On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 10:31:51 PM UTC-4, John Cochrane wrote:

Personally I find the greater situational awareness of what others are doing makes the contest more enjoyable. The big complaint, especially when we moved from AST to time limited tasks is that nobody knew what anyone else was doing, you went and flew and waited for an 8 pm scoresheet. Well, now you know a lot more about what others are doing.

But that's my view. All I've heard is grumbling about how terrible it is that the sport is changing. That's not a problem. I've heard hypotheticals about new instruments someone might make someday. That's not a problem today. Just what is the real problem we're trying to fix here?

John Cochrane BB

I don't think anyone is claiming that it's "terrible that the sport is changing". GPS recording and the tasks it enables, better instruments, safer gliders, etc. are all huge steps forward. However, these changes do at some point impact the cost of competing, the skills required of pilots, and the characteristics of competition flights.

Once enough competitors decide that better tactical information from Flarm is vitally important, it's the displays of this information which will become the next frontier. Many of the half-hearted attempts at convincing us that Flarm isn't all that important in this thread (climb rates aren't reliable, it's not that important to know where everyone is prior to the start) are not at all convincing. Maybe they're based on current displays (which were built for collision avoidance)? Maybe they're just based on small samples? All I can say is that there is a big difference between a competition in Stealth Mode v.s. one in "Regular" mode. For me, the Stealth Mode contest wins hands-down. It'll be interesting to see what others say when this comes up in the Pilot Opinion Poll.

Parting shot. As a some-time sailor (Lightning Class), I love the fact that many one-design classes have drawn a line in the sand to say "this is where technology stops and human skill and strength prevail". While the march of technology is inevitable, the decision on how to use it should be conscious rather than unconscious.

P3