On Dec 15, 8:23*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
On Dec 14, 4:24*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:

With almost perfect timing to answer some of the problems raised by
the USA Competition Rules Committee, Tucson Soaring Club is pleased to
make a preliminary announcement of a Cross-Country Soaring Camp. *

I can't resist the bait. What "problems" exactly? Almost all of the
goals here are easy to accomplish in a "real" contest. Fees are
completely up to the organizer. If you want to charge less, be our
guest. If you want to let pilots go anywhere they want and score by
distance, call an unrestricted MAT with 8 hours. Or call 4 30 mile
turn areas, which is almost the same as OLC. All the rest can be
accomplished by waiver.

Cross country camps are fine. But I hate to see this framed as a
"answer" to unnamed "problems" with contest rules. The rules are
written to make contests fair, safe, affordable, and above all
attractive. If something else improves on the "attractive" part, tell
the RC how to fix it rather than give up and start something new.

John Cochrane

This sounds like a neat Idea, but I think there's nothing wrong with
calling an acual contest task. A good example of a XC camp/starter
contest is the Memorial day contest put on by the Chicago Clider
Council. The contest is set up as a weekend sports class contest, and
acual tasks are set each day. The nice thing bout the way this contest
is run is that two tasks ar called each day. One short "beginner"
task, and a long tak for the more advanced participants. Both
categories are scored on winscore as in a real contest.

I had a blast flying it for the first time last year in my Ka-6, and
learned a ton. It actually got me thinking of maybe flying a contest
in the future, but the lack of anything in Region 7 (besides the
memotial day contest) is keeping me from probably flying in a real
sports class conest this year.

Peter