Handicap Distance Tasks

Interesting concept. Love to try it. Two concerns:

1. Traffic. I've done simultaneous starts in local contests and the jockeying that goes on to be on top of the gaggle when the gate opens can be exciting. So can the first few thermals as all competitors are stacked in closely together, rather than spread out over hundreds of feet or more as occurs today when start times are minutes apart.

2. Barrel size. Andy raised the issue of blue holes, T-storms, and other localized wx. I'm not overly excited about the "big area" tasks we currently call in the U.S. But based on experience back in the day, I'm not excited about returning to assigned tasks all the time, either (sorry, Sean). I'd rather fly an area task (or this new task with a larger barrel) than lose the entire day because the TP (or the tiny barrel for the higher-performing gliders) is in a bad place weatherwise. It's all well and good to say we'll make changes when showers are in the forecast but in the real world, if we could forecast showers accurately, task calling would be a lot simpler.

But, yeah, let's try this at a few regionals (east and west) and see how it goes. Integrating this with Winscore seems like the biggest obstacle. It's always risky to make changes to software and Winscore hasn't been immune to the bugs that can creep in when this occurs.

Chip Bearden