Hard Deck

This thread is very thought provoking. I wish to declare a principal: I am
against excessive rule making.

I am of the opinion that it is down to the director to look for and
intervene when he / she sees unsafe behaviour and then have the authority,
and balls, to sanction or disqualify the pilots that take disproportionate
risk.

Jim

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 2:15:07 PM UTC-7, Jim White wrote:
This thread is very thought provoking. I wish to declare a principal: I am
against excessive rule making.

I am of the opinion that it is down to the director to look for and
intervene when he / she sees unsafe behaviour and then have the authority,
and balls, to sanction or disqualify the pilots that take disproportionate
risk.

Jim

Precisely. I have a proposal that I think addresses BB's issue without any new rules. Here's how...

We already have the rules that we need:

10.9.1.4 Pilots must pay particular attention to safety during the process of finishing, landing, and rolling to a stop. A pilot whose
finish, pattern, landing, or rollout is deemed unsafe by the CD is subject to a penalty for unsafe operation (¶ 12.2.5.1).

12.2.5.1 Unsafe operation (including all phases of flight and ground operation) (¶ 10.9.1.4, ¶ 10.9.3.4): maximum penalty = disqualification.

In the rules guide or by declaration of the contest CD, it shall be overtly recognized that thermalling in the flats (wherever there isn't a lower escape) at or below 300 feet is defined to be unsafe.

It will be recognized that an assessment of low thermalling can be made if and only if the glider lands within 30 minutes of the time of the infraction such that the flight recorder will have a presumed to be valid pressure reference. The proposed penalty may be 200 points for a first infraction, for example; and perhaps zero for the day on a second infraction.

In practice, when the scorer has time to address the matter, he will examine the flight logs of pilots who have landed out to determine whether any low thermalling had occured within the 30 minutes prior interval. If he finds such, he brings the data to the attention of the CD. The CD makes a penalty assessment taking into consideration the data presented and any other relevant factors.

This would create a strong motivation in the cockpit to not take a chance of losing a lot of points on a low save attempt that probably won't work anyway. We all know that recovery attempts at a very low altitude are quite unlikely to succeed. The cockpit calculus changes in exactly the way that BB (and most all us) desires to reduce the occurence of spin-in accidents.

With this, we avoid a lot of new rules and complication. Our flying liberty is not grossly impacted. With a 300 foot standard, most pilots would be motivated to break off at around 500 or 600 feet because they would not be able to precisely judge where the 300 foot AGL point would be and are motivated to not take a chance on the points loss.

All of my numbers here are just for example. My numbers might be refined by more careful consideration or even adjusted at the discretion of the CD for different sites.

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 2:30:46 PM UTC-8, Steve Koerner wrote:
On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 2:15:07 PM UTC-7, Jim White wrote:
This thread is very thought provoking. I wish to declare a principal: I am
against excessive rule making.

I am of the opinion that it is down to the director to look for and
intervene when he / she sees unsafe behaviour and then have the authority,
and balls, to sanction or disqualify the pilots that take disproportionate
risk.

Jim

Precisely. I have a proposal that I think addresses BB's issue without any new rules. Here's how...

We already have the rules that we need:

10.9.1.4 Pilots must pay particular attention to safety during the process of finishing, landing, and rolling to a stop. A pilot whose
finish, pattern, landing, or rollout is deemed unsafe by the CD is subject to a penalty for unsafe operation (¶ 12.2.5.1).

12.2.5.1 Unsafe operation (including all phases of flight and ground operation) (¶ 10.9.1.4, ¶ 10.9.3.4): maximum penalty = disqualification.

In the rules guide or by declaration of the contest CD, it shall be overtly recognized that thermalling in the flats (wherever there isn't a lower escape) at or below 300 feet is defined to be unsafe.

It will be recognized that an assessment of low thermalling can be made if and only if the glider lands within 30 minutes of the time of the infraction such that the flight recorder will have a presumed to be valid pressure reference. The proposed penalty may be 200 points for a first infraction, for example; and perhaps zero for the day on a second infraction.

In practice, when the scorer has time to address the matter, he will examine the flight logs of pilots who have landed out to determine whether any low thermalling had occured within the 30 minutes prior interval. If he finds such, he brings the data to the attention of the CD. The CD makes a penalty assessment taking into consideration the data presented and any other relevant factors.

This would create a strong motivation in the cockpit to not take a chance of losing a lot of points on a low save attempt that probably won't work anyway. We all know that recovery attempts at a very low altitude are quite unlikely to succeed. The cockpit calculus changes in exactly the way that BB (and most all us) desires to reduce the occurence of spin-in accidents..

With this, we avoid a lot of new rules and complication. Our flying liberty is not grossly impacted. With a 300 foot standard, most pilots would be motivated to break off at around 500 or 600 feet because they would not be able to precisely judge where the 300 foot AGL point would be and are motivated to not take a chance on the points loss.

All of my numbers here are just for example. My numbers might be refined by more careful consideration or even adjusted at the discretion of the CD for different sites.

