for handicaps below 1.0 or so. Spitting only in two by taking
out the middle -- "club" for 15 gliders in the mid range, and then
"sports" that keeps only the Nimbus 3 and 1-26, is not a good idea.
But we need more gliders....

John Cochrane

Exactly.

Here is a specific, real example.

Pilot A and Pilot B competed in four contests at the same site over
four consecutive years. 18 of the contest days they flew against each
other in an FAI class. For 9 of the days they competed in Sport Class
and Pilot B flew a Club Class glider with a 14% higher handicap.

Over the 18 days of FAI class flying Pilot B's average daily score was
97% of Pilot A's.

Over the 9 days of Sports Class flying Pilot A finished every day and
Pilot B landed out twice. If you count every contest day (including
the two landouts) Pilot B's average daily score was 95% of Pilot A's.

If you drop the scores for both pilots on one of the days that Pilot
B's landed out, Pilot B's average daily score was 99% of Pilot A's.

If you drop the scores for both pilots on both of the days that Pilot
B's landed out, Pilot B's score was 107% of Pilot A's.

This is consistent with John's contention that handicaps are
calculated inclusive of a presumed higher landout rate for gliders
with higher handicaps. I know that two pilots over 27 contest days
doesn't make a statistically significant sample, but it gives you a
sense for the scoring effects at work. As John said, any contest with
landouts increases the variance of outcomes, even without handicaps.

It makes me realize that the Drop-a-Day provision that has been
suggested would tend to favor higher handicap gliders.

9B

On Sep 26, 9:56*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:

Duo's, Arcuses, Nimbus 2's and 3's along with ASK21's are already "open
class" gliders aren't they? technically speaking they already ahve a
class....granted the K-21's aren't real serios contenders in this class but
so be it...neither are Blaniks and 2-33's..they have a specific job as
trainers..we never designed a racing class for Station wagon's in NASCAR
either ...being too broad in the idea of letting everyone play isn't ever
going to be entirely practical.if someone does show up with a 2-33 to a
contest then they can fly...and do what they can in the task but they aren't
goingto win either.and I supect they already knew this.


You could make the exact same argument about Club class gliders
needing to fly in the classes they were originally designed for (15M
and Standard), sure they'd be at a disadvantage, but, as you say, so
be it. Keep in mind that when you strip out the Club Class gliders
from the Sports Class at many regionals you may not have enough glider
to make a class, especially once you split the remainder into World
and Open as you suggest, so those guys get to go home. In some cases
you won't have enough to make a Club Class either.

9B

On Sep 26, 8:10*am, Papa3 wrote:
On Sep 26, 10:30*am, Andy wrote:





On Sep 25, 6:09*pm, Andrzej Kobus wrote:

One thing we could think about is to increase the devaluation for days
with significant numbers of landouts - potentially based also on the
spread of handicaps in the contest. This would make dodgy days worth
even less than they are today. It also would probably require a modest
reduction in the handicaps for lower performing gliders to
compensate.

9B

How would we ever get this right?

We have plenty of contest history as input data. There are analytic
techniques to solve for that sort of thing. I expect you could trade
off one factor (handicap multiplier) against the other (devaluation
factor) to minimize the error between relative contest points in
sports class contests and relative seeding points.

I expect something like that is what we do today to establish glider
handicaps, just without the additional factor.

9B

Please no - *multi-variable calculus not allowed in the scoring
algorithms! * :-)

Seriously though, *I think if there's any "flaw" in the US Competition
Rules process, it's that we have too many engineers and mathematicians
looking for a perfect solution to complex problems (I count myself in
that category by the way). * As a management consultant, I'm sure
you've counseled clients in the beauty of KISS - Keep It Simple
Stupid. *This strikes me as a KISS moment.

Handicaps on gliders are probably good enough to get an indicative
level *of comparison. * Obviously though, they're only as good as the
model they're based on. *While the polar is (more or less) known/
knowable, *the full range of conditions in a contest are, if not
infinite, at least pretty complex. * While basic models account for
lift strength and height, *I don't believe they can incorporate all of
the other things that go into a competition in anything but homogenous
conditions. * *Wind, unfriendly terrain, ridge flying, *thermal
spacing, *and a hundred other things affect the outcome of a
contest. * While a group of gliders flying in "roughly" the same
performance bucket will be affected equally, ships at the outlier end
of the spectrum will be disproportionately impacted by any contests
where there are larger deviations from the norm in any of these
variables.

To give a simplistic/extreme example. * We have a guy in our club who
flies a 1-26. *For a while, he also owned an ASW-20. * When he owned
the 20, he was always in the top 5 in both handicapped and
unhandicapped contests. *He also routinely wins the 1-26 Nationals.
Now, put him in a 1-26 (with it's 1.6 handicap) flying against an
ASG-29, and he's likely to finish near the bottom of that contest if
there is even one weak day. * Given that many of our nationals are
decided with only 4 or 5 days of flying, that makes it pretty unlikely
that a great pilot would be rewarded by flying the 1-26.

