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#1
September 19th 03, 12:17 PM
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Eric Greenwell wrote in message ...
As I understand the rule, it's not just a matter of popping above the 500' agl floor of the cylinder. You'd have to thermal up, go back to the outside of the 2 mile cylinder, and fly from there to the 1 mile cylinder while staying above 500' agl. In the the situation you describe, would you still be likely to try that weak thermal, or would you just go ahead and land? Bad rules proposal! As they do out on course, pilots will stop trying to get somewhere, and start trying to get back up to avoid losing their speed points at some personally determined altitude. That includes the pilots that could be making a safe, routine rolling finish for speed points under the present rules! Some pilots will fly safely whatever the rules. Other pilots will break their gliders trying to get home just for the convenience (and safety) of avoiding a field landing. If you think that pilots will stop trying to finish and outland safely if they have no shot at getting points, you haven't thought much about the long history of guest pilots breaking their gliders at contests. Jonathan Gere 
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#3
September 19th 03, 06:59 PM
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John,
I would support a rule that was a lot simpler. I just worked through the "donut" part of the rule and that is not good. It seems that finish at 500 ft at 1 mile would work just as well and be much more simple. I also would prefer 1000 ft to 500 ft. 500 ft is still pretty low. Todd Smith "3S"
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#4
September 19th 03, 07:39 PM
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"Todd Smith" wrote...
It seems that finish at 500 ft at 1 mile would work just as well and be much more simple. It's worked very well at the contests I've participated in that used it. After pulling up, I'll have plenty of time to tidy up the cockpit, listen on the gate frequency for other gliders finishing, listen on the airport frequency for traffic, double check that the water is gone, get the gear down, make a few 360s for a visual check of the pattern, and make a nice leisurely landing. All without feeling like I'm giving up a huge number of points to the speed racers. I also would prefer 1000 ft to 500 ft. 500 ft is still pretty low. Don't go there, you'll only start some people frothing at the mouth! Seriously, 500 feet is actually excessive at typical finishing speeds (80+ knots). If you're going slower, an abbreviated pattern or a straight-in should still be quite doable. But, there's nothing that says you have to cut your finishes that close. I don't... Marc
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#5
September 21st 03, 12:29 AM
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It is different Tom.
Yes, there are always climbing and cruising sailplanes in the mix. The difference is that the closer you are to the finish the more likely it is that gliders will be converging on each other (horizontally AND vertically) and the more likely it is that the cruising sailplanes will be doing something approaching redline rather than 75-100 knots. The logic for the difference is simple. If you know you can't make it home you are likely to be making outlanding preparations somewhere around 700-1,200 feet - depending on terrain and availability of landable fields. In the 'final glide gone bad' scenario you would come to this decision 5-10 miles out and either find a thermal or land (at least most pilots I know will - unless they're flying over a terrain so benign that it's like one big putting green). At this distance the higher speed traffic is well higher and hasn't started to burn off the extra altitude they are carrying as a buffer. The climbing glider won't likely climb up to them anyway unless it finds a real corker of a thermal (somewhat unlikely under 'low save' circumstances). The reason you don't often find gliders making low saves at less than 5 miles out today is that they've all landed out by then or made it home - put another way not many pilots set up for a landout from 500'. Under the proposed rule you can find yourself at 2.5 miles from home and 700' AGL with not enough altitude for a speed finish, but enough altitude to get home. What would you do in this situation? EXACTLY - you will hunt around the edge of the donut for lift. aHopefully, as you get lower you drift towards the airport to keep the landing option open (not sure if the rule allows for catching a thermal below 500' right over the airport, climbing up to enough height to go out to 2 miles and back above 500'). I suppose we could make a rule that if you EVER get below 500' AGL in a flight you're done, but it would probably only be enforceable in the flatlands of Kansas. So there you are climbing up at 2.5 miles out, trying to get enough altitude to make it to the inside edge of the donut at 500'. Say you'll accept a Mc=2 glide. Well at 2 miles the difference between a Mc=2 glide and a Mc=6 glide is 150'. So all the guys coming steaming home - now at close to redline will be more or less at your altitude. Under the current rules this is unlikely to happen at