On Jul 31, 1:06 pm, Andy Blackburn
wrote:
At 13:54 30 July 2007, Kirk.Stant wrote:





I think if you have a 'zero penalty' band pilots will
tend to use it. I can't figure the difference between
and 700' finish with a 200' band and a 500' finish.

Andy,

My point is that the current system encourages you
(the racing pilot)
to shave the 500' limit as close as you can, but at
the risk of losing
a lot if you miscalculate - or opt for a low altitude
dash to a rushed
landing to minimize your losses. Plus it encourages
expensive gadgets/
software (as I now realize that my SN10 will show the
info I need, for
example - priced one lately?) and clock watching at
the finish.

Providing an 'altitude-neutral' band to finish in should
remove the
incentive to aim for the bottom, since there would
no longer be a
benefit to be gained, while the risk of losing a lot
would be a strong
incentive to aim for the top of the finish band. The
band should be
big enough to hit easily with a properly set regular
altimeter (I
think 200' would work) without being so big the adjustment
for
altitude becomes 'gameable'.

Heck, how about adding one second for every 2 feet
below the top -
that works out to a 1.2 knot final climb - which wouldn't
hurt you
much if you were 20 ft low, but would still encourage
not finishing
199 ft low (who wants to give away time, after all).

The addition of 'no racing after the finish' (i.e.
if below the
bottom, the 'hard deck' in fighter speak, you get your
finish and
penalty right there and can forget about a straight
in finish and
concentrate on making a safe low altitude landing)
would additionally
discourage high risk finishes.

I know, I know, enough whining, this is pretty much
beat to death -
time to start bashing 2-33s again...

Cheers,

Kirk

I must be missing the point Kirk - if there is no penalty
for finishing at the bottom of the 'neutral band' then
I'd be inclined to shoot for the bottom of it to save
time. With the 30 seconds per 100' penalty band my
behavior changes - in that case I'd shoot for the top
of the penalty band but wouldn't worry too much about
a few feet of miscalculation or misjudgement. Are you
thinking of my 'penalty band' when you say 'neutral
band'? Maybe that's it.

9B- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I guess I'm not making myself very clear. I see the "neutral band" as
an area where there is no advantage anywhere in it - you get the time
it would take to climb to the top added if you finish below the top.
So you might as well climb the extra 200 ft and not risk a low finish,
but having done that, if you run into sink and finish 100' below the
top (but 100' above the bottom) you only get dinged by the time you
would have spent getting that 100 ft back. But if you push it and aim
for the bottom of the neutral band, you get time added (time it would
have taken to climb to the top), and if you miss low - then you get a
big hit (no finish or rolling finish). To me, that would encourage me
to plan my final glide to the top of the window, but not worry too
much if I'm 50 ft low when I finally cross the line. If I saw I was
getting too close to finishing at the bottom, then I could slow down
early enough or change my finish strategy.

I guess that the crucial calculation would be the climb rate used to
equalize the neutral band. A bad choice would obviously create a bias
towards finishing high or low. Better to bias towards finishing high?

And maybe 200' is too much - perhaps a 100 ft window?

I'm no mathematician, so my logic and assumptions may be false, but it
seems doable to have the rule create a "window" that we can aim for
(assuming we want to win, and are not going to climb way above the
optimum finish height).

A side note - which of the current glide computers/PDA programs figure
the final glide to the finish line, instead of to the finish point
(center of the finish circle)? I'm pretty sure my SN10 figures to the
center of the finish circle, not the actual line - Dave Nadler, if you
are reading this, could you chime in?

Kirk