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On Sep 23, 7:26*am, Frank wrote:
Do we, as an organization, really want to be biasing the 'Sporting Risk' equation in that direction? TA Exactly my concern with this rule, too. I understand your arguments, John; they make a fair amount of sense... I don't want to reward someone who "took it easy" because their glider has long legs. But a big part of me also thinks its just weird to reward someone who didn't make it around the course! Even though ATs, TATs, and MATs are all very different, they start with the core idea that you have a start, some waypoints, and a finish. And the overriding theme is to make it around the course and to the finish. Screwing up that fundamental "getting to the finish" part can be interpreted as a bad performance and/or bad decision-making. I don't want to reward that, simply because the pilot has big cojones and is willing to fly into a bad situation on the gamble that he or she will rack up more distance points than others before hitting the dirt. And when does one "flip the switch" mentally, to go for that instead of speed points? Would it be on the worst of days, when everyone's cutting the task really short (isn't this when we usually see MATs called most-often, too)? That's when we want to encourage people to strike out on their own? hrrm... Also: What other sport defines a course and a finish, but gives some people more credit if they DON'T cross the finish-line? Like I said befo It seems to me that we're turning the system on its ear. We're moving away from "the course" as the underlying foundation, and moving towards "speed and distance are more important than the course"; which is a big shift IMHO. I'm not vehemently opposed to this, but I still am not comfortable with it. In some ways, it seems like a fix primarily for the Sports Class, since the "1-26 vs Nimbus4" argument only applies there. Performance levels are so much closer in the FAI classes, you're "fixing" anything (no one can use min-distance to gain a big advantage over others). In the FAI classes, the way I see it, you're flat-out shifting the focus of the TAT & MAT away from "fly the course and return at minimum time, go for max speed". You're moving the focus towards "make nominal (or greater) distance in a reasonable time without sacrificing much speed and if it starts to go bad screw getting home and make max distance you can". I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide performance-level variance. For the other classes its more about how you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_ criteria for judging someone's performance. Is it speed around the course and across the finish line? Or is it distance? --Noel P.S. BTW, since other threads on RAS are talking about the Worlds - just out of curiosity do any other countries (or the IGC) have scoring rules like this, wherein non-finishers can score higher than finishers? |
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On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote:
I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide performance-level variance. For the other classes its more about how you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_ criteria for judging someone's performance. Is it speed around the course and across the finish line? Or is it distance? In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own course. And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress... -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) - "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl - "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz |
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On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote: I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_ criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance? In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own course. And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress... -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) - "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl - "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a "course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue. It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain weather. I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the airport bonus is a more sensible step. Part of my preference is because the change removes and awful roll- the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near the home airport. John Cochrane |
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I to really perfer assigned tasks when the conditions allow for it,
and that is why for years I flew my HP16T in the regional 15 meter category. Of course at the time Sports Class used strictly PoST Tasks. I really like the change from PoST to MAT tasks, and in unpredictable conditions Turn Area Tasks aren't bad either. This year I flew Sports Class for only my 3rd time (1st in a 1-26, 2nd in a National Sports Class). My reason for changing from 15 meter was two fold. 1st with the ASW20's and LS6's being replaced with even high performing ships it was just about impossible for me to come even close to placing anywhere but last on the score sheet, even though that was where I typically was anyway. And 2nd even the 15 meter class has moved away from AST tasks. At our region 8 regionals this year TAT tasks were called every day for both 15 meter and Sport Class. For all but the last day I think this was appropriate. However the last day was forcast to be the best conditions of the contest and I thought it would have easily supported a AST task for the 15 meter and an Identical MAT task (using the same turn points) for the Sports Class. I would like to see a few more Assigned tasked called when good conditions exist. And MAT's that are laid out like an Assigned task for Sports Class. Brian |
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On Sep 24, 7:34*am, John Cochrane
wrote: On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote: On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote: I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_ criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance? In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own course. And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress.... -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) - "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl - "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a "course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue. It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain weather. I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the airport bonus is a more sensible step. Part of my preference is because the change *removes and awful roll- the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near the home airport. John Cochrane Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with inventing new ones! Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed. Andy |
