On Jan 24, 1:04*pm, "Karl Striedieck" wrote:

It is easy to fire off a post about putting "fun" back in competition or
making the rules simpler. But without a suggestion about how to achieve
these goals the writer is engaged in idle, cabin fever chatter. This will
evaporate in April.

For those pilots who think the rules are too complicated (and have read
them, which probably eliminates the majority) what specific rule would you
suggest eliminating/simplifying?

Another aspect of rules writing that can make them seem complicated and be a
turn off to the rulees is the amount of verbiage used. The SSA contest rules
could probably be dehydrated down to half the current content, but the cost
would be an increase in interpretation required in the field. On the other
hand, there are rules that could use even more specificity. In the end it is
guess at what seems practical.

One item that has been incorporated into nationals this year (regionals last
year) is the "start anywhere" rule change favored by a majority on the pilot
poll. In an effort to simplify it "anywhere" has been defined as the front
half of the cylinder. Still, this adds a new (and interesting) dimension to
the task which some may find unwelcome.


Karl Striedieck

Karl,

We can debate whether it's the rules themselves, the verbiage used, or
something else, but we have to admit that certain aspects of the rules
are more-or-less inscrutable to someone who has not actually flown in
a contest. In fact, I'd bet that there are a handfull of rules that
fall into this category even for veterans. Just on example:


11.6.3.2 ‡ For finishers whose TOC is less than MINTIME:
STOC = MINTIME - (MINTIME - TOC) * UTFACTOR
For a Turn-area task:
UTFACTOR = 0.1 + 6 * ((DIST / MAXTATDIST) - 0.85) (but not less than
0.1, nor greater than
1.0) otherwise, UTFACTOR = 0.1

Several of the scoring formulas, if left to stand on their own, are
almost impossible to understand without real examples in front of
you. As a sometime scorer, I understand them, but ask even the
slightly above average racing pilot...the vision of a dog looking at
thunder leaps to mind.

Other examples that impact strategy include:

- From the existing start cylinder rule, the interpretation of what
happens if you start out the top but nick the cylinder again on the
way out on course. How many pilots know how to check their score to
see if they have been penalized incorrectly. I haven't yet got my
hands around the new rule.
- The strategy around finishes when comparing the possibility of
performing a rolling finish vs. trying to climb up to bottom of the
finish cylinder.
- Safety finishes.

Now, in some cases, the appendix to the rules helps (to a greater or
lesser extent). BUT, even here, there's room for improvement; many
of the explanations assume that the reader already has the basic
context, when in fact that's often exactly what's missing (I think the
academics call this cognitive dissonance).

One obvious problem is the fact that the SRA Guide to Competition is 5
years or more old and thus completely outdated. Fixing this would be
one huge step; I'd volunteer to add content except that I'm not sure
I exactly understand some of the rules :-) Seriously though, the
primary updates that impact the "fun factor" revolve around start
strategy and finish strategy with maybe one or two other minor points,
so this isn't as daunting as it sounds.

Another potential step would be to require that the Appendix itself be
a part of the rules change process (such that the wording of the
Appendix is part of the rule). We can/should require a "plain
English" interpretation of any rule that impacts scoring/strategy.
Certainly, the impact of any action that a pilot can control needs to
be pointed out.

Finally, the frequency of rules changes really is an issue. It's not
just the burden on pilots to read the rules (it's a toss-up between
doing that and getting started on my taxes). No, the real issue is
that we are layering more and more complexity on both the scoring
software and the in-flight navigation software upon which we have
become 100% reliant. Anyone who has scored a contest lately or who
has looked under the covers of Winscore will tell you that it is
amazing that we actually get accurate scores out at all (which is, in
fact, not always the case). Not because Guy hasn't done yeoman work
(he has), but because there are so many IF/THEN/ELSE clauses that
have to be updated every time something changes. IMO, we could
easily move to alternate year rules updates with the proviso to allow
an "emergency modification for safety" under tightly controlled
situations (e.g. the rule created a glaring safety issue which was
demonstrated in the prior season).

So, to summarize, three things we could do to make the rules less
opaque:

1. Change them less frequently.
2. Require the appendix to provide plain English interpretations of
all formulas.
3. Update the SRA Guide to the Rules.

Respectfully,
P3