Seniors Contest

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.


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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

I've been flying for 34 years Eric and racing for 12. I see that you are
ranked 232 and I am 121....does that make me better able to judge racing
rules?! Let's talk about the facts and not get into a ****ing match about
experience.

I'd appreciate the details of any and all mishaps that you or others know
about that you feel are a result of finish gates.

Casey Lenox
KC
Phoenix

Kilo Charlie wrote:
I've been flying for 34 years Eric and racing for 12. I see that you are
ranked 232 and I am 121....does that make me better able to judge racing
rules?! Let's talk about the facts and not get into a ****ing match about
experience.

I'm ranked 44, does that mean I win the ****ing match? 8^)

I'd appreciate the details of any and all mishaps that you or others know
about that you feel are a result of finish gates.

Do you think the recent Seniors accident was gate related, and if not,
why not?

Marc

Kilo Charlie wrote:
I've been flying for 34 years Eric and racing for 12. I see that you are
ranked 232 and I am 121....does that make me better able to judge racing
rules?! Let's talk about the facts and not get into a ****ing match about
experience.

My experience was not mentioned in the post - I was wondering about
yours. I still make no claim about my experience. I was responding to
your comment:

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

I first assumed you had been racing for a while, but it then seemed
unlikely, since you weren't aware of finish gate problems. I'm surprised
you've raced for 12 years without witnessing or at least hearing about
accidents and close calls.

I'd appreciate the details of any and all mishaps that you or others know
about that you feel are a result of finish gates.

I've seen several gear up landings, at least once with pilots going
head-on at each other because one finished backwards, some slow speed
pullups leading to a scary low turn to final a whisker away from
cartwheeling, a pilot landing short in a rock-filled field because the
"rolling finish" didn't make it to the pavement. There's more that will
come to me after a bit, but those are some that I've witnessed.
Thankfully, no bad injuries or fatalities.

I'm with Marc - I think I'm safer with the new high finish cylinders
than the traditional ground-based gate. It was a thrill bombing through
it at 50 feet off the ground, but I'm over that now.

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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA