Minutes of Fall 2014 USA Rules Committee meeting posted on SSA website

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 9:12:11 PM UTC-8, Steve Leonard wrote:
On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 10:28:27 PM UTC-6, John Cochrane wrote:


Interesting observation at Hobbs last year, that none of the "new" (startng nationals since 2000 -- sadly not many) pilots had ever flown a line. Regionals don't use them, so there is precious little opportunity to practice this special skill. Which we promptly had to use. One famous pilot landing on a city street about 5 miles out.

John Cochrane.

By "last year", John means 2013. And, John, I could just as easily point out that on Day 4 of that same contest, with a finish cylinder, a pilot kept pushing towards home thinking he would get lift and ended up landing just a very few miles out (about 7). You can't blame that one on a low minimum finish altitude, John, yet you don't ever mention it. Why not?

And, Luke, I will disagree strongly that a finish line and a close in steering point is a good idea. Why the heck would you want to drive everyone towards a point close to home, so they are at low altitude, looking at their GPS to make sure they get in or don't go out the far side of that circle, then have them turn and start looking out for the close corner of the finish line? If you use a line, leave it pure as a line, with a last turnpoint far enough away that you aren't funneling everyone together. Leave the final glide long and straight and let them be looking for traffic straight ahead, where everyone will be going. Know that altitudes and courses will be converging and that you need to be aware that not everyone will have taken the same final glide line that you did, so be looking left, right, up and down.

Now, I will throw fuel on the fire and join Hank under the desk. On a MAT, I would rather deal with gate hooking than a mandatory close in final turnpoint. Why? I (think I) am smart enough to not cut my final glide to the point where I will have no good options when I get back to the airport. Close in final turnpoints that could require a near 180 degree course reversal assure same altitude inbound and outbound traffic. But, my real preference for a MAT task is a finish cylinder with a good minimum height. Maybe that will quell the fire a bit with some? And make it worse with others.

Steve Leonard

It's an interesting question about where, and how high, you want to congregate traffic. In the end, if you intend to finish at the airport you are going to have a bunch of gliders coming together at whatever the finish height is (maybe zero if it's a gate). If it's a line with anything but a basically perpendicular final course line you will be concentrating that traffic at the close end of the gate and at the finish height. I was squeezed up against that point a few times 30 years ago. I still remember the experience vividly - including the other pilots. It works decently well on an AST (Fidler - you listening?) because you are all lined up on final glide and know who you are going to be dealing with at the finish 20-30 miles out. With modern tasks (TAT and MAT) I think you need a steering turn at least 20-30 miles out where people are at altitude and cruising, rather than on final glide where they all hit the turn on final glide at the same altitude. I'd still take converging traffic to a 1-mile cylinder at altitude over converging traffic to the edge of a gate at zero feet. In fact I'm not even sure how you'd do it on a MAT without a mandatory final turn where gliders could be trying to hook the gate going opposite directions at redline and zero feet - ouch!

9B