JWGC USA update

Did anyone catch the track of the kid that landed short and ran across the finish line carrying his tracker? I wish there was a video.

He also landed 300m short toward the end of the contest. No running Ricky Bobby style that time though.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the support and enthusiasm along the way. We definitely kept track and we really appreciated it. As far as takeaways from the contest, we learned a tremendous amount and are really excited going into the future.. I am doing a write-up for the US Team and future junior pilots as far as lessons learned and what worked, etc.

This biggest implication of the US vs. FAI rules has little to do with the mechanics of starting, finishing or the like. The adjustments were easy, including doing a direct finish instead of the finish sectors we have. The biggest difference is the gaggle dynamic that exists and gets reinforced due to the point structure in place in FAI rules. We learned that it is very costly to try to outsmart the gaggle.

The Club Class Nationals at Hobbs were great practice for the Junior worlds.. The tasks seemed to be as intense and reasonably reflected the difficulty in tasking we experienced. I would definitely like to see more Nationals conducted in such a manner, with the variety of Assigned and Area tasks that we had there.

The other major takeaway is the need to practice team flying. I am now a complete convert. Team-flying can be extremely effective and we were able to fly a lot better because we did this. We were all amazed that we were able to stick together so well. Going into 2017, JP and I plan on practicing team-flying as much as we can. We would like to make informal weekend meets at Mifflin where we can fly with John Good and do ground school on tactics and strategy so that we can perform better in the upcoming Junior Worlds.

Our idea is to also expand this to other serious juniors within a reasonable radius of Mifflin and hopefully make this the basis of a consistent junior racing contingent.

Something that would be helpful to us developing skills and tactics for future world competitions is if team-flying were to be allowed at the National level. It would certainly be a great way to implement the practice we intend on doing during the off-season in a racing environment.

Best Regards,
Daniel

Yep. I let out a scream of "NOOOOOO!!!!" on the last day when Boyd's tracker said he had landed out.

We certainly came close! We had some bad luck and plummeted from 6000ft AGL to 850ft without hitting any reasonable nibble. The sink was atrocious and the only reprieve was a weak little thermal over the field we were planning on landing in. All three of us, plus a straggler were parked in this little thermal, digging out. It was certainly a slow climb, but we got away and made it back home. Prior to plummeting out of the sky, we were really cooking along. If we had managed to keep the pace we were going and come back at minimum time, Boyd would have gotten third place. It was a good tactical gamble, but it did not work out.

Climbing out of that field was certainly exciting. It was the most fun low save I ever had, being in the company of three other gliders.

Best Regards,
Daniel

On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 5:38:45 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Yep. I let out a scream of "NOOOOOO!!!!" on the last day when Boyd's tracker said he had landed out.

We certainly came close! We had some bad luck and plummeted from 6000ft AGL to 850ft without hitting any reasonable nibble. The sink was atrocious and the only reprieve was a weak little thermal over the field we were planning on landing in. All three of us, plus a straggler were parked in this little thermal, digging out. It was certainly a slow climb, but we got away and made it back home. Prior to plummeting out of the sky, we were really cooking along. If we had managed to keep the pace we were going and come back at minimum time, Boyd would have gotten third place. It was a good tactical gamble, but it did not work out.

Climbing out of that field was certainly exciting. It was the most fun low save I ever had, being in the company of three other gliders.

Best Regards,
Daniel

I noticed a lot of time on that last day with ground speeds showing 140 KPH or so, and vertical speeds of 4 to 5 M/sec down. For most everyone. And for rather extended periods of time. Glad you guys kept it together. I am sure you have heard this before, but I have been told when running crosswind, and in strong sink, immediate turn upwind.

Haven't been there or done that but it is interesting to me how at the world level, you live or die by the gaggle (or leaving it) and in the US, we hate the idea of the gaggle and the group flying and call people "leeches" for doing so. To me, this seems a far greater difference than our scoring system differences, or assigned versus AAT ratio on number of tasks, direct versus finish line or cylinder.

