Is the 200ft below Min Finish Height Rule Working?

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How about we move the whole affair up 500 feet?



John Cochrane

Completely agree with moving it up 500 feet, in the old days, if you arrived 6 ft below the hard deck (the ground), you stayed there....

However having the 500ft floor only in the finish cylinder, with all the speed points at risk, does seem to incentivize low thermaling in an area that has high concentration of (perhaps) head down pilots. The pilot might even feel more comfortable trying to climb there due to the proximity of the airport.

Here is a suggestion, put the 500 ft hard deck out to 4 miles. Once you make your 4 mile call you are over a hard deck. You still need to come into the finish cylinder, everything remains the same, but once you fall under the 500 ft hard deck your done, join the landing traffic. If your final glide is marginal, and you think this is likely, you will want to stop and try to climb outside the hard deck, where the increased radius will help spread out the traffic.

The decision to thermal at 500ft AGL is the same at the finish sector, out on course or attempting to thermal out from a relight near the airport. It's irrelevant where this is taking place. If this is affecting finishing gliders, I suggest to move the finish up to 1000ft so that if there is really someone who is trying to thermal up at 500ft AGL, that there is enough separation that he does not affect the incoming traffic.

If you want a hard-deck 4 miles out to prevent pilots from electing bad judgement and thermalling low near the airport, then why is it okay to do so 5 miles from the finish? Or 50 miles from the finish to not land-out? I don't necessarily support the hard-deck nor am I opposed to it, but if you follow this sort of logic presented, that's a great reason to have a harddeck completely around the whole task area. The decision to thermal at 500ft is still the same decision, no matter where the pilot is.

Best Regards,
Daniel Sazhin

And lastly while I am on a roll, this graduated penalty stuff is really bizarre, especially with respect to turnpoints, followed by starts and finishes. I understand that 25 years ago that the GPS loggers were much less accurate and a one mile leeway for hitting the turnpoint may have been necessary.. Nowadays, the vast majority of pilots have displays on their logging systems which clearly show if they hit the turnpoint or not. Even the ancient Colibri that I have used as my IGC logger beeps when the turnpoint is touched. The one mile leeway we have is insane! To save two miles on hitting the turnpoint and taking a penalty is a very valuable tactical decision and rules should not affect tactical decisions in this way. Bottom line, I think this should be ended.

For starts, most people have stopwatches, or some other form of clock. Furthermore, no one has ever said that you must wait exactly two minutes and go.. Why shouldn't a pilot stay say 3 minutes as an added safety factor? It would be more beneficial to simplify the rules and make 2 minutes the defining factor.

With respect to starts and finishes, I think there should be 50ft of leeway given, but with 1 point per foot. A MINIMUM altitude is intended to be the floor or the ground. In the past, you could not finish under the ground. With 50ft of leeway given in starts/finishes, this could account for most instrument errors with a simple penalty system that does not require understanding a long formula.

Best Regards,
Daniel Sazhin

On Friday, January 24, 2014 11:51:28 AM UTC-5, wrote:
The decision to thermal at 500ft AGL is the same at the finish sector, out on course or attempting to thermal out from a relight near the airport.

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Daniel, I had the same thought, but really I think there is a difference between having a hard deck out on course or having one just in the "prep for landing zone". I have been guilty of low save attempts, some successful, some not, some in contests, some not. But when I have attempted them, I was alone with each turn pointed at a final into an airport or field. Having someone try it near the finish cylinder is undesirable not for their own safety (well that too) but for the safety of others. Giving a 400 pt "bonus" for pulling it off, does not seem like the right thing to do. Extending the floor of the finish cylinder out some reasonable distance, would remove the incentive to save a "land out at the airport" near the airport. I would note that the suggestion of increasing the size of the finish cylinder accomplishes the same thing, but perhaps makes the pattern entry of the landing traffic less predictable.

RR