On Saturday, October 8, 2016 at 1:15:05 PM UTC-4, Michael Opitz wrote:
There is huge tasking variety available under both rule sets and to
the ext=
ent that anyone wants to *task* more like a European contest, that
is alrea=
dy fairly achievable under US rules (scoring philosophy is different,
but t=
he same winners will win with high probability).

My view: AT's suck. You can have it one way, or the other (at the
regional=
level): you can task something honestly challenging for the winners
and la=
nd out 1/3 of the fleet (or more with one good t-storm), or you can
assign =
something that gets almost everyone around and live with the fact
that ther=
e's going to be about 15 points separating the top three places.

Evan,

I was asked to run for a slot on the USA rules committee (and lost)
back in the 1990's. I favored going to the FAI scoring format, but
ran up against a lot of resistance from the "middle of the pack"
pilots that wanted to be those 15 points from the leader. The last I
knew, the FAI scoring was not linear, and the daily winner was
normally separated from the pack pretty quickly by the equation.

The problem was that in the USA, one needs those "middle of the
pack" pilots to show up in order to make a one class contest
financially viable. Otherwise, without those guys, you would have
only the maybe 5-10 really competitive pilots show up. (unless the
contest is at a place with tremendous conditions like Minden or
Nephi)

Maybe those "middle of the pack" pilots wanted to hold out the hope
that the leader could fall in a hole (mess up somehow), and they
could then have a chance to win the contest. The further that they
are separated from the lead on a daily basis (FAI scoring rules),
makes this hope sort of fade away. I don't know, but there was a
lot of resistance to this non-linear scoring on good days. Anyway,
they voted to keep what we had...

Another problem is that the SSA membership in the USA has been
in decline, and we have gone from 3 racing classes (STD, 15m &
Open) to 6 racing classes with the inclusion of 18m, Sports & Club
classes. Now they want to add a 20m two seat class? It is
inevitable that contests will have to have multiple classes in order to
make financial sense for the organizers.

To your point of driving 13 hours, I say stop and think a little. For
the pilots wanting a team slot, it means P7 leaving great conditions
out west, and driving 4 DAYS EACH WAY to fly at Elmira in
conditions that are nowhere near as good as if he had stayed at
home. 13 hours of driving is nothing at all if one is serious about
wanting a team slot in the USA. Think 6-8 days on the road for a
nationals in 2 out of 3 years. For the 3rd year where the contest is
somewhat close, then think 6-21 hours to drive, and then that's a
relief.

RO

Hi Mike,

About to leave for Mt Wash wave camp, will have very limited internet next few days, don't have time to respond to all your good points.

I've tried (3x) national comps, one of which required 70 hours of driving (Hobbs, from NH). I feel the pain, but mostly what I feel is that the resources required are so daunting that only the very independent and well heeled can afford to play in a serious way. It's way beyond my "ability to pay", and not just in dollar terms!

Anyhow, I think an apples/apples comparison of US Nats scored our way and scored per FAI rules will not show a change in top tier rank order, which is really what counts. The non-linearity that puts the leader way ahead works just as well the other way when he steps in a hole. Or at least that's what I recall when I kicked this around last time with others (a few years ago).

I do know one thing about FAI rules contests that I absolutely detest: it's SeeYou's presentation of scores. To get results from three classes at one contest (daily + overall) takes *SIX* web pages and me keeping notes, vs one page for any US contest. They could learn a few tricks from us, too.

Best,
Evan Ludeman / T8