less than 6 miles out - where the differential altitude margin is three times as great and the speed differentials are somewhat lower. If you want some really interesting and action-packed finishes with a few poor pilots stuck outside the donut - able to glide to the airport but unable to finish for speed points - floating around at low altitude and mixing it up with gliders at redline - all within view of spectators - then this is your best shot. Wait, I forgot the best part! The guys at redline will have their heads in the cockpit, looking at their glide computers, because 500' up on a two mile radius has no visual reference to fly against. Democracy is a great thing, but without goodwill towards others it offers the potential for 51% to inflict pain on 49%. If you want to finish at 500' go ahead - you don't need a rule for it and it costs you only a minute or so. I personally carry 1,000' of extra until I'm 5-7 miles out. While I believe it is 100% well intentioned, I don't think this proposal actually helps and it has some very funky potential side effects. Vote away! 9B At 20:30 20 September 2003, Tom Seim wrote: Andy Blackburn wrote in message news:... I shold have been clearer on this point Eric. If you are at 700' and 4 miles, you will not make it to 500' at 1 mile, you will have to stop and climb. A Mc=0 glide to the inner edge of the donut in my ship requires 886' (by the factory polar). If I climb to a Mc=3 or Mc=4 glide, I am at 997' to 1053'. You might climb even higher if you want any buffer. I believe that the optimal finish for pilots who have adequate altitude for a speed finish will be to shoot for the top outside edge of the donut (with some buffer) and then bleed airspeed to the inner edge to hold altitude. A pilot shooting for this on a 120 knot glide Mc=6 will be at 908' at 4 miles, which is below the guy making a save and wanting to make a flatter glide to the inner part of the donut. The simple point here is that all of this climbing and mixed traffic happens at 4-5 miles from the field rather than 8-10 miles under the current rules. This is because the ground forces the issue later with the extra 500' built into the finish altitude. Since altitude separation (difference in glide angle times distance) goes up linearly with distance and the amount of horizontal separation goes up with distance as well, the potential for mixed climbing and highspeed traffic would likely increase under the 500' rule. You can make different assumptions about what altitude you might stop and climb, but the difference due to the rules remains the same. I don't see how this is any different; we have to see and avoid other sailplanes from the time we start the flight to the time that we have come to a full stop. There can be gliders thermally anywhere on course, including directly over turn points. And even if you don't have the 500 ft rule there can mixing of gliders thermally and high-speed gliders in-bound to finish. I feel that those low altitude finishes add nothing to the sport except for some broken gliders (and pilots!) and some very anxious crews. Furthermore, it encourages violation of FARs for minimum altitude. There may be some pilots who think they may have some competitive edge because they are willing to push it lower than the others, and this may be the case. I say cast your vote, let democracy function and accept the result.
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#6
September 22nd 03, 05:55 PM
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Andy has it exactly right.
Yesterday, on the last leg of an ASA 150-mile task, I found myself low at the end of the day as thermals died. Just under 10 miles out, I had the last decent strip before flying over hills and unlandable desert. My flight computer said I had 350 feet over a 2-knot glide. Since 500-foot sink in that distance isn't impossible, I decided to land. I was 1,300 feet above the ground and, with luck, could have scraped back. I took the safer option. No finish donut would have had me decide any differently, this was purely a safety issue for me. Those that finished were 500 to 1000 feet above me. Another point is the scoring penalty for landing out. I had managed a quite respectable 70 mph up to that point and would probably have got close to 900 points if I had finished the task. What do I get for landing 9 miles short after completing 94% of the task? Not 94%, that's for sure - more like 30% to 40%. Any economist will tell you that this high rate of taxation for landing out will encourage the risk takers to push on for a better reward. Maybe we should use a carrot and not a stick and look at a scoring system that rewards distance and speed and doesn't punish landouts so severely. This makes more sense to me than messing with tried and tested finish procedures. Mike ASW 20 WA "Andy Blackburn" wrote in message ... It is different Tom. Yes, there are always climbing and cruising sailplanes in the mix. The difference is that the closer you are to the finish the more likely it is that gliders will be converging on each other (horizontally AND vertically) and the more likely it is that the cruising sailplanes will be doing something approaching redline rather than 75-100 knots. The logic for the difference is simple. If you know you can't make it home you are