Hard Deck

What P3 said. Despite the impressive Reg. 2 numbers, most soaring pilots DON'T want to fly contests...for various reasons. No problem, unless they're misinformed about what really goes on at a contest. That's possible; there's still a problem with the nagging rumor that when bad weather puts the whole contest in doubt, the pilot with the lowest cumulative score at that point is offered up as a human sacrifice hoping for sun.

When I hear that a lot of pilots elsewhere mention safety as a big impediment, I suspect some survey bias. Not just "is the need to compromise your safety and incur added risks in contest flying a big reason why you don't do it?" Safety is a concern for all. But it's also a socially acceptable way to decline without worrying about coming across as timid or fearful. I'm not saying everyone who cites safety is being dishonest with him/herself or with others. But competitive gliding is stressful, expensive, time consuming, frustrating, depressing at times, selfish.... I could on (to the point of talking myself out of flying this year!). But you REALLY have to want to do it to overcome all the practical reasons not to.

Frankly, if a pilot tried it once and didn't come back because of safety, I would suspect gaggle flying more than anything. You don't encounter that density and intensity outside of competition. The risks of landing out are also perceived negatively by almost everyone no matter your experience.

Yes, competitive soaring has inherent risks. That's not the same as assuming that if we implemented a wholesale hard deck, launch grids around the country would suddenly fill up like free seats at the Super Bowl. Gaggle and landout risks would remain.

Contest pilots I know ARE worried about safety. And potential midairs are high on the list--with good reason. They're (fortunately) rare. But almost all of my near disasters have involved close encounters with other gliders. That's why most contest pilots bought into FLARM.

Just my opinion.

Chip Bearden

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 5:39:30 PM UTC-5, wrote:
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

I really believe that imposing a hard deck will not draw anyone new to contests. I think they simply don't care about it. if they want to compete, the absence of a hard deck isn't what's holding them back. if we are talking about a pilot who doesn't want to compete, there's not one single one out there who abstains from competition because there's no hard deck. no, i don't think a hard deck and contest participation have any correlation. The effect will be this: Imposing oa hard deck will **** off a bunch of current active competitors. they won't stop racing because of it though.

what would the hard deck be? I think they tossed out the number 500 AGL. i am wholeheartedly against the hard deck idea, but 500 agl seems like a reasonable number. i maintain that just because there's a hard deck, it won't stop people from circling below it if they think they have a fighting chance to stay out of a field. over an airport, maybe it's a different story. so if the hard deck doesn't prevent bad behavior, what does it do? it punishes people. punishments are designed to dissuade people from doing "bad" things. but this won't stop people from circling below the hard deck, so why instate it?

I want to get one more thing out the

Out of all the hours of contest flights flown each year, how many minutes of circling is really done below the proposed hard deck?

Out of all the people who get below 500 feet agl in contests each year, how many of them attempted to circle? i'm going to stick my neck out an say extremely few.

See, what i'm saying is that you are chasing a miniscule figure with the hard deck idea. You'll say, "if it saves even one life it's worth it". you're not wrong. i agree that saving lives is important. i think it would be much more effective to police it by confronting the individuals who seem to be the big offenders.

I'm going to say this. and before i do i want to remind everyone that i'm a new dad, and i'm not into taking unnecessary risks. i'm careful. nothing ****es me off more than seeing someone get onto the airport and not get speed points, UNLESS their approach to the field was actually scary. equally, if someone was able to make a low save and make it home, but just barely busted the hard deck in doing so, can you imagine? they made it around in my eyes. and yes i acknowledge the fact that there was some risk there. but if the pilot has the skills and is willing to accept the risk, i have no problem with it. if i see john seymour (for example, although maybe he wouldn't) circling at 480 feet at a flatland site, over a great field, i've got nothing to say about it. now if a 19 year old flying his first nationals did the same thing.... i have a problem, hard deck or not.

"Something is keeping pilots from racing in droves" from up-thread.

First off, I have no dog in this fight. I have never entered a competition and, likely, never will. I can't comment on the safety aspect and how that would impact my decision to race. I did fly in the back seat with KS once at a regional and found the whole thing to be an awesome experience and not the least bit worrying from a safety standpoint. I even thought, "I should give this racing thing a shot." Then, the real reason I don't race woke me from my fantasy. I simply don't have the time or the money to dedicate a week to when the whole thing (or a significant portion thereof) might be a washout. I submit that the cost in both time and money is what keeps the droves of glider pilots at their home airports, not safety. That may convince people to stop racing but I doubt it impacts their decision on whether or not to start. Sorry for the thread drift.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 3:05:44 PM UTC-5, wrote:
"Something is keeping pilots from racing in droves" from up-thread.


This comes up periodically along with a lot of heart-felt opinions. Below is a note to the US RC that I sent about 6 years ago based on an actual online survey with a statistically significant percentage of potential racing pilots in NY/NJ/PA. It's a bit long, but the conclusion is that there isn't one primary reason folks (at least here in the East) don't compete. The single biggest reason was that people don't have the time to go spend a week at a contest (especially if it gets rained out) given all of the other competing demands for time and money.

Here's the full note. I can make the actual Survey Monkey raw data available should anyone be interested.


Hey guys,

Just passing along the results of a survey I put together last year. The objective was to find out a) if there were a lot of potential racing gliders in our local area that were sitting around in trailers and hangars not doing much and b) why the owners of those gliders weren't participating in races. The results were interesting and a little surprising in some ways and pretty predictable in others. Figured you guys might be interested as having some hard data (albeit from only one region) that might lead to better informed priorities.

