Hard Deck

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 9:45:06 AM UTC-5, Michael Opitz wrote:

I think that's a pretty good summary of the issue. You can add
Ray Gimmey to the above list. He won the 1988 STD Nats in
Minden (actually, Klaus Holighaus won, but he was a guest) due
to a very low save on a difficult day. Ray told me that he had
already rolled out on final to land on a dirt road when he hit an
8 Kt thermal and wrapped into it to get home. Ray told me that
he was down around ~100' IIRC.

Yes, Evan, there were no recorders back then, so it is a story, but
I have known Ray to be a pretty "straight shooter" so I have no
reason to doubt his version of this. He told me right after we
landed at Minden.

Here is another story. My father told me how they did it in German
glider contests before WWII. If they got low, they picked a good
plowed field to land in which might also be a thermal generator.
Then, they would dive down and make a high speed low pass over
the field in order to try and break loose/trigger a building thermal
bubble. After the low pass, they would pull up (similar to one of
our high speed flying finishes) and make a circle or two. If the
maneuver was successful, the bubble would have been broken
loose and they would climb away. If not successful, they would
land, as they had already given the field a "close" inspection. I
have not yet tried this method myself, and I don't know if I ever
will, but it is/was a skill set that pilots have used in the past, so
it is probably relevant to this discussion because if one dives
down from above 300', one would violate the proposed "hard
deck" even if one were to zoom back up above it....

RO

Awesome stories! Thanks Mike.

Those are obviously very different scenarios from the ones John has given as examples. Both could easily lead to fatal results even in skilled hands with just a smidge of bad luck. Was Ray's save a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances (it's easiest just to say "NO!")? What I know for sure is that your odds absolutely suck if you fly into sink at 100 agl in a 45 degree bank and 50 kts.

I can see this issue both ways... which is why I'm asking for data. Absent tangible evidence of people doing really dangerous stuff motivated by point

When I see spaghetti traces like the ones in John's report, I don't think "this guy's trying to stay in the contest", I think "this guy is desperately afraid to land for some reason", e.g. bad field, inexperience, borrowed or shared glider, whatever. Helpful to ask the pilot (thanks WH).

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

I looked at all of the 15M podium finishers flight traces (day or overall contest depending on which was made available), going back to 2006. The only really low save I found was Rick Walters on Day 2 at Montague in 2006. His low point appeared to be 567 ft AGL near town over the low ground. Garner came very close at Mifflin in 2012, but his low point of 470 ft AGL was over a 1000 ft MSL ridge. BB got down to 1050 AGL at Hobbs in 2013. P7 down to 958 AGL in Elmira 2015. Retting down to 1213 in Cordele last year. That's the extent of the heroics I could find in 15M and Standard when co-located with 15M. There was a fair amount of rock polishing in the mountain contests. Enough to have me thinking twice about ever doing one! But I think the message is clear: you can do very, very well in soaring without ever having to thermal at 500 ft. Not sure what anyone was doing many decades ago in gliders with ? wing loading is relevant today, but now I'm talking over my pay grade.

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 12:40:04 PM UTC-5, Clay wrote:
I looked at all of the 15M podium finishers flight traces (day or overall contest depending on which was made available), going back to 2006. The only really low save I found was Rick Walters on Day 2 at Montague in 2006. His low point appeared to be 567 ft AGL near town over the low ground. Garner came very close at Mifflin in 2012, but his low point of 470 ft AGL was over a 1000 ft MSL ridge. BB got down to 1050 AGL at Hobbs in 2013. P7 down to 958 AGL in Elmira 2015. Retting down to 1213 in Cordele last year. That's the extent of the heroics I could find in 15M and Standard when co-located with 15M. There was a fair amount of rock polishing in the mountain contests. Enough to have me thinking twice about ever doing one! But I think the message is clear: you can do very, very well in soaring without ever having to thermal at 500 ft. Not sure what anyone was doing many decades ago in gliders with ? wing loading is relevant today, but now I'm talking over my pay grade.

thank you clay! this is basically one of the two things that i'm saying. very few low saves in competition take place below 500 feet. it would be interesting to look at not just the podium, but all competitors. i don't think its a question of just the folks who do well. no one sets out to dive down to 500 feet and find a whopper. the probability of success is low, and the result is usually a very slow speed.

the other thing i'm saying is that imposing a hard deck wont stop someone (like the ray gimmey story) from trying to get away once below the hard deck. so my question is, whats the point?

