Casey,

Having read your posting through twice I am still struggling
to understand your question.

However, I do understand both the US rules and the
World rules for AST's (Annex A). The AST, in it's
current form, has departed considerably from the US
style of area/distance tasking.

In my opinion, the new AST format (as per Annex A)
is a considerable improvement upon the existing US
format. Put simply, you must fly through set areas
in a defined order and remain airborne for a minimum
time. Your score is a function of the distance you
flew over the time you were on task i.e. your average
speed. If you come home earlier than the minimum time
your speed is scored as if you had flown for the minimum
time. The person with the fasted speed wins. This
has effectively removed the possibility that an outlanding
pilot is being able to beat a pilot that makes it back
to the airfield. It has also made it much more simple
for pilots to understand the critical success factors,
i.e. just go as fast as you can and don't come home
too early.

With regard to your question as to whether these tasks
would be readily accepted by US pilots, the answer
is simple - glider pilot's don't like change. Despite
the apparent increased propensity of the gliding movement
to experiment with different task types, I have noticed
a great reluctance amongst individual pilots to change
any aspect of competition gliding.

Whilst AST's are an improvement upon their predecessors,
these tasks are still hopeless. Most pilot's I spoke
to at the WGC were strongly in favour of a return to
setting racing tasks only. My reasons are as follows:

1. AST's introduce too much luck. A scan of the results
in Poland will confirm this. On racing days the top
pilots results are far more consistent. One day John
Coutts came home feeling that he had either won, or
come in the top few places only to find he had finished
28th for the day at over 10kph behind the day winner.
Anyone who flies gliding competitions will know this
would (almost) never happen to an experienced pilot
during a racing task. This happened to a number of
pilots I spoke with.

2. AST's are very hard to set. Brian Spreckley seems
to be the only man alive who is capable of setting
good AST tasks. In both Poland and Hungary the task
setter clearly did not understand how to set AST's.
Setting AST's seems to require an intimate understand
of all the dynamics involved - very few people have
this understanding. For example, in Poland a task
was set that required pilots for make a decision as
to when to run for home approx 220km from the airfield.
As it was impossible to estimate the return speed
accurately, this lead to mistakes by a number of top
pilots.

3. There is much confusion about the purpose of AST's.
Some people think they are designed to allow tasks
to be set in bad/inconsistent weather. Others think
they should only be set in homogenous conditions.
Some think the primary purpose of the AST is to stop
gaggling (which in my opinion they don't). Others
think they are simply there to give variety. All this
adds to the confusion for the task setter.

At the end of the day, if you want to find out who
the best pilot is... set a racing task.

Regards,

Ben.



At 22:24 31 August 2003, Kilo Charlie wrote:
Some interesting comparisons were recently pointed
out to me from a British
friend between the European and US tasking. It seems
that more emphasis is
placed upon distance in Europe to the point that we
in the US would view it
as impossible task calls. One only has to look at
the World contest
recently in Poland or any of the other ones over the
past few years that
took place in Europe to see this is the case. I don't
think that this is
anything new but would like to get opinions re how
this task type would be
accepted here in the US..



Distance Task:



MAT type of task where any TP within the task area
may be used with no limit
on the total number of TPs. There must be a minimum
distance of X between
each TP, to be determined by the CD based upon conditions
and the task area.
There must be an intervening TP. A substantial airport
bonus will be given
and a modest bonus given for finishing at the home
airfield i.e. so as not
to discourage utilizing paths of lift that might not
end at the home field.
No time limitation. Other than those bonuses already
mentioned it would be
scored strictly upon total distance flown.



So as to avoid someone saying 'but the 15 minute rule
already encourages
longer flights!', it is my opinion that the '15 minute
rule' has resulted in
not scoring what we state is the purpose of the task
(speed over a course)
although it does encourage slightly longer flights
by giving added points to
those that fly longer and farther. If you wish to
continue with this rule
then lobby the Competition Committee to change the
stated goal of the task
which is simply 'speed over a course'. There is nothing
wrong with our
current tasks (but I would drop the 15 minute rule)
with scoring based upon
speed but there should be some options for other type
of tasks.



I anticipate that some will object to this type of
distance task due to long
days with crews picking them up at an airport 2-3 hours
away after dark.
Although I agree that it would be difficult to show
up without a crew if
this were instituted, practically I would think that
the pilot could radio
for their crew to head to some general area if they
felt that they would be
landing there thus saving time for both and getting
back home at an earlier
hour. It is also my opinion that we have made crews
obsolete with the way
we do things now and that maybe this type of tasking
would make it a bit
more fun for them but hopefully not quite as grueling
as the straight out
tasks of years ago.



I also will anticipate that some will claim that this
is little more than a
'mega-PST'. I'm not sure that I could argue much with
that but it seems
without a time limitation it throws a pretty different
light upon strategy
wrt starting during weak lift and ending during the
same and maybe away from
the home field.



Finally, although I anticipate the usual flames from
those that feel we
worry too much about racing, this task might make the
US team a bit more
competitive at the world meets. So what do you all
think about this?



Casey Lenox

KC

Phoenix