MAT's are dangerous

Let's go back in time to August 4th 2010. The sport of soaring lost a well respected man named Chris O'Callaghan. It was the 4th fatal sailplane accident in 4 weeks. This was a wake up call to many pilots operating without Flarm or Parachutes. Chris was flying on the return leg of a task when he collided head on with another sailplane traveling opposite direction to the final turnpoint.

What can we learn from history to avoid repeating it?

Can the tasks be a contributing factor to set up pilots for a collision?

Let's look at the task for August 4th 2010 in Uvalde.
1. Start North
2. Callaghan
3. UnoMasPc
4. Leakey
5. Batesville
6. Finish

For those of you unfamiliar with these turnpoints, Leakey is due north of Uvalde and Batesville is almost due south. That means that from the Leaky turnpoint to the Batesville turnpoint you are racing head on with gliders flying opposite direction from Batesville to the Finish. On a good day, you are traveling around 100 mph (85-90 knots true airspeed) which is a closure rate of 200 mph. You are racing between the same cumulus clouds, essentially on the same path, and same altitude (lift band).

Don't you remember from private pilot 101 that collision courses between aircraft are extremely hard to identify because there is no relative movement in your vision?

So what's the point? Tasks that are called which have pilots racing in opposite direction of each other should be avoided.

During a MAT race, there is a MAJOR threat of this happening because there is NO organized route for the task! It's just a bunch of gliders traveling in random directions as fast as they possibly can go. As cockpits become more technologically advanced with Flarm, GPS Maps, Thermal centering devices, etc, cockpit distractions have reached an ALL TIME HIGH.

If you have ever flown in a large contest you know first hand the dangers that exist when pilots are gaggling around the start cylinder. Many pilots will fly out of the way by many miles just to avoid this issue until they are ready to start and then return through the cylinder.

Out on course with a MAT the threat level is high for a mid air to happen. Take a look at Chris O'callaghans accident and tell me if this can't happen again with a similar scenario with a poorly designed task or an MAT.

And tell everyone again....why exactly are we doing MAT's???

On Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 9:05:56 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Let's go back in time to August 4th 2010. The sport of soaring lost a well respected man named Chris O'Callaghan. It was the 4th fatal sailplane accident in 4 weeks. This was a wake up call to many pilots operating without Flarm or Parachutes. Chris was flying on the return leg of a task when he collided head on with another sailplane traveling opposite direction to the final turnpoint.

What can we learn from history to avoid repeating it?

Can the tasks be a contributing factor to set up pilots for a collision?

Let's look at the task for August 4th 2010 in Uvalde.
1. Start North
2. Callaghan
3. UnoMasPc
4. Leakey
5. Batesville
6. Finish

For those of you unfamiliar with these turnpoints, Leakey is due north of Uvalde and Batesville is almost due south. That means that from the Leaky turnpoint to the Batesville turnpoint you are racing head on with gliders flying opposite direction from Batesville to the Finish. On a good day, you are traveling around 100 mph (85-90 knots true airspeed) which is a closure rate of 200 mph. You are racing between the same cumulus clouds, essentially on the same path, and same altitude (lift band).

Don't you remember from private pilot 101 that collision courses between aircraft are extremely hard to identify because there is no relative movement in your vision?

So what's the point? Tasks that are called which have pilots racing in opposite direction of each other should be avoided.

During a MAT race, there is a MAJOR threat of this happening because there is NO organized route for the task! It's just a bunch of gliders traveling in random directions as fast as they possibly can go. As cockpits become more technologically advanced with Flarm, GPS Maps, Thermal centering devices, etc, cockpit distractions have reached an ALL TIME HIGH.

If you have ever flown in a large contest you know first hand the dangers that exist when pilots are gaggling around the start cylinder. Many pilots will fly out of the way by many miles just to avoid this issue until they are ready to start and then return through the cylinder.

Out on course with a MAT the threat level is high for a mid air to happen.. Take a look at Chris O'callaghans accident and tell me if this can't happen again with a similar scenario with a poorly designed task or an MAT.

And tell everyone again....why exactly are we doing MAT's???

Sean/Wilbur, while you are making some good points regarding the racing component missing or diminished in MAT's, conflating that with safety is not appropriate. For over 5 years now we have had PFlarm and it is mandatory in many contests. Going in and out of assigned turn points (with a 180 deg turn) creates the same situation as described above and we handle it just fine.. Having a 10 mi or so turn area in fact separates the effective turn points widely for each contestant in a way to can be said to improve safety. As you have stated yourself, the most gliders you see in an assigned race are right at the turn points. Your arguments on MAT's and safety to not hold water.
Herb

Tiffany:
Take away his keyboard. Change his passwords. Please! It's going to be a long winter

John Cochrane BB

Where is the like button?! All this talk of AATs, MATs, ATs, TATs, TITs (sorry different group) I miss the straight out out!


On Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 8:16:07 AM UTC-7, John Cochrane wrote:
Tiffany:
Take away his keyboard. Change his passwords. Please! It's going to be a long winter

John Cochrane BB

I agree with you Herb.

When I competed, I had more safety concerns on course in large gaggles (regionals and nationals) than I had on runs or turn points.

I guess, the "safety aspect" brought up will lead to banning ridge ontest flights (Mifflin, Ridge Soaring, Newcastle come to mind, I've flown all 3 places) due to even narrower height bands and even higher speeds!
Best example, the Newcastle "back ridge dump task" (to the tunnels by Blacksburg) can have dry speeds over 120MPH, that's a 240MPH closure speed.

A ridge out and back is drastically different. You know exactly where the opposite glider traffic will be as it is very obvious. You simply look right down the spine of the ridge.

On Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 5:23:25 PM UTC+1, wrote:
A ridge out and back is drastically different. You know exactly where the opposite glider traffic will be as it is very obvious. You simply look right down the spine of the ridge.

"Simply"? - it can be very easy to fail to pick up a glider that is on a direct head-on collision path and being on a ridge makes that no easier - especially as the closing speeds may be very high.

Thank you Wallace for sharing your hatred for MAT's.

Yes, the task I brought into light was in fact an AT. That is correct. Which is exactly my point. If this task was slightly different, with an extra turnpoint positioned off course to steer gliders away from a head on collision, then Chris O'Callaghan might be alive today.

We can learn from the past to prevent another air disaster.

So I will pose this question: With a MAT, what is limited pilots from choosing routes that go opposite direction flight paths just like this AT?


Yes Flarm helps to mitagate that threat, but the threat is still there. Calling a task that routes gliders head on with each other is a major mistake.. Allowing an MAT that allows gliders to route themselves head on with gliders is also a major mistake.

What is safer? A controlled route AT that does NOT pose a threat of a mid air or a uncontrolled random route in all MAT's?

My position is that MAT's have two concerns. 1. Like Wallace Berry mentioned, they are not any fun. And 2. More importantly, it decreases safety as opposed to the alternative.

Who will have the next mid air? Will it be you Herb? You say you can handle it just fine with flarm, but nobody is immune to accidents, nobody. As soon as you adopt that attitude, your chances of having an accident have drastically.

There are bold pilots and old pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.

On Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 11:37:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Thank you Wallace for sharing your hatred for MAT's.

Yes, the task I brought into light was in fact an AT. That is correct. Which is exactly my point. If this task was slightly different, with an extra turnpoint positioned off course to steer gliders away from a head on collision, then Chris O'Callaghan might be alive today.

We can learn from the past to prevent another air disaster.

So I will pose this question: With a MAT, what is limited pilots from choosing routes that go opposite direction flight paths just like this AT?


Yes Flarm helps to mitagate that threat, but the threat is still there. Calling a task that routes gliders head on with each other is a major mistake. Allowing an MAT that allows gliders to route themselves head on with gliders is also a major mistake.

What is safer? A controlled route AT that does NOT pose a threat of a mid air or a uncontrolled random route in all MAT's?

My position is that MAT's have two concerns. 1. Like Wallace Berry mentioned, they are not any fun. And 2. More importantly, it decreases safety as opposed to the alternative.

Who will have the next mid air? Will it be you Herb? You say you can handle it just fine with flarm, but nobody is immune to accidents, nobody. As soon as you adopt that attitude, your chances of having an accident have drastically.

There are bold pilots and old pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.

Well, maybe I should have qualified what I said about MAT's. I don't like the standard MAT with just a couple of turns. However, I can see that they have their place. I just feel that they are used too often. And, I really do like the "long MAT's" that 711 mentions in his post. Best thing next to an AT.

I also will state this more plainly: I think doing away with MAT's would NOT have an effect on safety.

WB

And yet the task you show is an AT. How many head-on collisions have occurred during MAT tasks? Come to think of it, how do mid-airs break down by task type? I'd bet that either the data is too sparse to be meaningful or that AT's have the most mid-airs (adjusted per task called) because of more gaggling. I'd be willing to bet, as well, that AT's (per task called) have the highest accident/damage rate of any task (more gaggling, more landouts, more risk of flying into bad weather). Don't get me wrong, I hate MAT's with a passion and I love AT's, but any type of task can be set up to be dangerous. It has been my experience that most CD's and task advisors are conscientious about avoiding head-on tasking. Not an easy job in contests with multiple classes.

I don't mean to offend, but are you really interested in safety or do you really just want rid of MAT's? I can get behind a movement to reduce the use of MAT's, but I don't care for the use of the safety issue as a mask for real motives.

Wallace (yes, that's my real name) Berry