Steve, I don't think that addresses John's issue, and certainly not mine. Once a guy has landed out, he's taken a big points hit. This would reward even lower circling, hoping that you would get away and not be subject to scrutiny and a penalty. If you make the save at 200', you've saved the day and your contest position and are not subject to your proposed penalty. The more prudent pilot that stopped at 800' and landed, did neither and is punished for it.

If the CD already has authority here, then could this be a process to use it?

It counts as landing to fly anywhere at less than X feet AGL without having enough speed to pull up to X feet and be above Y airspeed. (X = 500 feet, Y=60Knots, with a simple chart for the pullup?) The goal being to limit low thermaling and low and slow passes across ridges but still allow flight near terrain.

When you publish the IGC, you also have to publish your landing plan for the whole flight. (For each part of the flight, the area you planned to land and how you were going to get there with energy you had (as opposed to hoped to get) when you committed to that option.) Any pilot can ask for clarification on this and the CD can then access penalties.

In addition, experiment with an occasional safety SUA for specific issues.

Steve, I don't think that addresses John's issue, and certainly not mine. Once a guy has landed out, he's taken a big points hit. This would reward even lower circling, hoping that you would get away and not be subject to scrutiny and a penalty. If you make the save at 200', you've saved the day and your contest position and are not subject to your proposed penalty. The more prudent pilot that stopped at 800' and landed, did neither and is punished for it.

Here's how the calculus will work in the cockpit: If I circle below 300 ft, I will have a 10% chance of getting away and gaining 400 points; at the same time, I will have a 90% chance of losing 200 points. I'm pretty sure that 200 points is plenty enough to make that an easy choice -- that would make for a net expectation of -140 points. Clearly, it could be an even easier choice if the penalty were made larger. I don't think it needs to be larger.

And, normally a landout costs less than 400 points compared to a finisher -- that number, of course, is variable but representative. My 10% number is variable too, but I think it would also be representative of what anyone might reasonably be expecting from a try at 300 ft. Right?

On Sunday, January 28, 2018 at 4:39:48 PM UTC-8, Steve Koerner wrote:
Steve, I don't think that addresses John's issue, and certainly not mine. Once a guy has landed out, he's taken a big points hit. This would reward even lower circling, hoping that you would get away and not be subject to scrutiny and a penalty. If you make the save at 200', you've saved the day and your contest position and are not subject to your proposed penalty. The more prudent pilot that stopped at 800' and landed, did neither and is punished for it.

Here's how the calculus will work in the cockpit: If I circle below 300 ft, I will have a 10% chance of getting away and gaining 400 points; at the same time, I will have a 90% chance of losing 200 points. I'm pretty sure that 200 points is plenty enough to make that an easy choice -- that would make for a net expectation of -140 points. Clearly, it could be an even easier choice if the penalty were made larger. I don't think it needs to be larger.

And, normally a landout costs less than 400 points compared to a finisher -- that number, of course, is variable but representative. My 10% number is variable too, but I think it would also be representative of what anyone might reasonably be expecting from a try at 300 ft. Right?

OK, I'm feeling it a little more, with respect to safety aspects of circling that low. I'm still not feeling it with respect to any reduction of reward/risk in situations where 300 ft is already 3000 ft too low. In Per Carlin's proposal, it still seems as complicated as SUAs, especially if you are going to raise and lower the limit based on area - this is just like an SUA, though locally ground referenced rather than pressure referenced.

But those arguments have clarified in my mind that there are two or perhaps several distinct issues. One is to remove the reward for circling below pattern altitude near a landing site - this seems to apply mostly to the east where heights are low and landing sites more plentiful. It addresses both the safety and competitive advantage aspects of that behavior. Another is overflying unlandable areas too low. This may not involve circling at all, and might be quite high considered in isolation. This is more likely the situation in the west, where altitudes are high but landing areas are far between.

I consider both circling at 300 ft, and flying deep into unlandable territory to low to escape - even if perhaps high on the altimeter - to be unacceptable risks. If the expected lift does not materialize, the only difference in outcome is the end point of the latter is delayed a few minutes. But in considering the latter I seem to be in the minority. I gather from this that most competition pilots consider overflying unlandable territory too low to escape to be an acceptable risk of competition.

Jon, I doubt anyone would disagree with the proposition that gliding too low over unlandable terrain is a bigger issue than guys trying for an excessively low save. The thing is that there is nothing practical to be done about excessively bold gliding (see my above post at 8:41 AM). Being excessively bold does come in every shade of grey and is not amenable to legislation.. Guys that are so afflicted, do eventually break a glider and get recalibrated. In the meantime, picking our own landout option is about the most elemental thing we do. The fact is, that, every vehicular sport has its dangerous edges.

For the 300 ft problem, the suggestion here is that we do have a way we can address that particular hazard without needing to go nuclear with new rules and constraints.

Hey look someone already solved this problem, and whole bunch of other ones. Welcome to the future of glider racing, no low thermaling, no breaking gliders in crash fields, no retrieve crew.
http://worldairgames.aero/airsports/gliding