2009 Proposed US Contest Rules Changes

Guys, I think we're all stressed from lack of flying and need to calm
down a bit and stop over-analyzing this one.

Yes, the point of the "front half" business is to further discourage
starting out the back or back of the top and bumping gaggles along the
top edge of the start cylinder.

Yes, the area in which you get full credit for distance is described
by a gentle semicircle defined by the first turn fix. Therefore, yes,
you don't know exactly where the area is before you get to the first
turnpoint.

However, nothing terrible happens to you if you start outside of the
"front half." No penalties, no invalid starts, nothing. You just don't
get full credit for distance. In typical starts out the top, a half
knot of extra thermal strength will be much more important than even
being a mile outside of the extra credit area. Remember, people used
to start out the top back when they got no credit at all for extra
distance. Knowing the exact location of the "extra credit" area is
just not that important.

Thus, if you want to start out the top, the right strategy is to look
for the best possible thermal in the front half to two thirds of the
start cylinder. Programming semicircles into your flight computer and
staring at that isn't going to do any good compared to looking for a
good thermal.

In these extreme situations such that you might be heading 30 degrees
to the left or right of "courseline" into a huge first turn area, let
me suggest that if you have no idea before start whether you're going
to head 30 degrees to the left or 30 degrees to the right, you need to
do some better pre-start thinking rather than worry about start
geometry!

Yes, this means that the very back of the start cylinder is
disadvantaged for starts out the top. The RC is very worried about the
"bump the gaggle" business, especially if the first leg is downwind.
We judged that at least to start with the benefit outweighs the cost.

In the future, we can remove or relax this rule if it is proving too
constraining. Another possibility is to remove some of the "last valid
start" language and let this simple rule alone police the "bump the
gaggles" problem. But clearly if we see bump the gaggles behavior, or
heaven forbid a crash, the whole start anywhere concept will be in
danger. Hence, we thought it better to start conservatively.

Let us know your experiences this year

John Cochrane BB

On Jan 8, 12:15�pm, wrote:
On Jan 8, 10:41�am, Tim Taylor wrote:

�What you describe can still happen with the new rules
so I guess I don't see the point in trying to make the rule more
complex. �I can climb up right at the center of the cylinder and dive
through the gaggle five miles ahead as long as I don't stay in the
cylinder longer than 2 minutes. �Maybe we need to shorten that time to
1 minute so they are likely to get a new start time and make the whole
idea of hitting the front edge worthless.

Good points Tim. �It feels like an attempt to solve a problem that
doesn't happen much and in doing so negates some of the benefits of
the original rule change while only halfway meeting the objective of
making the "bump and run" strategy hard to pull off when it is an
option.

Andy's suggestion of a fixed front half should work - with the
understanding that under the worst case scenario a pilot could
technically line up a course line that ran for 10 miles along the
straight edge of the half-cylinder - just the way the angles work out.
Would it happen very often? Who the heck knows? It would be simpler to
understand.

The other possible approach would be to make the start cylinder
smaller (like 3 miles) - no software re-programming required. I like
the bigger cylinder, but it would be an easier experiment to run in
2009.

9B

The rules are written as an agreement between several parties.
This agreement requires all entrants to be in agreement with the rules
and each other. All entrants must be on equal ground and must not be
required to have special, expensive software which only a few can
afford. If one wishes to start anywhere within the defined start
circle, or turn anywhere they choose within the defined turn area,
they must not have the fear that if they don't have the new and
expensive software they might not recieve their flown distance.
The problem is trying to make something work that has these
restrictions which has been pointed out by several of you. I do
believe the rules committee has seen this and is working on it. If
starting out the top is what is normally not done by almost all the
entrants, has not been normally seen, then simply stop it. Most
contest managers that I have spoken with, starting out the top is
their worst fear for possible problems. This one point of starting out
the top was the underlying reason why the NSF closed its doors in
Hobbs. They were very concerned about one hot jock starting out the
top and bouncing his way thur the gaggles. I was their, I saw the IGC
files, and became very involved with this topic.
We finally got a finish which you can't pull up into. I, and
another, almost got knifed in half, when someone pulled up right in
front of us inside the circle, during the finish. We were at 500 agl.
and chutes don't work from 500 ft. agl.
How can this "new start anywhere" be a "start anywhere" when you
can't do that? That's the crazest dang thing I ever heard. Almost all
of us forgot their geometry 101 in high school. New entrants (or any
entrants) flying in any class should be able to understand the rules
and not feel they are at a disadvange before they even get to the
contest. They won't even come. The contest, yes, the contest, should
not start before the start. The start must be fair and equal to all
entrants. Not just to a few who have more knowledge than most of us.
Many thanks to both Andy's on bring this up. I do believe the
rules committee is working on this, because BB hasn't shown up yet and
told us different. I do believe what the rules committee is trying to
do is stop the starting out the rear half, why? because if the first
leg is downwind, its best to start as far upwind as you can, as it
makes the last leg home into the wind shorter, which saves time.
Remember well that XX talks about saving seconds. By starting up near
one side of the circle you can again use the wind, maybe a quartering
tail wind, to fly to the far otherside of the first turn circle, again
saving time. Remember, even on blue days, streets of lift do line up,
reread A J Smith on this.
Now, new folks don't read RAS and most of you already knew this,
so I feel safe in talking about this. But, is this fair to all
entrants? As long as I win, it sure is..........cause I will tell them
they could of read it on RAS.............

