Participating in Contests

The impression that the super pilots with full time organized ground
crews and $90k+ ships makes going to a contest with a older generation
glider say a HP-11 with ~36:1 glide rather futile and would perhaps
feel like a 2nd class pilot showing up with such a craft amoungst all
the expensive glass.

The impression is completely wrong. Most pilots fly crewless at
regionals. Most pilots are incredibly welcoming of newcomers. And we
love to look over interesting bits of soaring history. When you do
well in an older glider you get lots of attaboys and pats on the
back.


Having never been to a contest I suppose it may just take one good
experience to make me a regular attendee

You will have a good experience!

I think what would make me come to one would be a contest amoungst
more of the older generation gliders and some explanation of how
retrieves would be made if I did not bring my own retrieve crew.
Knowing I would have a retrieve crew available at the contest would
remove 75% of the reluctance and flying with older gliders to keep it
interesting, would remove the last 25% and get me to come out.

Welcome to sports class. It's full of older generation gliders, and
like I said nobody there cares what you're flying. In fact, you get a
lot of extra respect for flying older gliders.

If having a crew is really important then bring one along. But it's
really not needed. Come with some buddies; or just get together with
the rest of the sports class and agree "I'll get you if you get me."
Air retrieves and a retrieve office make the whole business pretty
painless. The support you get at contests is one of the great
attractions.


I know from my sail boating experiences that going to a contest is the
fasterst way to learn from much more experienced pilots and accelerate
your own progress.

Bingo. Nothing will push you to becoming a better pilot faster than
hanging around with this gregarious friendly and welcoming group of
very fast pilots.


I think another good idea for first timers would be to have an
optional pre-contest orientation weekend where perhaps a month before
the contest you could go to the site with a number of others and fly
the area to get the lay of the land for us first timers.

Most sites are regular operations. Go for it. Otherwise it's called
practice day. Or go to one of the US team pre-contest camps or the air
sailing sports event.

For that
matter they should just have a firstimers class with detailed
explanations of what to expect, what not to do, where not to go and
how to prepare for that particular site. Show us where the house
thermal are.

First timers class is called sports regionals. You get exactly this
star treatment. You will be assigned your personal "mentor" Many
contests have exactly the kind of special morning briefing you're
asking for. The US team regionals also give daily briefings and daily
debriefings.


Another factor for some will also be the availability of a proper
Logger as they seem unnecessarily expensive and are not standard
equipment in older gliders. Perhaps allowing a PDA with GPS, or even a
simple hand held GPS unit to substitude as a turnpoint recorder would
help in this area.

This is allowed now in sports regionals.


Remove some or all of those barriers and Im sure the contests would
get greater attendance.


These barriers are removed. You're out of excuses. Hope to see you
next year!
John Cochrane BB