I strongly, strongly disagree that TAT's are a "better" measure of glider racing pilot skill vs. simple, pure AT's. In fact, I could not disagree more. That said Noel, you do appear to have it almost entirely "your way" now (TAT lovers rejoice) as only 3% of US tasks in 2013 were pure, Assigned Tasks. That's right. 3 percent.

We should start a new thread to discuss "what glider contest tasks are measuring!" That would be a great one. Who decided that TAT's (or OLC for that matter) is a better measure of pilot skill? Is there a book or article that I can read? When was this decision made? Are you claiming that this is a point of fact?

I think "what glider contest tasks are measuring" is highly, HIGHLY debatable topic.

Again, whoever is controlling/influencing US tasking is clearly doing a great job for those who like TAT's and MAT's vs. pure, simple and clean ATs. In fact, only 3% of tasks in the US in 2013 were pure Assigned Tasks. Many (perhaps MOST!) of the MAT's where one turn. Several (in a the Sports Class Nationals at Mifflin) were actually ZERO TURN. I find this almost disgraceful and very sad. Think about the advantage local pilots have over guests, at Mifflin, in a zero turn MAT!

Perhaps I just have an odd perspective on things. I have only been racing gliders for a few years now. Personally, I see the TAT and MAT (especially a 1 or zero turn MAT) as a waste of a good flying day (97% of all US tasks) in many cases. A TAT/MAT is a waste of a chance to truly and objectively measure a sailplane pilots racing skill in a simple (no timer or fancy computer required), RACE!

In fact, very rarely (perhaps never) have I flown a TAT in which I could not have easily completed an AT. Why are CDs and pilots so afraid of calling ATs? The questionable conditions that "justify" calling a TAT are rarely so specific that a wide turn area would mean a successful task and a 1 mile assigned area would mean a land out. Furthermore it is extremely rare that the task committee is able to call a TAT accurately enough to avoid unflyable condition precisely enough to make a difference. This viewpoint that AT's result in more land outs has become a highly overused theme (97%) in my opinion. How would we know anymore? We call so few of them now.

Regardless, the US has lost pure Assigned Tasking almost entirely now (3%, and likely falling). It seems that the campaign to reduce AT's in favor of TATs and MAT's has been too successful. In my opinion, this has all come at far too high a price on US sailplane racing quality. As someone stated earlier in this thread, TAT's test a different skill that ATs. At 97%, TAT appears to be the only skill we really "test!"

I look forward to a continued debate on your statement that "glider pilots don't understand what the glider contest tasks are measuring..." I think you have opened the right can of worms in that statement. Can you please expand on your understanding of who, what, where, why and how "what glider contest tasks are measuring" originated and was validated?

Oh and Steve, I'll be Jane for sure! --- https://screen.yahoo.com/point-count...000000157.html

Sincerely,

Sean





On Tuesday, July 29, 2014 2:15:51 AM UTC-4, noel.wade wrote:
On Friday, July 25, 2014 7:11:33 AM UTC-7, Sean Fidler wrote:

Noel,







How about this for an idea? Let's write a point-counterpoint article together on AT/TAT. It would be fun article to write and better to read and hear the feedback on.



Sean - If you want to run a pro-AT article, I won't stop you. But I don't a point/counterpoint article because that implies either one of us is "wrong" or that one of the task types is "wrong". And neither is the point I'm trying to make.



I want to foster understanding - way too many glider pilots don't understand what the glider contest tasks are measuring; and that leads them to false conclusions on how they should fly tasks, what tasks are "bad", and what tasks they should call when they're running a contest.



--Noel