AT, TAT, MAT?

Hi Noel,

You probably arent' finding a lot of information on strategy because
it is really too simple to warrant a book and it is different for
different people and skill levels. And the guys that are really good
at aren't telling.

My rookie contest strategy is this.

Start as soon as practical. This puts me in near the most gliders or
ahead of them. This way I can use them for markers as long as possible
as they pass me.

For Minimum Time tasks try to fly the task as close the minimum time
without going under time as possible. This give me the least amount of
time to make a bad decision and have to dig myself out of a hole. I
found out later that there is mathematical advantange to flying close
the the minimum time.

Only be concerned about distance points if it is very likely that you
can not complete the task.

Brian
HP16T N16VP.

On Oct 9, 9:23*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:
All -

Does anyone know of any good books or articles on the nuts-and-
bolts */ common-strategies of how to fly the various competition task
types?

I'm still waiting on my copy of Winning II, but Reichmann and
Brigliadori don't really touch on these and the competition rules only
define what the tasks ARE, not how to approach flying them...

I haven't yet been able to find any good reading material (other than
the SRA 2005 Comp Guide) on how to approach the different task types -
anyone have any recommendations?

BTW, I've read some of the different rules documents, and it may be
that I don't fully understand the scoring system... the big question-
marks in my mind relate to speed points vs. distance points, and their
trade-offs. *For example: when is it worthwhile to push for extra
distance, even if it might hurt the average speed you have going (so
far) during a task?

Thanks, take care,

--Noel

Many good points made here. Some I agree with, some not. But the
bottom line still is to get out on course and learn by watching. One
good way to do this without actually entering a contest is to free fly
during a contest and just follow the crowd. I was able to be a
sniffer at a National Sports Contest some years back and it was the
best thing I ever did. It got to the point that I could( I thought
anyway) almost tell what pilot was thinking by watching him fly.
Don't worry about "leeching". How else are you supposed to learn?
The good pilots don't care anyway. The point is that these
discussions are fine for the winter and a good place to start, but I
promise that the cliche' is true. You will learn more in one day in
a good race than in all this discussion. And most of it you won't even
know you learned. The best stuff can't be put into words. Not to say
the discussion isn't necessary, but it's my belief that things can be
over analysed. I once read a article by a senior instructor at the
Top Gun school that always stuck with me. His opinion was that the
best fighter pilots were not the officers that were the engineering
students, constantly analysing information. The very best were the
liberal arts majors, who were much more intuitive. True or not, I
have no idea, but an interesting proposition! The sponge analogy is
very apt. TM

Just a clarification for those that might be mis-interpreting some of
my comments: I'm not dismissing information or ignoring it or having
it go "over my head"... I just never stop asking questions or digging
for deeper understanding - sometimes in new directions, sometimes by
trying to refine previous answers or by trying to define special cases
or exceptions to general rules. :-)

Thanks for the continuing good info,

--Noel

What skills do we need to fly a MAT or TAT? As you know it's a wormy
little problem involving several variables; time, distance, altitude
required, wind, speed-to-fly and where's the stinking lift? We are
required to choose the final-turn point (or point-to-turn in a TAT) so
that the final leg will consume the rest of the alloted time with
sufficient altitude to traverse the remaining distance home into an
unknown wind and get there on time! These tasks involve a very
difficult navigation problem; Controlled ETA to a destination in an
aircraft with no visable means of support. Wow! I don't know how we
do it and frankly I couldn't do it very well without my trusty SN-10.
It gives me reliable winds and a running display of time remaining,
distance remaining and altitude required to finish any task I have
dialed in. How do we get better at flying TAT's and MAT's? Practice,
Practice, Practice, and get the best airborne computer available, not
cheap but worth every penny.
JJ

noel.wade wrote:
Just a clarification for those that might be mis-interpreting some of
my comments: I'm not dismissing information or ignoring it or having
it go "over my head"... I just never stop asking questions or digging
for deeper understanding - sometimes in new directions, sometimes by
trying to refine previous answers or by trying to define special cases
or exceptions to general rules. :-)

Thanks for the continuing good info,

--Noel

What skills do we need to fly a MAT or TAT? As you know it's a wormy
little problem involving several variables; time, distance, altitude
required, wind, speed-to-fly and where's the stinking lift?
..... Practice,
Practice, Practice, and get the best airborne computer available, not
cheap but worth every penny.
JJ


