Hard Deck

In my informal and formal polling, among people who fly contests, safety is far down on the list.

The major safety concern is that "some other bozo will run in to me," hence you can get some interest about midairs, including flarm and procedures to help avoid midairs like not setting out and return assigned tasks. Note that its always the other bozo. Midairs are far, far, down the list of actual accident causes but by far the main -- if not only -- concern of most pilots. Other refinements of the rules for safety, removing points incentives for risks, such as high finishes are down in the tar and feather and drive you out of town realm of unpopularity.

Complaining about complexity is very high on the list, until you propose measures that would actually help complexity. Eliminate the complex graduated penalties? Well, we don't like complexity but not that one. And so it goes..

John Cochrane

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 3:26:01 PM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:
In my informal and formal polling, among people who fly contests, safety is far down on the list.


But those are preselected as the ones who have accepted the risk. Ask the ones who don't fly contests why they don't.

The rules aren't any more complicated than many other sports. Certainly not as complicated as sailing. The scoring on the other hand is pegged at the complex end of sports. So, yes, a scoring overhaul seems like a good idea.

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 9:51:44 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:

But those are preselected as the ones who have accepted the risk. Ask the ones who don't fly contests why they don't.

The reason I don't enter a race at the local ski hill is "I don't know how to do that safely". It's nothing to do with the sport, which although clearly dangerous, is "safe enough" in the hands of the appropriately skilled. If there isn't a large element of this in the responses you have summarized... there probably should be. Not all racing venues are beginner friendly..

There are many ways that you could create a beginner friendly racing environment in e.g. the Sierras, and you have suggested a few yourself. If anyone is inclined to do this, why not give it a try on a non-sanctioned basis? There's no need to change the rules for the rest of the world for this.

Or perhaps your friends just aren't interested in racing.

Evan Ludeman / T8

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 4:07:14 AM UTC-8, Tango Eight wrote:
On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 9:51:44 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:

But those are preselected as the ones who have accepted the risk. Ask the ones who don't fly contests why they don't.

The reason I don't enter a race at the local ski hill is "I don't know how to do that safely". It's nothing to do with the sport, which although clearly dangerous, is "safe enough" in the hands of the appropriately skilled.. If there isn't a large element of this in the responses you have summarized... there probably should be. Not all racing venues are beginner friendly.

There are many ways that you could create a beginner friendly racing environment in e.g. the Sierras, and you have suggested a few yourself. If anyone is inclined to do this, why not give it a try on a non-sanctioned basis? There's no need to change the rules for the rest of the world for this.

Or perhaps your friends just aren't interested in racing.

Evan Ludeman / T8

Something is keeping pilots from racing in droves. The pilots I have asked will (and often do) fly the same terrain on the same day - they aren't beginners and this is not beginner terrain where we fly. Several have participated in a few races, then quit doing so because they felt they needed to violate their minimum safety criteria to have any chance. You can't have it both ways: "if you don't like it don't race" and "we want more people to race".

The idea that folks should show up, pay the entry fee, take the time off, just to participate for fun using a different standard of safety with the knowledge that this will make them uncompetitive isn't attractive to a lot of pilots. They can go fly and have a nice cross country day anytime, anywhere, without any of that.

By keeping the sport confined to your definition of pure, you are making it vanish. In almost all speed sports, rules have been put in place to curtail extreme behavior for the sake of fair and safe competition. Why is soaring so different?

Something is keeping pilots from racing in droves. The pilots I have asked will (and often do) fly the same terrain on the same day - they aren't beginners and this is not beginner terrain where we fly. Several have participated in a few races, then quit doing so because they felt they needed to violate their minimum safety criteria to have any chance. You can't have it both ways: "if you don't like it don't race" and "we want more people to race".

The idea that folks should show up, pay the entry fee, take the time off, just to participate for fun using a different standard of safety with the knowledge that this will make them uncompetitive isn't attractive to a lot of pilots. They can go fly and have a nice cross country day anytime, anywhere, without any of that.

