Absurdity of US Rules (in fairness to FAI)

On Thursday, August 15, 2013 7:38:10 AM UTC-4, flgliderpilot wrote:
I don't fly contests (yet) but, couldn't pilots just be required to leave the start cylinder below a max altitude AND airspeed? The would eliminate the need for a 2 minute delay to prevent zooming would it not?

The pilot must leave the cylinder below max height and have at least one fix in the cylinder after the task is open. In order to prevent diving starts of any kind, the requirement is to be below the top for 2 minutes. This eliminates any incentive to try to carry excess energy into the cylinder. During the development of the rule, the RC looked at how long useful energy was retained and found it to be somewhat over a minute. 2 minutes was selected as not being onerous. Speed is also limited, even though this is very hard to enforce due to wind amnd logs not recording airspeed. That has not proven to be a problem.
With a 5 mile cylinder radius, and usually a couple of decent choices for start location, my experience is that the traffic issue is within the control of the pilot and is over stated.
Pilots gather in a clot because they choose to, not because they have to. Commonly the best strategy is to try to find your own best place to start.
UH