I started out by going to every glider operation in Region 2 asking the leaders to help get me in touch with folks who owned gliders. This covered primarily Wurtsboro, Middletown, Blairstown, Van Sant, Beltzville, PGC, Brandywine, and Morgantown. Figure that's eastern PA, NJ, and Southeastern NY.. I cross-checked that against the FAA database of registered gliders in those states. I think I was able to "find" about 2/3 of the registered gliders based in this area along with their owners/pilots. I definitely think I got the majority of glass single place ships covered (figuring those are the most likely to be used for XC and racing). So, while not complete, the survey should at least be statistically significant.

The survey and results are in the attached spreadsheet. I haven't tried to make it pretty, but I did grab screenshots from the survey in the PDF. Here's the big pictu

- 66 glider owners responded.
- 2/3 of those claim to "regularly" fly XC (more than 50KM from the home field). I thought that was a pleasant surprise; I would've figured half or less. We've been working for at least 15 years in Region 2 to drive participation in the OLC and local contests, so maybe that's having some impact.
- About half claim to participate in local/online contests (OLC and the Governor's Cup)
- Almost the same number claim to have particpated in an SSA Sanctioned contest in the last 3 years. That was surprising... half the people who own a glider in our area say they flew a contest. I did a little cross checking and the ranking list, and those numbers seem to be plausible. I suspect that's better than in many other regions.
- When I tried to get at the "why you don't participate" reasons, the results were fairly scattered. If you look at only the "Top 3 Reasons" (i.e. those that were ranked as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd roadblock), it was in order:
* Time
* Something Else
* Rainouts

The "Something Else" was set up to let folks give their thoughts/concerns, so the answers are all over the map. The results are similar if you look at only the Top 2 reasons. The something else freeform responses are included in the spreadsheet.

My takeaway here is that there's not some silver bullet that would suddenly increase particpation. HOWEVER, it does suggest that rules/fairness/competition concerns that tend to occupy the minds of the hardcore racing pilot are (not surprisingly) not nearly as important to the fence sitters. IF we're serious about increasing participation (and if that's the charter of the Rules Committee or the SRA or some other interested group), the lessons seem to be:

- Test out more long-weekend races or other formats that minimize having to take long vacations.
- Create a structure that would allow newbies and folks with families to feel comfortable (e.g. the Mifflin beginner's contests, Caesar Creek XC and Racing Camp, etc.)
- Create a more structured marketing and awareness campaign targeted at the potential competitors. For instance, I think a list comprising pilots who ARE on the OLC list with some reasonable number of points (say 750 or more) and are NOT on the SSA Ranking List would be a great place to start using publicly available data.

Enjoy. This gave me something to do on a very cold November day!

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 1:23:17 PM UTC-8, Papa3 wrote:
snip
My takeaway here is that there's not some silver bullet that would suddenly increase particpation. HOWEVER, it does suggest that rules/fairness/competition concerns that tend to occupy the minds of the hardcore racing pilot are (not surprisingly) not nearly as important to the fence sitters. IF we're serious about increasing participation (and if that's the charter of the Rules Committee or the SRA or some other interested group), the lessons seem to be:

- Test out more long-weekend races or other formats that minimize having to take long vacations.
- Create a structure that would allow newbies and folks with families to feel comfortable (e.g. the Mifflin beginner's contests, Caesar Creek XC and Racing Camp, etc.)
- Create a more structured marketing and awareness campaign targeted at the potential competitors. For instance, I think a list comprising pilots who ARE on the OLC list with some reasonable number of points (say 750 or more) and are NOT on the SSA Ranking List would be a great place to start using publicly available data.


A little data goes a long way.

Some additional food for thought.

Of the 450-odd pilots on the Pilot Ranking List (having flown at least one contest in the past three years):

- 40% flew only one contest in three years
- 20% flew two contests
- 20% flew an average of one contest per year
- 20% flew an average of 2.25 contests per year

That means 112 pilots represent 50% of the contest entries and 224 pilots represent three-quarters of the contest entries. That's pretty concentrated.

Over the past dozen years:
- The number of pilots on the PRL has fallen by an average of 2.6% per year, or twelve pilots per year
- The number of contest entries per year had fallen by 3.5% per year, or 15 entries

I'd guess that there are another couple hundred who are still active but haven't competed in the past three years. I'd be curious to compare that list to the active OLC list and de-dupe it to see who are the obvious candidates and whether there is a racing value proposition that might appeal.

A few years ago, the RC invited local OLC pilots gather one evening during the RC meeting. The anecdotal evidence is that the most active OLC pilots decline to race for reasons that seem quite different from Erik's survey, so I for one would be interested in learning more form a broader group of OLC (or other XC) pilots.

Another datapoint is that we saw pretty good uptake in pilots flying the daily racing task at the last Nephi OLC event. I think some of this is that there was only daily, rather than cumulative, scoring so pilots didn't feel pressure to fly every day (or submit their scores even if they did).

I'd also be very interested to see a mixed Regional/OLC event - more participants would certainly help organizer economics and it's a good opportunity for neophytes to "ride along" with racers.

Andy Blackburn
9B

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.

Really, and a hard deck would make them come? If safety is a concern for some folks they should set their own minimums and participate. No one forces anyone to take risks. During one National contest I withdrew because I was not willing to break my own minimums. Let's be real here.

On Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 7:48:26 AM UTC-5, Andrzej Kobus 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.

Really, and a hard deck would make them come? If safety is a concern for some folks they should set their own minimums and participate. No one forces anyone to take risks. During one National contest I withdrew because I was not willing to break my own minimums. Let's be real here.

I completely agree
Well said
UH