By keeping the sport confined to your definition of pure, you are making it vanish. In almost all speed sports, rules have been put in place to curtail extreme behavior for the sake of fair and safe competition. Why is soaring so different?

P3 has floated the idea of skill/experience-based classes. When I road-raced motorcycles, that was the system. It is fun to race against people of similar experience, and not be getting stuffed by the fast guys in every corner. The trophies come quicker too. In soaring, even in Sports Class, you'll be competing against WGC caliber pilots. Kinda exciting, but not so much when you get smoked by 20 mph. But I don't know if we really have the level of participation to do this kind of format, or even if it would solve anything.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 2:12:45 PM UTC-5, Clay wrote:
Something is keeping pilots from racing in droves. The pilots I have asked will (and often do) fly the same terrain on the same day - they aren't beginners and this is not beginner terrain where we fly. Several have participated in a few races, then quit doing so because they felt they needed to violate their minimum safety criteria to have any chance. You can't have it both ways: "if you don't like it don't race" and "we want more people to race".

The idea that folks should show up, pay the entry fee, take the time off, just to participate for fun using a different standard of safety with the knowledge that this will make them uncompetitive isn't attractive to a lot of pilots. They can go fly and have a nice cross country day anytime, anywhere, without any of that.

By keeping the sport confined to your definition of pure, you are making it vanish. In almost all speed sports, rules have been put in place to curtail extreme behavior for the sake of fair and safe competition. Why is soaring so different?

P3 has floated the idea of skill/experience-based classes. When I road-raced motorcycles, that was the system. It is fun to race against people of similar experience, and not be getting stuffed by the fast guys in every corner. The trophies come quicker too. In soaring, even in Sports Class, you'll be competing against WGC caliber pilots. Kinda exciting, but not so much when you get smoked by 20 mph. But I don't know if we really have the level of participation to do this kind of format, or even if it would solve anything.

that's how you learn man! nothing like going and flying the same task as sarah arnold, and she beats you by 5MPH raw speed in her ASW15 while you flew a discus CS. makes you feel like the biggest idiot in the world!

an old saying comes to mind: "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." basically i disagree with skill or experience based contest classes outside of the current separation (regionals vs. nationals). i feel like it will inhibit personal growth as pilots. i know that i became a better pilot by flying against pilots who were better than i am. matter of fact, i'm still doing it. safely completing a regional's gives you all the tools you need to fly safely in a nationals. and all of us a responsible to sit out a mission we aren't comfortable with, or that we feel is outside of our capacity to handle. i see it all the time. people sat out certain ridge tasks at the sports class nationals this past year. in my first contest, i didn't attempt one of the tasks, because i thought the cloud was too low for me to be comfortable.

that's how you learn man! nothing like going and flying the same task as sarah arnold, and she beats you by 5MPH raw speed in her ASW15 while you flew a discus CS. makes you feel like the biggest idiot in the world!

an old saying comes to mind: "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." basically i disagree with skill or experience based contest classes outside of the current separation (regionals vs. nationals). i feel like it will inhibit personal growth as pilots. i know that i became a better pilot by flying against pilots who were better than i am. matter of fact, i'm still doing it. safely completing a regional's gives you all the tools you need to fly safely in a nationals. and all of us a responsible to sit out a mission we aren't comfortable with, or that we feel is outside of our capacity to handle. i see it all the time. people sat out certain ridge tasks at the sports class nationals this past year. in my first contest, i didn't attempt one of the tasks, because i thought the cloud was too low for me to be comfortable.

