Seniors Contest

I know it's a dead horse, but I can't help but point out that this is
exactly the sort of accident that would be a lot less frequent with a
500 foot one mile circle finish. 70-80 kts right over the center of the
airport at 51 feet is about the worst place you can be -- too much to
land straight, too little to do a pattern. 70 knots, 501 feet, one mile
out gives you a lot of time to think about what you're going to do
next. 70 knots, 300 feet, one mile out means you're not going to make
the flying finish at 500 feet, so you must roll. That decision is over,
now use the whole mile to figure out how to land.

Yes, pilots should think ahead to the pattern while also managing the
stress of a tight glide. Yes, they should decide to do a rolling
finish rather than focus entirely on the finishline and then wake up to
the fact they have to land the darn thing. But everyone knows this
advice, it's repeated over and over at the safety meetings, and we
still get a crash like this once every few years -- usually with much
worse results. A lower workload reduces the chances any of us will
screw up.


John Cochrane
BB

BB wrote:
I know it's a dead horse, but I can't help but point out that this is
exactly the sort of accident that would be a lot less frequent with a
500 foot one mile circle finish. 70-80 kts right over the center of the
airport at 51 feet is about the worst place you can be -- too much to
land straight, too little to do a pattern. 70 knots, 501 feet, one mile
out gives you a lot of time to think about what you're going to do
next. 70 knots, 300 feet, one mile out means you're not going to make
the flying finish at 500 feet, so you must roll. That decision is over,
now use the whole mile to figure out how to land.

We've used a 1000 foot two mile circle finish at the last two Minden
regionals, which makes finishing a breeze. No problems, no complaints,
no near misses, no one trying 180s at 100 feet, plenty of time to get
everything put away, check that the water has finished dumping, make a
nice leisurely traffic scan, then sequence for landing.

On the other hand, at another recent regional contest I participated in,
a vocal subgroup insisted upon using a finish gate with a 50 foot floor.
There's nothing more exciting that dodging gliders coming from random
directions at 100+ knots, while trying to make something approximating a
normal pattern from my personal finish floor of 500 feet. That kind of
excitement I can live without...

Marc

You must be aware that a pilot stalled and spun with water at 600'
attempting to get over the circle edge last season. So how is that safer???

Casey Lenox
Phoenix
KC

Kilo Charlie wrote:
You must be aware that a pilot stalled and spun with water at 600'
attempting to get over the circle edge last season. So how is that safer???

Maybe some of us are crazy, but we would rather stall and spin at 600
feet, than 200 feet, with or without water. Of course, my competitive
urges being what they are, if I had any doubts about being able to make
it to a 500 foot 1 mile finish, I'd be either still someplace farther
back, trying to climb higher, or sitting in a convenient field. I don't
want to win badly enough to do stupid things...

Marc

Final line is this Marc...you cannot legislate good judgement....period. If
you don't believe it then just go drive around in your car for awhile where
there have already been put into place many laws in an attempt to do so.

It is not the pilots that are conscientious and cautious that are the
problem....no matter what the rules are they will do the right thing. There
will always be those that are poor decision makers in a pinch. I wish that
an instructor somewhere would have pointed this out to them but now that
they have their license they can demonstrate to the world their
inadequacies.

Casey

Kilo Charlie wrote:
Final line is this Marc...you cannot legislate good judgement....period. If
you don't believe it then just go drive around in your car for awhile where
there have already been put into place many laws in an attempt to do so.

It is not the pilots that are conscientious and cautious that are the
problem....no matter what the rules are they will do the right thing. There
will always be those that are poor decision makers in a pinch. I wish that
an instructor somewhere would have pointed this out to them but now that
they have their license they can demonstrate to the world their
inadequacies.

Honestly, it doesn't bother me in the least what sort of finish you use,
if I'm not participating. But, if I am participating, I find finish
gates incredibly unsafe, even if I personally do my more leisurely 1000+
foot finishes. I still have to dodge fast moving gliders as I get
lower, particularly with MATs. But, as soon as someone important
(rather than someone like me) gets killed as the direct result of a
finish gate, I'm sure the rules committee will be all over it...

Marc

I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc. Your
basic premise is that the gate finish is unsafe. I disagree and feel that
it is safer than the alternatives presented to date.

Re your "testosterone" idea....yup you're correct.....I do enjoy watching
the ground rush by and my crew enjoys it too along with the spectators that
show up. We have made an already poor spectator sport into a truly horrible
one with some of these changes. I'm not looking to make it a Red Bull death
defying race but honestly think that it is the one single time in the race
that is nice to watch. Now if it were less safe than the other finishes I
would not argue to use it but as I said it is at least as safe. I challenge
you to present hard facts to counter that. If I'm wrong about that being
liked by the spectators then maybe you can explain why they can't keep
enough copies of UK Smokin' in production to satisfy all the orders.

Like you said.....you guys that are worried about the safety issues with the
current rules can by all means have your own races with each competitor
having their own separate start cylinder and the finish being a 2 mile 2000'
AGL minimum. Now THAT would be safe....but I won't be participating.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

Kilo Charlie wrote:
I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc. Your
basic premise is that the gate finish is unsafe. I disagree and feel that
it is safer than the alternatives presented to date.

We can argue about whether the recent Seniors accident was or was not a
gate mishap, I could go either way. But, the notion that cylinder
finishes are less safe than gate finishes seems to be unique to you and
some of your friends...

Marc

"Kilo Charlie" wrote in message
news:WBNXd.22088$FM3.15711@fed1read02...
I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc. Your
basic premise is that the gate finish is unsafe. I disagree and feel that
it is safer than the alternatives presented to date.

Re your "testosterone" idea....yup you're correct.....I do enjoy watching
the ground rush by and my crew enjoys it too along with the spectators
that show up. We have made an already poor spectator sport into a truly
horrible one with some of these changes. Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix


Casey,

I'm in complete agreement. I don't fly contests, likely never will, but I
sure *used* to enjoy the contest finishes. What a shame they destroyed the
best part of contests for the spectators.

bumper
ZZ
Minden

Kilo Charlie wrote:

I am unaware of there ever being a mishap with the gate finish Marc.

How long have you been in the sport? At least one person has died
finishing with the conventional gate (Cal City), and there have been
many other accidents and very close calls.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA