Reducing collision hazard at contests

On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 1:08:49 PM UTC-7, Steve Koerner wrote:
Here's a conceptually simple idea for contest pilots to rattle around... I believe it would be highly effective at reducing dangerous big gaggles that happen during contests. The desirables are that it doesn't damage the sport, it's effective at improving safety, it's easy to understand and it's easy to implement.

The idea is inspired by the blog comments from one of the collision pilots at the recent Hahnweide contest where dense gaggles did lead to a mid-air (fortunately in that incident all 3 pilots successfully parachuted).

Let's require flarm log files from all contestants. Let's designate a 1 point penalty whenever a glider comes within 400 feet horizontal and 150 feet vertical of any other glider. For any pair of gliders that come within penalty range, both are docked 1 point without regard to who approached who.. After 5 minutes, the same two gliders will be docked again if they come within penalty range again.

A 400 foot horizontal rule would allow two gliders to safely fly across from one another in a thermal without penalty. Perhaps three gliders could fly together in a thermal if they space out and open the circle. Most likely, though, penalty points would result if more than three gliders attempt to thermal at the same level.

The effect would be to de-motivate gaggle flying. Everyone would want to avoid crowds before the start and on task in order to keep his penalty count low. Pilots would be caused to fly their own machine and think for themselves and that would make for a better test of soaring skill afterall.

That's called a gaggle. You might as well penalize all the pilots before they launch.

Tom

On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 9:56:41 PM UTC-7, 2G wrote:
On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 1:08:49 PM UTC-7, Steve Koerner wrote:
Here's a conceptually simple idea for contest pilots to rattle around.... I believe it would be highly effective at reducing dangerous big gaggles that happen during contests. The desirables are that it doesn't damage the sport, it's effective at improving safety, it's easy to understand and it's easy to implement.

The idea is inspired by the blog comments from one of the collision pilots at the recent Hahnweide contest where dense gaggles did lead to a mid-air (fortunately in that incident all 3 pilots successfully parachuted).

Let's require flarm log files from all contestants. Let's designate a 1 point penalty whenever a glider comes within 400 feet horizontal and 150 feet vertical of any other glider. For any pair of gliders that come within penalty range, both are docked 1 point without regard to who approached who. After 5 minutes, the same two gliders will be docked again if they come within penalty range again.

A 400 foot horizontal rule would allow two gliders to safely fly across from one another in a thermal without penalty. Perhaps three gliders could fly together in a thermal if they space out and open the circle. Most likely, though, penalty points would result if more than three gliders attempt to thermal at the same level.

The effect would be to de-motivate gaggle flying. Everyone would want to avoid crowds before the start and on task in order to keep his penalty count low. Pilots would be caused to fly their own machine and think for themselves and that would make for a better test of soaring skill afterall.

That's called a gaggle. You might as well penalize all the pilots before they launch.

Tom

2G: I don't understand what you are trying to say. Yes, my expectation is that most everybody would probably end up getting at least a few penalty points each day despite trying to avoid flying too close to others. This would not usually
affect results in a significant way -- just a little dither of a few points that would be a function of how attentive you are to the issue.
Steve

Contest have been won by 1 point.

P9

IGC document is an interesting read. Didn't see any reference to
calibration of barometric logger heights. The study used a vertical
encounter threshold of 15M. Most loggers are out by at least this much.

Jim

On Tuesday, May 15, 2018 at 3:15:06 AM UTC-4, Jim White wrote:
IGC document is an interesting read. Didn't see any reference to
calibration of barometric logger heights. The study used a vertical
encounter threshold of 15M. Most loggers are out by at least this much.

Jim

They talk about that in para 6.4:
"Other enhancements could include:
- Making use of GNSS estimated position error. Note that for vehicles close to each other, they are likely to have similar satellite visibility, subject to similar atmospheric effects, and therefore have similar position error — meaning that their relative separation erroris likely to be smaller than the position error magnitude.
- Making use of expected barometric error due to pressure sensor calibration drift and position error (variation due to cockpit interior static pressure)."

On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 10:25:28 PM UTC-7, Steve Koerner wrote:
On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 9:56:41 PM UTC-7, 2G wrote:
On Monday, May 14, 2018 at 1:08:49 PM UTC-7, Steve Koerner wrote:
Here's a conceptually simple idea for contest pilots to rattle around.... I believe it would be highly effective at reducing dangerous big gaggles that happen during contests. The desirables are that it doesn't damage the sport, it's effective at improving safety, it's easy to understand and it's easy to implement.

The idea is inspired by the blog comments from one of the collision pilots at the recent Hahnweide contest where dense gaggles did lead to a mid-air (fortunately in that incident all 3 pilots successfully parachuted).

Let's require flarm log files from all contestants. Let's designate a 1 point penalty whenever a glider comes within 400 feet horizontal and 150 feet vertical of any other glider. For any pair of gliders that come within penalty range, both are docked 1 point without regard to who approached who. After 5 minutes, the same two gliders will be docked again if they come within penalty range again.

A 400 foot horizontal rule would allow two gliders to safely fly across from one another in a thermal without penalty. Perhaps three gliders could fly together in a thermal if they space out and open the circle. Most likely, though, penalty points would result if more than three gliders attempt to thermal at the same level.

The effect would be to de-motivate gaggle flying. Everyone would want to avoid crowds before the start and on task in order to keep his penalty count low. Pilots would be caused to fly their own machine and think for themselves and that would make for a better test of soaring skill afterall.

That's called a gaggle. You might as well penalize all the pilots before they launch.

Tom

2G: I don't understand what you are trying to say. Yes, my expectation is that most everybody would probably end up getting at least a few penalty points each day despite trying to avoid flying too close to others. This would not usually
affect results in a significant way -- just a little dither of a few points that would be a function of how attentive you are to the issue.
Steve

If you fly contests you expect to fly in gaggles from time to time. To penalize pilots for doing what comes natural is wrong headed. Penalize them for flying in a clear, unsafe manner, like busting into the middle of a gaggle.. Flight logs now are clear evidence of that.

Tom