(Chris OCallaghan) wrote in message . com...
I have to admit, I'm looking for an edge.

A variety of tasking options for "fun" contests, especially those that
recognize and compensate for a wide variety of gliders and pilot
skills, is a good thing. I enjoy participating in these. The object
isn't so much to win the day, but to share the experience with your
friends. It's more like a rally than a race.

That's not a criticism, simply an observation that they are different.
The rally should focus on the fun, the race should focus on the
challenge. If fun and challenge seep into the other, all the better,
but each should be true to its intent.

At MASA, long before the MAT, we used the COMPOST. We would set a
small, close in task, tailored to the LCD among gliders and pilots,
then append a pilot option task with minimum time at the end. This
allowed low time or low performance gliders to compete with the gaggle
(and learn from other competitors), then offered the option of coming
home for beer or snatching up more turnpoints.

Out here in Arizona we have for a while been using a "follow the
leaders" fun task on "non-contest" days: We decide on the first
turnpoint while thermalling up off tow (as this gives us a chance to
see what the day is like), then the first glider to the turnpoint
calls the next, until the group decides it is time to call a finish.
Recently we came up with a variation on this that we call a GST (Group
Selected Task): In a GST, the last glider to take off calls the first
turnpoint and start time, then the first glider to the turnpoint picks
the glider who has to call the next turnpoint. This proceeds until
all pilots have picked a turnpoint before the same pilot can pick a
turnpoint again (so that everybody is involved. The trick for the
lower performance gliders is that if you are chosen to pick the next
turnpoint, you don't have to go to the previous one, just to the one
you decide on - this allows some interesting tactics to reel the group
back in and keep everybody involved. Since it is a "fun" task, no
formal scoring is done, but in practice it becomes a horserace to each
turnpoint to get to "tag" the next pilot, and it is obvious in real
time how everyone is doing compared to each other.

We are planning on having a GST this weekend, before our Octoberfest,
weather permitting (meaning hoping it cools off a bit!).

Kirk
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