I would personally prefer to have a minimum 50 foot flying line finish
at the airport with the possibility of a rolling finish as a safe
alternative. It is the pilots responsibility to conduct a safe finish.
If there is a real safety concern the pilot should be penalized
accordingly by the CD.

If the 1 mile circle is my only option the simple guy in me wants to say
that it should be a hard deck, if you can't cross the finish line above
MFH you didn't complete the task, 0 speed points. Having said that, I
see the other side of the coin, and am easily swayed towards a linear
reduction in points all the way to the ground. I do not like the
graduated penalty of some arbitrary number that will be shifted every year.

As a completely out side of the box proposition we could always use the
1000m IGC height loss rule. Keeps people lower in the start cylinder,
keeps people higher in the finish, as an added bonus it gets us back in
line with the record/badge world so there is a possibility of setting a
record in a contest.

The requirement to land at the airport is a personal favourite of mine,
I hope you are not edging me on . In my opinion the rule as written
right now promotes unsafe behaviour. The pilot completes the task,
chooses the safer option to land out (who lands out when they don't have
to?), but we take away all the speed points? Makes no sense to me.

Thanks for keeping an open mind.
Luke Szczepaniak







On 01/24/2014 5:32 PM, wrote:
On Friday, January 24, 2014 12:20:32 PM UTC-8, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:

Risk management is a big part of soaring, most racing pilots aren't dare
devils, they manage the risk according to any number of factors.

You are diluting the sport to statistics and probability. Being an
excellent pilot and a smart man you realize that, mathematically
speaking, one of the few ways for the other guy to beat you is by taking
a bigger risk.

Luke Szczepaniak

Hi Luke.

Your comment(s) made me very curious. I'd like to understand the full range of views in the community.

Two questions for you:

Is your preferred configuration no penalty structure for finishing low? Having a minimum finish height is almost entirely a safety-motivated rule.

Second, would you prefer to remove the requirement that finisher land at the home airport in order to earn speed points? This would be the next safety-motivated rule in the finish sequence.

I'm trying to figure out if you prefer not to have safety-oriented rules as a matter of principle or a matter of degree.

Thanks,

9B