On Friday, January 24, 2014 7:53:34 PM UTC-6, wrote:

For those airports with one runway and you can't land a bunch of gliders line-abreast, I've been thinking about the new GP start (BTW - thanks to BB for coming up with an elegant and flexible approach to make that happen). Judging from observations of GP contests it seems like you might end up with most of a class finishing in a narrow time window (start as a gaggle, fly the task as a gaggle, finish as a gaggle). What do you think is a reasonable amount of altitude buffer to allow, say 12 gliders to land within a few minutes on a single runway? Do we need to abide by the "one airplane on the runway at a time" rule or do people land in formation like the Thunderbirds (notice I didn't say Blue Angels)?

Well, if the runway is wide enough, and everyone stays heads-up, you should be able to put a bunch down as long as everyone lands long. Alternate sides and roll out as far as you can. If I know it's going to be crowded and (via flarm or 4 mile calls) i'm in the middle of the pack, I'm going to look for a pretty high finish! If I'm in front then I'm going to speed up and fly a short fast pattern and land real long. But we should be able to land with about 200' spacing (tow-rope length) as long as everyone goes long and easy on the brakes, and keeps to their side of the runway. First guy holds 60 knots until in the flare and everybody follows at the same speed.

Kirk