Thanks for the insights so far!

Steve Leonard

From Daniel::

"This biggest implication of the US vs. FAI rules has little to do with the mechanics of starting, finishing or the like....The biggest difference is the gaggle dynamic that exists and gets reinforced due to the point structure in place in FAI rules. "

I have heard this message consistently from US team members, and it is the number one lesson I came back with from a WGC. In our team efforts, this ought to be cut out and framed somewhere. How do we get better at that highly tactical game, and how do we collect and pass on the knowledge that each team gains.

John Cochrane BB

We could stop wasting lots of time and effort and argument developing and maintaining our own unique US sailplane competition rules (which isolate us from the rest of the world at all levels) and adopt IGC rules. :-)

Or perhaps we make slight modifications to IGC rules rather than developing our own rules. There is no way to be successful at both things.

At an absolute minimum. All US nationals MUST BE IGC RULES. Are we a serious soaring country or a soaring vacation country?

Everyone means well...but the writing is clearly written on the wall...

Sean

On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 1:32:44 PM UTC-6, Sean Fidler wrote:
We could stop wasting lots of time and effort and argument developing and maintaining our own unique US sailplane competition rules (which isolate us from the rest of the world at all levels) and adopt IGC rules. :-)

Or perhaps we make slight modifications to IGC rules rather than developing our own rules. There is no way to be successful at both things.

At an absolute minimum. All US nationals MUST BE IGC RULES. Are we a serious soaring country or a soaring vacation country?

Everyone means well...but the writing is clearly written on the wall...

Sean

Did you notice the size of the turn areas on the AAT tasks at the Junior Worlds, Sean? Just curious. Sometimes 10 KM, but often 30 and as much as 40 KM RADIUS! Gasp! Soaring Vacation, indeed!

Steve Leonard

On Saturday, December 12, 2015 at 9:52:19 AM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
More complaining about IGC rules as if US rules are the solution. Sigh.

Absurdity is spending tremendous effort developing an entirely different, watered down set of competition rules (US rules, which serve only to isolate the USA from the rest of the world) and then attending the World Championship contest once every two years vs the very best pilots in the world flying under the rules (IGC) which they are all intimately familiar, practiced and coached and expecting to be competitive.

No assigned tasks, HATs, etc.

Insanity is doing this same exercise over and over, again and again and expecting a different result.

Our junior team faught extremely hard through a myriad of institutional handicaps. Just as our overall US team does. I feel it's a good time to point out the 200 ton elephant in "the room."

Congratulations to Boyd (9th), Daniel (15th) and JP (22nd) and their great coaches and crew. They truly did an incredible job despite tremendous disadvantages against most of the other teams.

The question is will the US take any action to help be more competitive. Answer: ?. ...back to the land of the soaring vacation? And the European teams (and Australia) go back to the land of incredible Junior development, training and culture.

Sean

Sean, did you notice that the Junior Worlds had 50% TAT. Not 5% but 50% !!
So much for the AST theory.
Great job by all the Juniors competitors.

The other major takeaway is the need to practice team flying. I am now a complete convert. Team-flying can be extremely effective and we were able to fly a lot better because we did this. We were all amazed that we were able to stick together so well. Going into 2017, JP and I plan on practicing team-flying as much as we can. We would like to make informal weekend meets at Mifflin where we can fly with John Good and do ground school on tactics and strategy so that we can perform better in the upcoming Junior Worlds.

Our idea is to also expand this to other serious juniors within a reasonable radius of Mifflin and hopefully make this the basis of a consistent junior racing contingent.

Something that would be helpful to us developing skills and tactics for future world competitions is if team-flying were to be allowed at the National level. It would certainly be a great way to implement the practice we intend on doing during the off-season in a racing environment.



i would love to come down to mifflin with my sailplane to take part in this!