Another new Soaring Article

On May 12, 2:18*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
"The Future of rules and classes." This one is published (in German)
in this month's Segelfliegen. If you don't speak German (like me),
here's the English version

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john...Papers/future_...
or, more generallyhttp://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/research/Papers/#misc

Ok, this is the last one for a while.
John Cochrane

As usual, John, a great article.

Just one minor nitpick - Top Gun is Navy, not Air Force (AF has the
Weapons School, and Red Flag). And the hard deck (it was 10,000' when
I flew in F-4s, it's 8000' now for F-15s, I think, due to their better
dive recovery capabilities) is in use throughout the Air Force and
Navy, and probably all other airforces when practicing air-to-air
combat. As you say, it's the simulated ground, so if you punch
through it during a fight - you lose. Of course, if you can sucker
the guy chasing you below it, he loses!

I still think we need to work on some aspects of our starts and
finishes. The altitude limit means that on a good day, we have
several gliders running around at high speed/high G winding up to pop
up through the top when the gate opens or the 2 minutes are up. It
shouldn't happen ("why the rush") but it still does. Not sure how to
fix this.

And the finishes still require too much clock-watching. I do not want
to be staring at my altimeter on final glide - I want to be looking
out the window! We are getting better with the graduated penalty if
below the finish height - ideally it should be a finish window that is
points-neutral within a reasonable altitude spread (if lower, then
subtract points - or add time - equal to the time that would have been
spent in the last thermal to get the height needed, for example).

Cheers,

Kirk
66

snip
*We are getting better with the graduated penalty if
below the finish height - ideally it should be a finish window that is
points-neutral within a reasonable altitude spread (if lower, then
subtract points - or add time - equal to the time that would have been
spent in the last thermal to get the height needed, for example).

Cheers,

Kirk
66

The points neutral window is an interesting idea. Probably requires a
bit more number crunching than I am up to but the idea of adding a
few points for coming in higher i.e. reverse low finish penalty might
have have some merit. The idea being that finishing anywhere within
say a 1000 ft altitude window should give you about the same points
would like you say be ideal.

My concern is that what we would like to be a simple solution starts
becoming complex.
The strength of the last thermal would probably have an effect on if
you should finish High or Low in the window for best points.
The scoring software could come up with the points adjustment based on
the actual last thermal, but then it becomes very difficult to
determine how to write the rule for it and how to determining how you
actually scored becomes even more complex. We already complain that it
is hard to determine our speeds as it is.
It would probably work, but like the adding 15minutes to the time on
course rule we tried, we probably wouldn't like it much.

Brian
HP16T