likely to be making outlanding preparations somewhere around 700-1,200 feet - depending on terrain and availability of landable fields. In the 'final glide gone bad' scenario you would come to this decision 5-10 miles out and either find a thermal or land (at least most pilots I know will - unless they're flying over a terrain so benign that it's like one big putting green). At this distance the higher speed traffic is well higher and hasn't started to burn off the extra altitude they are carrying as a buffer. The climbing glider won't likely climb up to them anyway unless it finds a real corker of a thermal (somewhat unlikely under 'low save' circumstances). The reason you don't often find gliders making low saves at less than 5 miles out today is that they've all landed out by then or made it home - put another way not many pilots set up for a landout from 500'. Under the proposed rule you can find yourself at 2.5 miles from home and 700' AGL with not enough altitude for a speed finish, but enough altitude to get home. What would you do in this situation? EXACTLY - you will hunt around the edge of the donut for lift. aHopefully, as you get lower you drift towards the airport to keep the landing option open (not sure if the rule allows for catching a thermal below 500' right over the airport, climbing up to enough height to go out to 2 miles and back above 500'). I suppose we could make a rule that if you EVER get below 500' AGL in a flight you're done, but it would probably only be enforceable in the flatlands of Kansas. So there you are climbing up at 2.5 miles out, trying to get enough altitude to make it to the inside edge of the donut at 500'. Say you'll accept a Mc=2 glide. Well at 2 miles the difference between a Mc=2 glide and a Mc=6 glide is 150'. So all the guys coming steaming home - now at close to redline will be more or less at your altitude. Under the current rules this is unlikely to happen at less than 6 miles out - where the differential altitude margin is three times as great and the speed differentials are somewhat lower. If you want some really interesting and action-packed finishes with a few poor pilots stuck outside the donut - able to glide to the airport but unable to finish for speed points - floating around at low altitude and mixing it up with gliders at redline - all within view of spectators - then this is your best shot. Wait, I forgot the best part! The guys at redline will have their heads in the cockpit, looking at their glide computers, because 500' up on a two mile radius has no visual reference to fly against. Democracy is a great thing, but without goodwill towards others it offers the potential for 51% to inflict pain on 49%. If you want to finish at 500' go ahead - you don't need a rule for it and it costs you only a minute or so. I personally carry 1,000' of extra until I'm 5-7 miles out. While I believe it is 100% well intentioned, I don't think this proposal actually helps and it has some very funky potential side effects. Vote away! 9B At 20:30 20 September 2003, Tom Seim wrote: Andy Blackburn wrote in message news:... I shold have been clearer on this point Eric. If you are at 700' and 4 miles, you will not make it to 500' at 1 mile, you will have to stop and climb. A Mc=0 glide to the inner edge of the donut in my ship requires 886' (by the factory polar). If I climb to a Mc=3 or Mc=4 glide, I am at 997' to 1053'. You might climb even higher if you want any buffer. I believe that the optimal finish for pilots who have adequate altitude for a speed finish will be to shoot for the top outside edge of the donut (with some buffer) and then bleed airspeed to the inner edge to hold altitude. A pilot shooting for this on a 120 knot glide Mc=6 will be at 908' at 4 miles, which is below the guy making a save and wanting to make a flatter glide to the inner part of the donut. The simple point here is that all of this climbing and mixed traffic happens at 4-5 miles from the field rather than 8-10 miles under the current rules. This is because the ground forces the issue later with the extra 500' built into the finish altitude. Since altitude separation (difference in glide angle times distance) goes up linearly with distance and the amount of horizontal separation goes up with distance as well, the potential for mixed climbing and highspeed traffic would likely increase under the 500' rule. You can make different assumptions about what altitude you might stop and climb, but the difference due to the rules remains the same. I don't see how this is any different; we have to see and avoid other sailplanes from the time we start the flight to the time that we have come to a full stop. There can be gliders thermally anywhere on course, including directly over turn points. And even if you don't have the 500 ft rule there can mixing of gliders thermally and high-speed gliders in-bound to finish. I feel that those low altitude finishes add nothing to the sport except for some broken gliders (and pilots!) and some very anxious crews. Furthermore, it encourages violation of FARs for minimum altitude. There may be some pilots who think they may have some competitive edge because they are willing to push it lower than the others, and this may be the case. I say cast your vote, let democracy function and accept the result.