I basically agree with everything you've said (and have been beaten, repeatedly, by Sarah in that 15), the question is is there a pool of pilots out there who are not competing, but would if there were skill-based classes. I doubt it, but might be worth exploring if we haven't already.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 11:12:45 AM UTC-8, Clay wrote:
Something is keeping pilots from racing in droves. The pilots I have asked will (and often do) fly the same terrain on the same day - they aren't beginners and this is not beginner terrain where we fly. Several have participated in a few races, then quit doing so because they felt they needed to violate their minimum safety criteria to have any chance. You can't have it both ways: "if you don't like it don't race" and "we want more people to race".

The idea that folks should show up, pay the entry fee, take the time off, just to participate for fun using a different standard of safety with the knowledge that this will make them uncompetitive isn't attractive to a lot of pilots. They can go fly and have a nice cross country day anytime, anywhere, without any of that.

By keeping the sport confined to your definition of pure, you are making it vanish. In almost all speed sports, rules have been put in place to curtail extreme behavior for the sake of fair and safe competition. Why is soaring so different?

P3 has floated the idea of skill/experience-based classes. When I road-raced motorcycles, that was the system. It is fun to race against people of similar experience, and not be getting stuffed by the fast guys in every corner. The trophies come quicker too. In soaring, even in Sports Class, you'll be competing against WGC caliber pilots. Kinda exciting, but not so much when you get smoked by 20 mph. But I don't know if we really have the level of participation to do this kind of format, or even if it would solve anything.

To be clear, experience is not the issue in the pilots I mention. However the local racing events run at our glider port are handicapped by pilot skill. (I can hear the gasps and harrumpfs already.) It isn't a perfect system, but gives the hope - and sometime the reality - that a less experienced pilot can win or place. It is self correcting in that the handicap is increased with wins or places so it becomes harder to win as the pilot goes faster.. This makes everyone try harder. This has definitely increased participation as it challenges everyone, skilled and novice.

The original notion of sports class was to keep the high rated pilots out, but that got thrown away in the interest of filling the grid.

Along this line, and only in region 2 AFAIK.....there were "little guys meets". These were run on 2 successive weekends (no vacation time) and were broken into silver and gold classes.
I believe they were handicapped in both classes, did the full "regional contest routine" (pilots meetings, tasking, turnpoints, final reporting, everything) EXCEPT it was not a sanctioned contest so no points on the line.
The dividing line was basically level of SSA badge until you "overflew the silver class" and were bumped into the gold class.
So yes, a glass gold pilot may be up against Ron Schwartz in his 1-26, Ron may very well win a day!

This was a good way to get started, I know, that was my first couple "contests". I believe P3 and others in the area did the same.
This was waaaayyyyyyy before "rookie camps" as run in some locations now.

I think both have a place as a starter to contests.
Part of it is, when you may not fly on a local given day, a "contest" means, "go fly, do your best".

I know several at our club (WH and others) were brought up with this mindset. While I have not flown much recently, I used to drag peeps out on a lot of days just to "go somewhere" as well as Hank and others.
Heck, sometimes I went "blasting off" in our 1-26 (sn002) prompting glass guys to follow. Figured my performance handicap would make others feel better following in a 30-40:1 ship compared to the "light wing floater".

I have no good answer to elevating contest participation.
I know there was a time that for me, work travel, family stuff (2 growing kids), etc. made it hard to go to contests.
Since then, lack of currency (my past comment that our "rule" was 40+Hrs in that ship, that season before contest day 1) was sorely tested.
Frankly, I don't do 40hrs a season now......hope to change that.

Just sorta watching to see where peeps are going with this, adding comments as I think fits.

Carry on.

Seems there are good ideas ...... and the only thing you know is "if you do the same thing you will get the same result"

What is to stop any CD from making a Hard Deck at any Regional (maybe without penalties to begin with, just verbal flogging) - see if it draws people or if the pilots like it - was it safer.

Why must we buy it when we can rent it first. Seems to me Regional s is we need to experiment more.

Rules are what competion is all about - imagine a chess game where you move any piece how ever you feel - it is about optimizing performance within the constraint of the Rules - without Rules, you have an outing not a contest.

WH