Another new Soaring Article

On May 12, 2:18*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
"The Future of rules and classes." This one is published (in German)
in this month's Segelfliegen. If you don't speak German (like me),
here's the English version

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john...Papers/future_...
or, more generallyhttp://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/#misc

Ok, this is the last one for a while.
John Cochrane

As usual, John, a great article.

Just one minor nitpick - Top Gun is Navy, not Air Force (AF has the
Weapons School, and Red Flag). And the hard deck (it was 10,000' when
I flew in F-4s, it's 8000' now for F-15s, I think, due to their better
dive recovery capabilities) is in use throughout the Air Force and
Navy, and probably all other airforces when practicing air-to-air
combat. As you say, it's the simulated ground, so if you punch
through it during a fight - you lose. Of course, if you can sucker
the guy chasing you below it, he loses!

I still think we need to work on some aspects of our starts and
finishes. The altitude limit means that on a good day, we have
several gliders running around at high speed/high G winding up to pop
up through the top when the gate opens or the 2 minutes are up. It
shouldn't happen ("why the rush") but it still does. Not sure how to
fix this.

And the finishes still require too much clock-watching. I do not want
to be staring at my altimeter on final glide - I want to be looking
out the window! We are getting better with the graduated penalty if
below the finish height - ideally it should be a finish window that is
points-neutral within a reasonable altitude spread (if lower, then
subtract points - or add time - equal to the time that would have been
spent in the last thermal to get the height needed, for example).

Cheers,

Kirk
66