Is the 200ft below Min Finish Height Rule Working?

1. Missed start height or time below by using a penalty
2. Missed turn points with a penalty
3. Missed finish height with penalty

All of these could be removed and make it black or white, zero points for all errors. Does that encourage pilots to race? No we will just see more pack up early or not come at all.



A minor point here, especially to those of you who think the US should use IGC rules.

IGC rules give none of these graduated penalties. 1 meter out of the start gate? Tough, look harder next time. Miss a turnpoint by a meter? Tough again, you just landed. Airspace: real simple. One fix in, you landed. One fix a meter away, you're ok. None of this major penalty minor penalty stuff. Oh, and you can overfly airspace, just stay one meter above. Top is 17,999.99 not 17,500.

Participation isn't great everywhere, but not drastically worse than in the US. There is no international clamor to bring the US 10 pages of graduated penalty rules into IGC competition.

The idea that we need carefully structured graduated penalties so every pilot can nick every checkpoint with a foot to spare and all shall come home and all shall have prizes, or else people will stay away from contests in droves, just doesn't bear out in the facts. Most new pilots are completely unaware of these rules anyway. Actually, as we have seen, most experienced pilots are pretty foggy on the complex penalty structure too! Quick quiz: Just how many points per foot do you lose if you miss a turnpoint?

I will admit, one meter above the airport fence and you get speed points, you're ok, even if there is a truck in the way, and that too has limited effects on participation. Safety is only loosely related to participation, especially where, as in most responses to this thread, the vast majority of pilots can tell themselves that only bozos would do this stuff and they're immune. But there are reasons other than participation for rules not to dangle hundreds of points in front of pilots for doing stupid stuff.

John Cochrane