Thanks Hank, a good summation of what led me to make the original post.

I also agree with John Cochrane's post basically saying there is reasoning to having the new system. Those reasons are listed in the document describing it.

http://www.ssa.org/files/member/Upda...20v1.2.3. pdf

Read the whole document. Below is the just the preamble.

"US Team Committee discussions concerning the current US Team pilot selection process have raised a number of issues, including the following:

• An uncharacteristically bad National contest result (e.g. due to illness) may cause a highly qualified pilot to miss the US Team.

• Pilot skills and how they match conditions expected at WGC contest sites should be considered (e.g. a pilot with predominately flatland skills should not necessarily be selected for a contest that will emphasize mountain flying).

• Pilot personality and the way it fits with the full team can be an important factor.

For a pilot who has competed in past FAI Category 1 contests, performance in those events should be considered.

- Because success at Category 1 contests typically requires some experience in competition at that level, a pilot’s age and likely commitment to future US Team participation should be considered.

- The proliferation of IGC classes raises the possibility that a pilot who has achieved excellent results in one class might be a strong US Team member in another.

The fundamental point is that the goal of every US Team should be to obtain the best results possible at any World Gliding Championships (WGC), and the current team (old) selection process does not appear to be consistently achieving that goal. Accordingly, the US Team Committee is proposing significant changes to the process by which US Team pilots are selected."


For those of you who have been following the bitterness and now belligerence on 7T's website along with this thread, I must restate that I think this whole push to fly SP's or exclusively AT's at our contests is about following the herd around the course. This favors some people's skill set, real racing as it is termed, but I have my doubts it best determines who is the best glider pilot. Admittedly though, it is good prep for the WGC.

I can adapt to the new age of FLARM markers where you can see the location of all the contestants pre-start and the longitudinal axis of the glider and the course line are coincident. In fact, preceding this year's 15m nat'l (3 AT's) we had a US Team camp where we talked about the best way to compete doing it. (Thanks to those volunteers who hosted us). AT's are fun to some extent but let's continue to have some balance in tasking, please. (I need to change my FLARM tag to zzz.)

I still welcome the chance to spread out the field in a TAT or a MAT and there are still TAT's called at the WGC's. There will be more in the future.

And for God' sake let's go flying at our Nationals when the cloud bases are lowish or conditions are less than ideal. This way we can have meaningful results at our Nationals that translate to WGC.

Serious stuff...For laughs I have included this snapshot of Day 1 at the 2014 15m National at Montegue, a place where I had never flown before. A most beautiful flight (not top scoring by any means). A most enjoyable contest! Thanks to those volunteers who put it on! I'll remember it always.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=10W...ZVw3dha60JySPN


XC