Outstanding video on the sport of Glider RACING

If you look at the traces (objectively) in most contests, you'll see that 80-90% follow almost the exact same route...

Even in thermals high above the mountains, the best routes are over the best mountains (one or few routes).

So, Ill have to disagree with you based on my research of contest flight traces.

Also, not sure what "day long" task means. Is there a half day or quarter day task I have not heard about? ;-)

Sean - day long tasks are typically flown in European contest and 1/4 and 1/2 day tasks flown in US regionals and nationals.

Dave - I hope you are kidding!

On 01/20/2015 7:41 PM, Sean Fidler wrote:
Dave - I hope you are kidding!

I don't think he is!

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 6:41:53 PM UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
Dave - I hope you are kidding!

My take is that when Dave says "day long" he is referring to the using all of the soarable part of the day and not "dawn to dusk".

Regardless, U.S. regionals mostly run tasks in the 2.50-3.5 hour range right in the heart of the soarable part of the day. From what I have been told, the Europeans start earlier and go right until the last gasp of lift or light, whichever comes first. Lots of land-outs that way.

The post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but in general, I feel tasks are too short and that the maximum amount of day is not used.

However, there is a significant reason European tasks are longer and it has to do with Latitude. Many European contest sites are in the 50's in Latitude (or hilly/mountain sites) and the soarable day can start as early as 10 am and go as late as 8 pm.

Most US contest sites have Latitudes in the 30's and the soaring doesn't start until at least noon and then is done around 5-6 pm. So by necessity the task times are shorter.

In my opinion 2-2.5 hour tasks are too short and 3-4 hour tasks should be the norm. Of course, there are some days when a short tasks is necessary to fit into a weather window, but these should be the exception.

Dave, I agree and raise you 3 just for the fun of it!

1) I think 40% of task should be AT tasks and not 10% ;-).

2) I think we should have a 30-60 minute start window and not be able to hang out indefinitely. ;-)

3) I think we should be required to announce our start times (within 10 minutes) so we can feel like we are racing if we meet with a competitor on task (you know, in the 60 mile turn area) ;-). Yep I know this is counter to a proposed rule change.

I do think our tasking is generally quite conservative and not challenging enough for many at regionals. That said, the last two 18 meter Nationals (CD Eric Mozer at Bermuda High and John Godfrey at Minden) were really fun and challenging. I think 4 hours was median. The later had a very difficult job with surprise special airspace and weather challenges. Kudos to the task committees as well.

I guess I am fine with knowing we will at least have challenging tasking at nationals. I am willing to support the conservative tasks at our regionals if it helps maintain and grow contest soaring in the US however. But a zero land out tasking strategy is not realistic or fair either. A novice contest pilot should be comfortable with and expect an occasional land out while learning the sport. Novice pilots (especially) should therefore bring crews. I sure did (land out alot and be sure to bring crews)! Crewless pilots "hands" at first pilots meetings is big pressure on regional CDs....and thats not right.

On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 10:50:06 PM UTC-5, Dave Springford wrote:
The post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but in general, I feel tasks are too short and that the maximum amount of day is not used.

However, there is a significant reason European tasks are longer and it has to do with Latitude. Many European contest sites are in the 50's in Latitude (or hilly/mountain sites) and the soarable day can start as early as 10 am and go as late as 8 pm.

Most US contest sites have Latitudes in the 30's and the soaring doesn't start until at least noon and then is done around 5-6 pm. So by necessity the task times are shorter.

In my opinion 2-2.5 hour tasks are too short and 3-4 hour tasks should be the norm. Of course, there are some days when a short tasks is necessary to fit into a weather window, but these should be the exception.

I actually had two points.

1st: Dave nailed the first point with the duration of tasks being generally twice as long in Europe as in the States. With more time and distance comes more route options.

But 2nd, and more to my intended point: There is a HUGE difference between flying above the mountains (flying from one mountain-peak-thermal to the next while never descending below the peaks) to spending the majority of the task below the peaks over completely unlandable terrain. The choices we have are to fly around the mountains (slow speed, but with many landout options), along the nearest mountains (medium speed, but with limited landout options), or deep in the mountains (fastest speed, with few landout options out of sight and at the limit of gliding distance).

So, my issue was Sean's comment that flying in the mountains was 'simply flying from one mountain thermal to the next.' Perhaps in the American Rockies where you never descend below 10,000 feet that might be true. Come fly the Alps where we're flying at 6,000 feet surrounded by 12,000 foot mountains. We'll see if you still feel that way after just one hour on task.

Chris

On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 11:44:12 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
Dave, I agree and raise you 3 just for the fun of it!

1) I think 40% of task should be AT tasks and not 10% ;-).

2) I think we should have a 30-60 minute start window and not be able to hang out indefinitely. ;-)

3) I think we should be required to announce our start times (within 10 minutes) so we can feel like we are racing if we meet with a competitor on task (you know, in the 60 mile turn area) ;-). Yep I know this is counter to a proposed rule change.

I do think our tasking is generally quite conservative and not challenging enough for many at regionals. That said, the last two 18 meter Nationals (CD Eric Mozer at Bermuda High and John Godfrey at Minden) were really fun and challenging. I think 4 hours was median. The later had a very difficult job with surprise special airspace and weather challenges. Kudos to the task committees as well.

I guess I am fine with knowing we will at least have challenging tasking at nationals. I am willing to support the conservative tasks at our regionals if it helps maintain and grow contest soaring in the US however. But a zero land out tasking strategy is not realistic or fair either. A novice contest pilot should be comfortable with and expect an occasional land out while learning the sport. Novice pilots (especially) should therefore bring crews. I sure did (land out alot and be sure to bring crews)! Crewless pilots "hands" at first pilots meetings is big pressure on regional CDs....and thats not right.

On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 10:50:06 PM UTC-5, Dave Springford wrote:
The post was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but in general, I feel tasks are too short and that the maximum amount of day is not used.

However, there is a significant reason European tasks are longer and it has to do with Latitude. Many European contest sites are in the 50's in Latitude (or hilly/mountain sites) and the soarable day can start as early as 10 am and go as late as 8 pm.

Most US contest sites have Latitudes in the 30's and the soaring doesn't start until at least noon and then is done around 5-6 pm. So by necessity the task times are shorter.

In my opinion 2-2.5 hour tasks are too short and 3-4 hour tasks should be the norm. Of course, there are some days when a short tasks is necessary to fit into a weather window, but these should be the exception.

Sean,

While I agree it would be most fun and interesting to fly assigned tasks using the maximum portion of the day, it is the general consensus by the majority of contest pilots that they don't want to deal with many landouts. If we use an honest-to-god assigned task on a given day, it is likely to end up in landouts in anywhere from 0-half of the fleet. Possibly more if it is REALLY overcalled. (Think about our Condor tasks).

However, that does not necessarily preclude the possibility of using assigned tasks, it's just they need to compromise too to the reality of the US soaring scene. What if the assigned tasks are intentionally slightly under-called to provide landout insurance? Say the nominal distance on a TAT would have been 150 miles on a contest day, and call a 120 mile Assigned Task instead? Sure, for the top tier it would be best to have a racing task that uses the whole day and all, but perhaps by shortening assigned tasks a bit to ensure a higher completion rate, we can have better "racing" than a TAT or MAT while also making it realistic for novices to finish.

Best,
Daniel