I hate to even think of mentioning it, but adding 15 minuites to
everybody's time makes this whole business of trying to nail the
finish time much less important.
Flame suit on -- no, don't worry, I don't imagine it will ever come
back

John Cochrane

On Oct 13, 1:58*pm, BB wrote:
What skills do we need to fly a MAT or TAT? As you know it's a wormy
little problem involving several variables; time, distance, altitude
required, wind, speed-to-fly and where's the stinking lift?
.... Practice,
Practice, Practice, and get the best airborne computer available, not
cheap but worth every penny.
JJ

I hate to even think of mentioning it, but adding 15 minuites to
everybody's time makes this whole business of trying to nail the
finish time much less important.
Flame suit on -- no, don't worry, *I don't imagine it will ever come
back

John Cochrane

I'm right behind you John - about 50 feet behind. ;-)

9B

On Oct 13, 1:58*pm, BB wrote:

I hate to even think of mentioning it, but adding 15 minuites to
everybody's time makes this whole business of trying to nail the

John Cochrane

John -

I don't understand - if you add 15 minutes, what's to stop people from
trying to come in 14 minutes and 59 seconds sooner? Doesn't that just
shift the "minimum task time" without affecting the racing (if not,
what's the logic I'm missing)?

--Noel

Just one more comment. The thing that makes the top pilots so good is
the ability to adapt the or even predict the conditions. They know
when to go fast and the know when not to. They know when they can get
low and when they shouldn't. How they do this is just basic soaring
skills but they somehow do it better than the 2nd place guy. I have
yet heard anyone explain how they do this consistantly. I suspect it
is just years of experience.

How to come in at the back of the pack I am a much better expert at,
but it is the same things that will put you there. Falling out of the
lift band and having to climb back up in the 1 knot thermal after
passing up the 4 knot thermal will lose you a lot of time. And staying
high and stopping often in really strong conditions with a large lift
band will cause you to fall behind as well. As you can see what works
one day may not work the next or even from one hour to the next. The
pilot that can shift gears at the right time and fly both of these
conditions best on the same day will win the day. The pilot that can
adapt on a consistant basis will win the contest.

The math of getting around the couse fast is pretty simple. Fly the
McCready numbers for the conditions and you will do well. You will do
excellent if you can fly the McCready speed for the next thermal
instead of the last one. Of course there is some art to find the
thermals as well.

Brian

On Oct 13, 9:39*am, Brian wrote:

The math of getting around the couse fast is pretty simple. Fly the
McCready numbers for the conditions and you will do well. You will do
excellent if you can fly the McCready speed for the next thermal
instead of the last one. Of course there is some art to find the
thermals as well.

Brian,

One 'dirty little secret' is that the fast guys aren't using MacCready
speed to fly. Instrument lag, aerodynamic losses, inertia, hazard to
other traffic and loss of attention better placed elsewhere to name a
few reasons that it is found not to work very well.

In weak to moderate wx, the speed to fly vario is set to Mc = 2 and
the cruise audio deadband is set wide (20 kts) to keep it quiet unless
you barge into big sink or big lift. Cruise speeds are chosen
according to "confidence" (see BB's articles) and they are in the same
range as the MacCready speeds, but no effort is made to "optimize"
speeds based on lift/sink of short duration. You do see guys pulling
up to bump thermals, etc, usually higher in the band where the lift is
apt to be broad. Dry 15m/std class ship, weak/mod wx, confident = 80
kts, need to stretch glide = 65 kts, survival = 55 kts. Attention is
directed out of the cockpit. The truth is out there.

-T8

On Oct 13, 7:22*am, wrote:
On Oct 13, 9:39*am, Brian wrote:

The math of getting around the couse fast is pretty simple. Fly the
McCready numbers for the conditions and you will do well. You will do
excellent if you can fly the McCready speed for the next thermal
instead of the last one. Of course there is some art to find the
thermals as well.

Brian,

One 'dirty little secret' is that the fast guys aren't using MacCready
speed to fly. *Instrument lag, aerodynamic losses, inertia, hazard to
other traffic and loss of attention better placed elsewhere to name a
few reasons that it is found not to work very well.

