US SSA Contest Pilot Opinion Poll

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