Killing the flagman at US Contest

Mark - please don't interpret that I'm complaining about how Moriarty contest was operated. Not at all. Moriarty was run fantastically well and I'm very appreciative of that.

My issue is generic to all US contests where there's a flagman stationed in front of the launching gliders and that seems to be most contests these days. Any person given that job will assuredly become complacent about the hazard after a few hundred gliders have whizzed by without incident. The hazard is insidious most particularly because it's rare. My issue is that it really won't matter what kind of self preservation instinct someone has when there's 50 feet of wing arcing directly towards him at 30 or 40 MPH. That really can happen. We need to change the scheme before someone gets creamed.