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 12:40:04 PM UTC-5, Clay wrote:
I looked at all of the 15M podium finishers flight traces (day or overall contest depending on which was made available), going back to 2006. The only really low save I found was Rick Walters on Day 2 at Montague in 2006. His low point appeared to be 567 ft AGL near town over the low ground. Garner came very close at Mifflin in 2012, but his low point of 470 ft AGL was over a 1000 ft MSL ridge. BB got down to 1050 AGL at Hobbs in 2013. P7 down to 958 AGL in Elmira 2015. Retting down to 1213 in Cordele last year. That's the extent of the heroics I could find in 15M and Standard when co-located with 15M. There was a fair amount of rock polishing in the mountain contests. Enough to have me thinking twice about ever doing one! But I think the message is clear: you can do very, very well in soaring without ever having to thermal at 500 ft. Not sure what anyone was doing many decades ago in gliders with ? wing loading is relevant today, but now I'm talking over my pay grade.

Thanks Clay, that's an interesting sample.

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

Dude, this is RAS......logic is hard to find at times......

/sarcasm......

Says the guy that has done stupid stuff at times and tries to make sure others/students don't do the same........

Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 4:59:31 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane

That's what I was thinking. If it basically never happens (more data would be nice), there's little to no cost in terms of contest results. Would be interesting to look at some of those mass landout hopeless WGC days (I'm sure BB remembers Szeged!) to see if those with lower minimums really benefited. After I recover maybe I'll give that a shot. I hope no one has lowered their minimum to 100 ft based on this thread, then this was all for nothing!

On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 2:44:27 PM UTC-8, Clay wrote:
On Friday, February 2, 2018 at 4:59:31 PM UTC-5, John Cochrane wrote:
Thanks for the numbers.

One logical conclusion: Therefore, not giving contest points for racing under 500-1000 feet will have negligible effects on the sporting outcome of the contest.

John Cochrane

That's what I was thinking. If it basically never happens (more data would be nice), there's little to no cost in terms of contest results. Would be interesting to look at some of those mass landout hopeless WGC days (I'm sure BB remembers Szeged!) to see if those with lower minimums really benefited. After I recover maybe I'll give that a shot. I hope no one has lowered their minimum to 100 ft based on this thread, then this was all for nothing!

It would be interesting to see that analysis done over a wider group. To keep from doing too much work, I'd think that all pilots, on slow days (particularly when there were a high percentage landouts) would be enough. Faster days when everyone made it back are unlikely to have low saves, or if there were, the problem was more specific to the pilot than the contest.

"It would be interesting to see that analysis done over a wider group. To keep from doing too much work, I'd think that all pilots, on slow days (particularly when there were a high percentage landouts) would be enough. Faster days when everyone made it back are unlikely to have low saves, or if there were, the problem was more specific to the pilot than the contest."

I wonder who has more significant crashes, newbies or experience pilots. For what ever reason, as I sit here thinking, most of the serious to fatal crashes I can think of had been pilots with allot of experience.

I had heard that when you get to around 500 hours you need extra caution - it is enough to believe you have the skill but not enough to forget what got you there.

WH

Bill, I thought it was 100hrs, but, whatever.
Yes, complacency and, "I can do that" possibly coupled with, "I got away with it before, surely I can do it yet another time....".

As I said before, rules can't fix stupid. Whether a one time bad decision for whatever reason, or a symptom of poor judgement (that hopefully others locally point out on the side.....), rules don't fix stupid.
Continued training does.
Calling out someone to the CD/CM at a contest, talking to high time pilots/CFIG's locally "may" change someone's thought patterns.
Maybe not.
You know me, you know the active CFIG's at your home field, if you feel there is an issue, go talk to them.