Women's Worlds

Wouldn't the safest instruction been to tell all the contestants to land ASAP? If visibility was too poor to continue the soaring contest task then Wouldn't it be too poor to soar back home too?

On Mon, 06 Jan 2020 11:47:36 -0800, Tony wrote:

Wouldn't the safest instruction been to tell all the contestants to land
ASAP? If visibility was too poor to continue the soaring contest task
then Wouldn't it be too poor to soar back home too?

From the British team news reports, it seems that they flew into an area
of dense smoke / deduced visibility. Presumably, and this looks likely
from the task maps since all tasks went further north than in any other
direction, this would mean that when they were flying home after the
recall, they'd be flying out of the area of poor visibility.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

US Team report indicates the concern was based on visibility during final glide...

----

Things seemed to settle down at a “grim but acceptable� level and pilots proceeded with their tasks, finding good lift to around 9000’ in a few areas, and occasionally struggling to reach 6000’. Our local expert pilot and Task Setter – Bruce Taylor – launched as a scout. His initial report of 20+ km visibility was encouraging. But around 3:30 he encountered troublesome smoke and haze – bad enough to make final glides and finishes potentially dangerous. His advice, various forecasts and other input led (shortly before 4pm) to the decision to cancel the task. It was a serious disappointment to many pilots, most of whom had been racing hard in challenging conditions for 3 hours and more. They now had to fly home – up to 140 km, through the thickening smoke – with their efforts rendered meaningless.

At 19:47 06 January 2020, Tony wrote:
Wouldn't the safest instruction been to tell all the contestants to land
ASAP? If visibility was too poor to continue the soaring contest task
then
Wouldn't it be too poor to soar back home too?

Wouldn't that be a decision best left to pilots who are on-the-spot, once
the task had been cancelled?

On Monday, January 6, 2020 at 3:15:05 PM UTC-8, Tim Newport-Peace wrote:
At 19:47 06 January 2020, Tony wrote:
Wouldn't the safest instruction been to tell all the contestants to land
ASAP? If visibility was too poor to continue the soaring contest task
then
Wouldn't it be too poor to soar back home too?

Wouldn't that be a decision best left to pilots who are on-the-spot, once
the task had been cancelled?

According to the local rules, input was allowed from various sources and they apparently pointed towards cancellation.
Sylvia and Kathy, due to their early start, got away from the worst visibility earlier and without that mess (especially in reduced visibility) called a gaggle. Where they were as the task was cancelled was not bad, and there were just the two of them.
Oh, well...

Visibility today is better.
They're all on course.

Something to give you an idea of the visibility is look at the Keepit webcam in the morning AEST.
https://keepitsoaring.com/webcam/
Before we left for Australia, the tree line wasn't always visible.
Jim

Start early and pray for smoke?