In article ,
"Eric Bick (1DB)" wrote:

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Wow. This whole thread is fascinating - I'm looking at flying my first
competitions this season, and finding I'm in way over my head. My comments
are a bit off the main thread, but relevant to me and perhaps others that
aren't competition pros.

The idea of thermaling at 500' AGL or lower is beyond my comprehension at
this point in my soaring career, and entering a landing pattern at 500' -
700' from a mile out contrary to all my student piloting lessons (even though
I can calculate that it is readily doable in my glider).

The rules themselves seem straightforward, even though I have little idea of
how they play out in a contest. And the start and finish cylinder concepts
seem straightforward. All I'm really interested in for my first tries is
finishing each day, flying safely, not doing anything stupid, leaving plenty
of margin, scoring some points, and having a challenge and fun (i.e. wanting
to do it again).

I expect as time goes on, flying more contests will lead to my learning and
appreciating the strategies and tactics discussed in a lot of this thread -
but my main concerns are whether the current rules are in fact safe for a
neophyte to contests and a relatively low-timer. From the discussions, I'm
not getting a clear sense of whether they are or not (specifically as related
to the finish).

I understand we are all subject to sometimes making dumb decisions, or the
weather making our plans (and margins) vanish - but the rules should
basically enable safe flying in contests, even accounting to some degree the
wide variance in risk different pilots are willing to take under varying
circumstances. Reassure me that the rules do enable basically safe flying in
contests. I have to assume they do since the fatality rate doesn't seem to be
something that draws headline attention.

Eric Bick

Hi Eric,

You are gonna love contest flying. I look at a contest as a way to go
spend a week flying cross country with a few dozen of my best friends, a
bunch of people around just to make sure I have great time with tow
availability guaranteed on a predictable schedule, weather forecasting
and tasking done for me, food and drink arranged if I want it, evening
socializing, retrieve crew spring-loaded. Sometimes the weather even
cooperates for a truly great day. What could be better?

As far as taking risks: How much are you willing to risk to win a little
bronze coin and your matchbook sized portrait in the December issue of
SOARING? Not much? Same here. Rules or not, fly to have fun and live to
fly again.

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