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#7
September 24th 03, 08:35 PM
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John
I have flown quite a few contest days with the 2 mile 500 foot finish. Here are my comments: 1. On a purely emotional level, I miss (and I'm sure the spectators do too) the 50 foot speed pass finish line. I know that you can still do one after you cross the ring but in practice most people just come in and land. 2. On a practical basis, it leads to more heads down flying. Most people do a 50 foot speed pass finish completely heads up (maybe an airspeed check once in a while). The ring puts your head in the cockpit. The optimum finish is still at 501 feet and max airspeed. You just can't judge this 2 miles out without a lot of heads down work. 3. On a global perspective, this rule is just a bandaid that necessitates more bandaids. I did not like it when Charlie started adding 3 minutes to your time for rolling finishes under the ring and now you are adding another bandaid by saying you don't get speed points if you go under the ring. The bandaids go on and on. What about the contestant that has the fastest speed, crosses the ring at 110 knots but does it at 499 feet. Distance points only? The harsh 100 point turnpoint penalty had to have its own bandaid for missing the turnpoint by 15 feet, that will have to happen here too. The bandaids keep going on and on for the finish ring. As you can see I am against the finish ring. I do, however propose a different solution for low energy finishes. Bring the exciting heads up speed pass finish line back and solve the low energy problem with some sort of finish line groundspeed minimum or minimum altitude to achieve after the finish line. Don't have harsh point penalty steps in the solution either. After all the main reason people are tempted to do a low energy finish is the harsh point penalty associated with a landout. Maybe thats what should be addressed! Just my 2 cents Dale Kramer K1
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#8
September 28th 03, 03:16 PM
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Gary, I disagree with your scenaro. there are many
ways to massage this to make it happen not the least of which would base the landout guy score on time as well as distance ie if he was faster than the slowest finisher he would still score less than him. Therefore, his incentive would be to finish not to landout. You also assume that there will be a place to land right off the airport. If the last place to land is 20 miles away on a 200 mile task it is only 90% or 900 points in your scenaro. I don't know of any of the racing pilots I fly with that will settle for that! Assume another scenaro where the day dies after just one finisher and all of the pilots are at the last air field and land there in order thaey all would not score the same it would or could be based on time around the course to that point and still less than the finisher. In this scenaro you could do away with devauleing a day as well. Anyway its good to have these discussions. Some changes can be good, some can be bad and the more we talk about it the better options we can come up with. Cliff Hilty Ventus B At 14:18 27 September 2003, Gary Ittner wrote: Did you see the movie 'A Beautiful Mind' (Oscar winner for Best Picture of 2001)? There's a wonderful scene in which mathematician John Nash introduces the concept of the 'Nash equilibrium' to his fellow grad students, using the example of how their collective individual tendencies to go for the prettiest girl in the bar will inevitably result in none of them getting laid that night. Here's the result I get when I apply the Nash equilibrium principle to your scoring scheme: one pilot gets 1000 points and the rest each get 999 points. Each pilot's individual tendency to go for the highest score that he can get will inevitably result in one pilot finishing and all other pilots deliberately landing just short of the finish line. To most easily see why this is so, imagine an Assigned Task with all the pilots starting together in a big furball. Pilot A is the first, and therefore the fastest, finisher and gets 1000 points. As pilot B approaches the finish, he calculates that his speed will be 95% of the winner's speed, earning 950 points. Ah, but if there is only one finisher, the fastest finisher is also the slowest finisher. In that case, pilot B would get 999 points if he landed just short of the finish line, so that is what he does. If pilot C comes along and finishes with 90% of the winner's speed, pilot B would be bumped down to 899 points, so pilot B would have done better to finish for 950 points, right? True, but that assumes that pilot C would screw himself by finishing for 900 points when he too could have landed short for 999 points. And so on, down the list. The reason we have scoring systems with a high 'landout penalty' is precisely to eliminate these situations in which a pilot might get fewer points for finishing than he would get for deliberately landing short of the finish line. Gary Ittner P7 'Have glider, will race'
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#9
September 29th 03, 11:20 PM
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Pure undiluted common sense.
John Galloway At 22:06 29 September 2003, Chip Bearden wrote: I agree with Dale (below). I was waiting for someone to voice the 'hey, it's fun' rationale for traditional high-speed finishes and it's amazing that it took nearly 50 postings: 1. On a purely emotional level, I miss (and I'm sure the spectators do too) the 50 foot speed pass finish line. Dale Kramer K1 I also agree with Kirk Stant that part of the appeal (and challenge) of soaring is that it allows us to incur whatever level of risk we intelligently elect. 