On Friday, October 21, 2016 at 10:48:30 AM UTC-5, Papa3 wrote:
The approach was a "rank each reason" in priority order from 1 - 9. 1 is most important. 9 is least. This type of question then gets a scoring based on how many times it ranks first, second, etc. Pollsters will tell you that the top 3-4 matter; after that the ranking is less important as people really don't know how to differentiate between lower priorities.

Making a long story short, Expense was right in the middle. Definitely not top 3 but not negligible. Clearly there are folks who want to participate with the absolute minimum of expense and others who show up with quarter million motor homes.

Since it might be hard to read understand the spreadsheet, I'll just list the inhibitors in ranking order:

1. Time (by a wide margin)
2. Something else
3. Skill (comfort in a contest/XC setting)
4. Safety/risk
5. Rainouts (which I basically equate to time as well)
6. Expense
7. Rules complexity
8. Glider (not competitive)
9. Avionics (not competitive or current).

FWIW, the Something Else answer was probably not a good test design. If you read the text, they basically fall within the above (competing priorities, job demands, family not willing to come to comps, etc.). There are a few people who just categorically don't want to ruin gliding with competition. There are also age and health issues. Some folks are linchpins of their club as a CFI and don't feel able to get away. etc.

But again, for the purposes of this discussion, it's clear that Rules don't keep people out. They may end up frustrating some people, but the survey would have captured that since people who got out of racing would have showed up. That's not to say rules don't lead some people to move on. But with scarce resources, it's my sense that more focus on recruitment and innovative contest structures would be way more beneficial.

P3






On Friday, October 21, 2016 at 10:59:50 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Friday, October 21, 2016 at 6:56:52 AM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:
On Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 6:03:31 PM UTC-4, Papa3 wrote:
This is going to end up being a long post. But, I've thought about this stuff - a lot. The problem with these RAS debates is that a small number of people who have really strong opinions tend to create a lot of noise that gets in the way of real analysis.

Since very few people will read this whole post, I'm going to put the punch line first. Based on actual data collected from a reasonably large sample of potential racing pilots, it's pretty clear that the rules have nothing to do with keeping people out. Time is number one. Skill building is number two. Rules was way down on the list - in the bottom third.

Thanks Erik.

Same story in Region 1.

-Evan

P3 & T8:

In your research, where did "cost" fall in the spectrum of "other reasons"? It sounds like focusing on time issues and making the camp/competition experience a good one is of more value than trying to run an event on absolute minimum $$?

J9

Erik, thanks for de-bunking Sean's and Wilbur's arguments so decisively. When John Cochrane came back from the World's in Hungary a couple of years back he did comment to us about not being familiar enough with all the rules but he also complained bitterly about parts of them that let competitors land short of the finish to get a higher score and the high spread of scores on low completion days. I feel for the few pilots that make it to international contests but let's not throw out what has evolved here in N.
America over many decades just because Sean (and Wilbur) say so.
Herb, J7