At 10:32 02 February 2018, wrote:
This has been an interesting and pretty civil discussion involving
primaril=
y two polar opposites, personal freedoms and restrictive
structures.
Thanks=
to everyone who has posted here without flares that normally
result when
d=
ealing with such a flammable topic lol.

One aspect I would like to introduce to the discussion is one of the
elemen=
tal nature of racing or record setting. Racing/record setting are by
nature=
games of managing risk for maximum achievement. The very fact
that there
a=
re those who want to attempt to "manage" the risk of others flies
in the
fa=
ce of the very nature of the sport. Are some
"guidlines/disincentives"
need=
ed? Yes, but I feel we are trending into the realm of trying to
micromanage=
the sport.

Second, historically, races are not only won by those flying the
perfect
fl=
ight, with decisions made that minimized risk and maximized
speed, but
ALSO=
days are won by those same pilots who chose or had to take a
major
calcula=
ted risk to win the day. Those who are trying to eliminate that side
of
the=
contest also eliminate a whole grouping of pilots who have
developed the
s=
kill set for that method of fast flying. This new rule schema/trend
that
is=
developing, in essence, penalizes guys like moffat, reichman scott
and
str=
eideck who knew how to fly very aggressively. Karl has commented
on this
th=
read saying basically the same thing. Do all of you "new
generation"
fliers=
who want a more regulated form of racing think his opinion is
unqualified
=
or out of touch with what sailplane racing is all about? I think
many of
yo=
u actually do and think that form of flying has no place in todays
game.

I think much of this argument has been caused by the
charactoristics of
mod=
ern sailplanes themselves. Low saves, landing out, higher risk
decisions
we=
re normative for racing in the older generation of competition. If
you
coul=
dn't fly that way, at times, then you could not be competative.
Today,
perf=
ormance is such that the game is more a game of micro decisions,
not macro
=
ones. When guys today are forced into macro decisions like a low
save or
ev=
en a land out for that matter, they are ill equiped to handle them.
That's
=
the true problem underlying a majority of the racing accidents
today.
Expan=
ded rules implimentation does'nt really address the that
fundamental
proble=
m but it definitely does redefine the nature of the race.

I think that's a pretty good summary of the issue. You can add
Ray Gimmey to the above list. He won the 1988 STD Nats in
Minden (actually, Klaus Holighaus won, but he was a guest) due
to a very low save on a difficult day. Ray told me that he had
already rolled out on final to land on a dirt road when he hit an
8 Kt thermal and wrapped into it to get home. Ray told me that
he was down around ~100' IIRC.

Yes, Evan, there were no recorders back then, so it is a story, but
I have known Ray to be a pretty "straight shooter" so I have no
reason to doubt his version of this. He told me right after we
landed at Minden.

Here is another story. My father told me how they did it in German
glider contests before WWII. If they got low, they picked a good
plowed field to land in which might also be a thermal generator.
Then, they would dive down and make a high speed low pass over
the field in order to try and break loose/trigger a building thermal
bubble. After the low pass, they would pull up (similar to one of
our high speed flying finishes) and make a circle or two. If the
maneuver was successful, the bubble would have been broken
loose and they would climb away. If not successful, they would
land, as they had already given the field a "close" inspection. I
have not yet tried this method myself, and I don't know if I ever
will, but it is/was a skill set that pilots have used in the past, so
it is probably relevant to this discussion because if one dives
down from above 300', one would violate the proposed "hard
deck" even if one were to zoom back up above it....

RO