While that's probably the extreme example, it's useful for
illustrating the point. * You have to draw a line somewhere in terms
of "bunching" ships into a handicapped class that's close enough to
eliminate the majority of the luck factor involved in having the right
ship for the conditions. * For better or worse, the IGC has already
drawn that line, so why reinvent it?

As long as you don't have to do differential equations in the
cockpit. :-)

I was suggesting that the handicaps be based off of actual contest
performance rather than trying to model actual glider performance in
the real world - which is too complex a task. Better to take an
empirical approach. No one really needs to have to understand the
methodology, just the result - their handicap.

9B

At 16:56 26 September 2010, Tim Mara wrote:

..we never designed a racing class for Station wagon's in NASCAR
either

But NASCAR *did* design a racing class for pickup trucks. Always seemed
pretty strange to me, though.

Jim Beckman

On Sep 25, 9:02*pm, RRK wrote:
1. * * Handicaps don't *ever work over the range of performance
* * * * that we allow in the Sports Class.
2. * * Sport class will never allow for AST's, most common task flown
Internationally.

rk

RE 2
You are not entirely correct in your statement. The MAT can be set
with enough fixed turnpoints to keep the high performance gliders or
the same course until Mintime runes out, while allowing the slower
gliders to drop off and come home when they time out. This does
exactly what is needed with a spread of glider performance. Everybody
flies the same air and everybody gets to come home for beer.
CD's and task advisers need to use this option more.
UH

On Sep 27, 9:26*am, wrote:
On Sep 25, 9:02*pm, RRK wrote:

1. * * Handicaps don't *ever work over the range of performance
* * * * that we allow in the Sports Class.
2. * * Sport class will never allow for AST's, most common task flown
Internationally.

rk

RE 2
You are not entirely correct in your statement. The MAT can be set
with enough fixed turnpoints to keep the high performance gliders or
the same course until Mintime runes out, while allowing the slower
gliders to drop off and come home when they time out. This does
exactly what is needed with a spread of glider performance. Everybody
flies the same air and everybody gets to come home for beer.
CD's and task advisers need to use this option more.
UH

Yes, Hank that works well and it should be used more, except on a
thermal/ridge day with limited number of turn points in the task. The
18 m gliders in the Sports Class fly the task and after that go on the
ridge for bonus turn points to get their speed up. The club class
pilot is lucky if he can make most of the turn points, but since he is
not able to fly them all he can not go for the bonus points to get his
points up. This situation can be a real problem.

On Sep 27, 7:53*am, Andrzej Kobus wrote:
On Sep 27, 9:26*am, wrote:





On Sep 25, 9:02*pm, RRK wrote:

1. * * Handicaps don't *ever work over the range of performance
* * * * that we allow in the Sports Class.
2. * * Sport class will never allow for AST's, most common task flown
Internationally.

rk

RE 2
You are not entirely correct in your statement. The MAT can be set
with enough fixed turnpoints to keep the high performance gliders or
the same course until Mintime runes out, while allowing the slower
gliders to drop off and come home when they time out. This does
exactly what is needed with a spread of glider performance. Everybody
flies the same air and everybody gets to come home for beer.
CD's and task advisers need to use this option more.
UH

Yes, Hank that works well and it should be used more, except on a
thermal/ridge day with limited number of turn points in the task. The
18 m gliders in the Sports Class fly the task and after that go on the
ridge for bonus turn points to get their speed up. The club class
pilot is lucky if he can make most of the turn points, but since he is
not able to fly them all he can not go for the bonus points to get his
points up. This situation can be a real problem.

On a ridge day I'd think it would be incumbent on the CD to call TPs
along the ridge so everyone get the option during the main task.

9B

and it too has been a bust for NASCAR....
ever since NASCAR started re-inventing late model race cars, started
allowing FWD cars to suddenly become RWD and allowing big V8's in Toyota's
that never existed in the real world NASCAR with all it's mathematical
handicapping has been in a tailspin....
tim

"Jim Beckman" wrote in message
...
At 16:56 26 September 2010, Tim Mara wrote:

..we never designed a racing class for Station wagon's in NASCAR
either

But NASCAR *did* design a racing class for pickup trucks. Always seemed
pretty strange to me, though.

Jim Beckman



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On Sep 27, 10:42*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
and it too has been a bust for NASCAR....
ever since NASCAR started re-inventing late model race cars, started
allowing FWD cars to suddenly become RWD and allowing big V8's in Toyota's
that never existed in the real world NASCAR with all it's mathematical
handicapping has been in a tailspin....
tim

"There is nothing stock about a stock car"

"Tony" wrote in message
...
On Sep 27, 10:42 am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
and it too has been a bust for NASCAR....
ever since NASCAR started re-inventing late model race cars, started
allowing FWD cars to suddenly become RWD and allowing big V8's in Toyota's
that never existed in the real world NASCAR with all it's mathematical
handicapping has been in a tailspin....
tim

"There is nothing stock about a stock car"


Proves the old racing adage--
"You can't make a racehorse out of a pig, but with enough time, effort, and
money, you can make a very fast pig".

Hartley Falbaum