'Adrenaline junky' is a harsh term but I'll be honest in admitting that the part of the 'thrill' (another harsh term used in this context) of soaring is the element of risk and how we as pilots manage it. There was a provocative article in (I believe) Gliding Kiwi about ten years ago that said, in effect, let's quit trying to convince everyone that soaring is 100% safe. It's not, and therein lies some of the appeal. Certainly competition soaring involves an element of that. Those who know me also know that, at age 52 with a wife and 9-year-old twin daughters, and with a father and a best friend who were both killed in soaring accidents, I certainly don't have a death wish. Far from it. I WANT to be as safe a pilot as I can be. But I also want to enjoy this sport the way I always have, and contest finishes still have the same appeal they did when I first starting flying contests in 1968. As for the less emotional arguments for/against, they've been made. The most persuasive, to me, is that whatever penalty is imposed for busting the floor of the finish donut will, perversely, act as an incentive to thermal at low altitudes trying to 'save' a flight, even a flight that, ironically, could be concluded quite safely be simply gliding to the finish line sedately from one or two miles out and 499 feet. Yeah, it might make some pilots or flights 'safer' but I can see how it will make certain other situations 'less safe.' A lot depends on what the meaning of the word 'safe' is.  Based on my experience with the donut, I also agree with Dale that you tend to spend more time heads down to make sure you don't bust the hard deck at the last minute. After all, you can't actually SEE it, unlike the traditional finish line. My biggest fear is learning after the flight that my flight recorder shows I missed the donut by, say, 20 feet even though my altimeter indicated I was 50 feet above when the GPS said 1.0 mile. Given the number of turnpoints that pilots have missed by a few meters, do we really need another way of screwing up a flight? I'm from the old school. I check out fields under the glide path from likely finish directions BEFORE final glide. I keep 500 feet dialed in as a final glide margin and often take more than that. And when I'm not sure I can make it back safely, I land. I may make that decision 10 miles out at 2000 feet (or even higher) or one mile out at 200 feet depending on the fields, the weather, etc. But it's MY decision, not someone writing rules that attempt to level the playing field for pilots with vastly different amounts of skill and experience. No matter how noble the rationale, that's a troublesome way of thinking to me, even in the name of 'safety.' The low finish isn't something an inexperienced pilot should try without proper preparation. And it isn't something anyone should try under improper conditions. But, as for many other things we do in sailplanes that the uninitiated think are dangerous, the cure for this 'problem' seems to be better training, better qualification of contestants, and better judgment rather than blanket prohibitions. The increasingly popular regional competition clinics are great places to address this. Chip Bearden
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#10
September 30th 03, 06:29 AM
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Well put Chip.
9B At 22:06 29 September 2003, Chip Bearden wrote: I agree with Dale (below). I was waiting for someone to voice the 'hey, it's fun' rationale for traditional high-speed finishes and it's amazing that it took nearly 50 postings: 1. On a purely emotional level, I miss (and I'm sure the spectators do too) the 50 foot speed pass finish line. Dale Kramer K1 I also agree with Kirk Stant that part of the appeal (and challenge) of soaring is that it allows us to incur whatever level of risk we intelligently elect. 'Adrenaline junky' is a harsh term but I'll be honest in admitting that the part of the 'thrill' (another harsh term used in this context) of soaring is the element of risk and how we as pilots manage it. There was a provocative article in (I believe) Gliding Kiwi about ten years ago that said, in effect, let's quit trying to convince everyone that soaring is 100% safe. It's not, and therein lies some of the appeal. Certainly competition soaring involves an element of that. Those who know me also know that, at age 52 with a wife and 9-year-old twin daughters, and with a father and a best friend who were both killed in soaring accidents, I certainly don't have a death wish. Far from it. I WANT to be as safe a pilot as I can be. But I also want to enjoy this sport the way I always have, and contest finishes still have the same appeal they did when I first starting flying contests in 1968. As for the less emotional arguments for/against, they've been made. The most persuasive, to me, is that whatever penalty is imposed for busting the floor of the finish donut will, perversely, act as an incentive to thermal at low altitudes trying to 'save' a flight, even a flight that, ironically, could be concluded quite safely be simply gliding to the finish line sedately from one or two miles out and 499 feet. Yeah, it might make some pilots or flights 'safer' but I can see how it will make certain other situations 'less safe.' A lot depends on what the meaning of the word 'safe' is. Based on my experience with the donut, I also agree with Dale that you tend to spend more time heads down to make sure you don't bust the hard deck at the last minute. After all, you can't actually SEE it, unlike the traditional finish line. My biggest fear is learning after the flight that my flight recorder shows I missed the donut by, say, 20 feet even though my altimeter indicated I was 50 feet above when the GPS said 1.0 mile. Given the number of turnpoints that pilots have missed by a few meters, do we really need another way of screwing up a flight? I'm from the old school. I check out fields under the glide path from likely finish directions BEFORE final glide. I keep 500 feet dialed in as a final glide margin and often take more than that. And when I'm not sure I can make it back safely, I land. I may make that decision 10 miles out at 2000 feet (or even higher) or one mile out at 200 feet depending on the fields, the weather, etc. But it's MY decision, not someone writing rules that attempt to level the playing field for pilots with vastly different amounts of skill and experience. No matter how noble the rationale, that's a troublesome way of thinking to me, even in the name of 'safety.' The low finish isn't something an inexperienced pilot should try without proper preparation. And it isn't something anyone should try under improper conditions. But, as for many other things we do in sailplanes that the uninitiated think are dangerous, the cure for this 'problem' seems to be better training, better qualification of contestants, and better judgment rather than blanket prohibitions. The increasingly popular regional competition clinics are great places to address this. Chip Bearden
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