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![]() Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed. Andy Have you actually read the FAI rules? I have, and flown under them, and I think adopting them for US contests would be a terrible idea. Start with frequent mass landouts. If we basically say that everybody needs a crew to fly in a contest, that alone will cut participation in half. At least half of our pilots show up crewless. The FAI has known for over 20 years that its day devaluation formulas lead to dangerous and unpleasant mass gaggling start roulette and leeching, yet does nothing about it. Then there are little gems like a start with an altitude limit but no time or speed limit. Pilots diving at VNE out of clouds. At WGC Szeged we saw what happens with a finish line set 1 cm over a barbed wire fence at the airport perimeter -- crash into a truck on the airport road. We got rid of that nonsense a long time ago by moving the finish up. And on and on. Yes, adopting FAI rules would better train our US teams -- we were at a real disadvantage from not having much practice with them. It would also mean nobody but the team shows up for contests! John Cochrane |
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On Sep 24, 8:35*am, John Cochrane
wrote: Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed. Andy Have you actually read the FAI rules? I have, and flown under them, and I think adopting them for US contests would be a terrible idea. Start with frequent mass landouts. If we basically say that everybody needs a crew to fly in a contest, that alone will cut participation in half. At least half of our pilots show up crewless. The FAI has known for over 20 years that its day devaluation formulas lead to dangerous and unpleasant mass gaggling start roulette and leeching, yet does nothing about it. Then there are little gems like a start with an altitude limit but no time or speed limit. Pilots diving at VNE out of clouds. At WGC Szeged we saw what happens with a finish line set 1 cm over a barbed wire fence at the airport perimeter -- crash into a truck on the airport road. We got rid of that nonsense a long time ago by moving the finish up. And on and on. Yes, adopting FAI rules would better train our US teams -- we were at a real disadvantage from not having much practice with them. It would also mean nobody but the team shows up for contests! John Cochrane I have not flown under the FAI rules but I did study them when I was following this year's WGC. All you objections are valid I'm sure, hence the second part of my proposal "Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed." Surely mass landouts as much a function of the task setting as the rules. Also nothing to say that US contests could not have exceptions to FAI rules where is was appropriate. E.g. It would seem quite easy to use the same tasking and scoring rules but with a modified finish altitude. The fact that the FAI rules are not perfect does not seem to justify having a completely separate set of rules. Andy |
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On Sep 24, 5:10*pm, Andy wrote:
On Sep 24, 7:34*am, John Cochrane wrote: On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote: On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote: I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_ criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance? In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own course. And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress... -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) - "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl - "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a "course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue. It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain weather. I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the airport bonus is a more sensible step. Part of my preference is because the change *removes and awful roll- the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near the home airport. John Cochrane Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed. Andy- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. Don't you guys on the rules committee have something better to do like fly gliders. Guy may also be able to fly more rather than pumping code. You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou Competition. Richard |
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On Sep 24, 11:45*am, Richard wrote:
On Sep 24, 5:10*pm, Andy wrote: On Sep 24, 7:34*am, John Cochrane wrote: On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote: On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote: I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_ criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance? In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own course. And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress... -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) - "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl - "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a "course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue. It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain weather. I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the airport bonus is a more sensible step. Part of my preference is because the change *removes and awful roll- the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near the home airport. John Cochrane Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed. Andy- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. *Don't you guys on the rules committee have something better to do like fly gliders. *Guy may also be able to fly more rather than pumping code. You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou Competition. Richard No, I have to agree with John on this one. I (virtually) fly with the IGC rules and scoring in Condor. Vne starts, leeching, mass landouts, low finishes to stall/spin turning final, half the field dead in the rocks, yeah, all that. At least it's only our virtual selves that suffer all that. I'm glad I don't have to fly that at real life contests. -- Matt |
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On 9/24/2010 8:45 AM, Richard wrote:
On Sep 24, 5:10 pm, wrote: Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with inventing new ones! Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI rules if changes are needed. Andy- Hide quoted text - I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. Don't you guys on the rules committee have something better to do like fly gliders. Guy may also be able to fly more rather than pumping code. You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou Competition. Speaking as a 35 year SSA member, a former Board of Directors member, a former contest pilot, but still very active pilot, I have believed the following for decades: "The USA contest rules primary goal, in my opinion, should be to maximize soaring participation in the USA. I don't care what rules are used as long as they achieve this goal, and all rules should be judged against this goal. If the rules obtained in the pursuit of this goal are not the optimum for selecting or preparing the US Team for the World contests, that is an unfortunate but acceptable outcome." -- Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me) |
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