On Thursday, 28 January 2016 19:15:10 UTC+2, Jim White wrote:

This is where we started but the present system is somewhat more refined.
In the UK we use windicapping which skews towards low handicap gliders as
the wind strength increases.

We also realised that the shortest way around the task is not to go
directly towards the centre of the barrel, nor to the point where the
bisector intersects the barrel circumference.

So we measure the shortest (handicapped or windicapped)path around task for
each barrel size step and compare to the reference task length * handicap
(/handicap in US). This iterative process arrives at the barrel size that
best fits the desired task length for each handicap flying.

Our software will cope with start lines of any length, variable barrels,
acute and oblique turns, checkpoints, angled finish lines and finish
rings.

It then prints a handy briefing document for the pilots.

If you put a task into the calculator then export it into SeeYou you will
see what I mean.

Jim

Interesting. I remember flying GP task with my simple cylinder formula with several other gliders participating. During a short (GP tasks are short usually) task I remember seeing my turnpoint radius of few kilometers while best gliders went for 0,5 km cylinder (for 3% handicap difference you will see extra radius of 3% of the leg length, which is not much). Difference was quite small, nothing that would change the game tactics. You basically got a chance to catch up the better gliders at every turnpoint. I still maintain that this is best used with GP tasks: regatta starts and simple scoring. Otherwise AAT does much of the same.