In weak to moderate wx, the speed to fly vario is set to Mc = 2 and
the cruise audio deadband is set wide (20 kts) to keep it quiet unless
you barge into big sink or big lift. *Cruise speeds are chosen
according to "confidence" (see BB's articles) and they are in the same
range as the MacCready speeds, but no effort is made to "optimize"
speeds based on lift/sink of short duration. You do see guys pulling
up to bump thermals, etc, usually higher in the band where the lift is
apt to be broad. *Dry 15m/std class ship, weak/mod wx, confident = 80
kts, need to stretch glide = 65 kts, survival = 55 kts. *Attention is
directed out of the cockpit. *The truth is out there.

-T8

There's a lot of good info here, both about generalized racing
strategy and specific strategies for TAT and MAT tasks.

A couple of items for thought:

I definitely observe multiple styles of racing. I have archetype
pilots in mind for each style, but won't mention them here except to
say that they all are frequently at the top of the scoresheet. One
style is the "McCready purist". This style involves flying fast and
straight between thermals and only stopping for the strongest lift.
More often than not this style uses a bigger chunk of the altitude
band that other styles. Some portion of the time this style will get
you in trouble that you will have to dig out of (or land out) and some
other portion of the time you will smoke the field. All it all it it a
higher variance strategy. A second style is the "stay up in the lift
band" style. This style is generally marked by below-McCready cruise
speeds. You can justify this on several grounds, depending on the
conditions. If there are clouds, staying in closer contact helps you
find more and stronger thermals. Staying higher has a True Air Speed
benefit. Staying higher by flying slower gives you more search
distance to find that exceptional thermal. The third style is the "go
for the lift" style. This style looks a lot like the second style,
except that there will be a lot more course deviation - zig-zagging
cloud to cloud, following a line of convergence or a terrain feature
off course line or meandering about in an area of lift to find the
hidden boomer. There are overlays to these styles in terms of cruise
speed versus altitude and how to manage upwind/downwind turnpoints,
for instance, that have been discussed elsewhere and can be applied
irrespective of overall style. I have migrated my style from
something more like the first to something more like the second or
third over the past few years. It has made a big difference.

One way see how efficiently you are flying is to look at a metric like
percent of time spent circling in a program like SeeYou. A good
flight in the west for me will have that percentage in the mid- to
upper-teens with an average L/D of better than the ship's best L/D and
a task speed in the mid-eighties or above - this is without ballast.
If you do the math, this is far better than theoretical McCready
theory would predict. This of course means by definition that to win a
competition task you have to find ways to exceed the predicted
theoretical performance of your ship. That usually involves climbing
without circling whenever you can - remember when you circle you are
going backwards half the time.

With respect to AAT and MAT. People have correctly identified a key
consideration as NOT being under time. This is hardest to do on an AAT
where the last turnpoint is a long way from home. This past summer I
made a turn for home 100 miles out and ended up 25 minutes over time
because the outound leg had been much stronger than the homeward one.
Since you don't really know the weather in all the turn areas you have
to start out with an estimate of where you MIGHT go based on the
forecast (deeper into the stronger turn areas or where there will be
more clouds, markers on course, etc.). Then you have to think of the
major scenarios and try to keep you options open. I generally take off
with a cheat sheet on required distance versus task speed in the
allotted time and at least SOME idea of what each leg might look like
if I am averaging 75-95 mph on course. My approach is to keep going
into the early cylinders if the conditions are good. If the later
cylinders are even better you can think about going over time. Keep at
least a 10 minute "over" buffer on arrival time - more if the last leg
is long. Another thing to keep in mind is to try to avoid making
dogleg courselines - you don't get any credit for the extra distance.

On MAT - have a good chart with all the turnpoints and terrain on it
so you can see everything clearly at once (Glide Plan is a good tool
for this. I scale my charts a 25%). Trying to pick turnpoints off the
flight computer is to hard to do well. Generally, I try to fly
relatively longer legs - particularly early on. You will often find
MATs used when the whether is less predictible - keep this in mind in
terms of not getting cut off from home. If you can find the part of
the task area that is really cooking then try to set up a zig-zag
pattern that keeps you there without the dreaded repeated turnpoint
penalty. These are the days where the right move can really move you
up the scoresheet because the fleet is frequently scattered all over
the task area with varied conditions.

9B