Thermal tight, Soar high, Fly safe........#711.

I'm confused about the "bouncing start gaggles" issue? If I start out
the top (at the back, for sake of argument), and stay above the MSH,
I'm on course. If I see a gaggle above MSH in front, I would be
stupid not to take advantage of their thermal - but unlikely to be
high enough to aggressively "bounce" it. If I drive down into a start
gaggle and drop back below MSH, then I should be penalized if I don't
hang around for 2 minutes - which would pretty much waste the
advantage of starting out the top earlier.

So, take away the option of the earlier start if you subsequently clip
the edge of the start cylinder - It would force you to either fly
conservatively enough to be sure not to drop back below MSH, or make
you hang around for 2 more minutes if you misjudge your out-the-top
start.

I don't like the proposal as stated - the start area should not be
variable, in any way - that's poor rule making, IMHO. I would prefer
to use the 2008 start anywhere rule as is, and see if gaggles get
bounced.

Out west, of course. Not likely where I'm racing these days!

Kirk
66

Captain Kirk:

We will gather good notes at Parowan (and elsewhere) this summer and
forward them to the RC.

Hopefully it will take us back to the 2008 version, but let's belly up
to the bar and follow the process.

-Scotty

On Jan 8, 2:45*pm, wrote:
Guys, I think we're all stressed from lack of flying and need to calm
down a bit and stop over-analyzing this one.

Yes, the point of the "front half" business is to further discourage
starting out the back or back of the top and bumping gaggles along the
top edge of the start cylinder.

Yes, the area in which you get full credit for distance is described
by a gentle semicircle defined by the first turn fix. *Therefore, yes,
you don't know exactly where the area is before you get to the first
turnpoint.

However, nothing terrible happens to you if you start outside of the
"front half." No penalties, no invalid starts, nothing. You just don't
get full credit for distance. In typical starts out the top, a half
knot of extra thermal strength will be much more important than even
being a mile outside of the extra credit area. Remember, people used
to start out the top back when they got no credit at all for extra
distance. Knowing the exact location of the "extra credit" area is
just not that important.

Thus, if you want to start out the top, the right strategy is to look
for the best possible thermal in the front half to two thirds of the
start cylinder. Programming semicircles into your flight computer and
staring at that isn't going to do any good compared to looking for a
good thermal.

In these extreme situations such that you might be heading 30 degrees
to the left or right of "courseline" into a huge first turn area, let
me suggest that if you have no idea before start whether you're going
to head 30 degrees to the left or 30 degrees to the right, you need to
do some better pre-start thinking rather than worry about start
geometry!

Yes, this means that the very back of the start cylinder is
disadvantaged for starts out the top. The RC is very worried about the
"bump the gaggle" business, especially if the first leg is downwind.
We judged that at least to start with the benefit outweighs the cost.

In the future, we can remove or relax this rule if it is proving too
constraining. Another possibility is to remove some of the "last valid
start" language and let this simple rule alone police the "bump the
gaggles" problem. But clearly if we see bump the gaggles behavior, or
heaven forbid a crash, the whole start anywhere concept will be in
danger. Hence, we thought it better to start conservatively.

Let us know your experiences this year

John Cochrane BB

John,

If the rules committee has already made up its mind, why ask for
input?

Your comments in one of your earlier threads eluded to the prestart
issues at Uvalde under the old rules.

1. I don't see how the new rules prevents the bump and run (there is
still 5 miles from the center to the edge). I can climb up 1500 feet
over the top, and hit the edge at 90 knots and bump any thermal there
and be gone before I have spent two minutes below height to get a new
start. If I am 10 miles back at the back edge I am likely going to be
going at an angle away from the front edge and I would have to be
significantly higher so that I would not spend two minutes back in the
cylinder during the crossing.

2. It encourages everyone to start at the front edge like before. The
arc of the eventual first turn point the center of the start cylinder
limits where you should start in the start cylinder. Anyplace else
takes a distance penalty like before.

3. If the goal is to minimize the bump and run, cut the time under
altitude to a lower number or set a speed limit in the cylinder.

4. Anyone crazy enough to bump and run a prestart gaggle should be hit
with an "unsafe flying" penalty if they go through the middle of a
gaggle without working in from the outside. I think that rule already
deals with the issue.

As a engineer we work on the KISS principle of design (and rules).

Tim (TT)

On Jan 8, 1:45*pm, wrote:
Guys, I think we're all stressed from lack of flying and need to calm
down a bit and stop over-analyzing this one.

Yes, the point of the "front half" business is to further discourage
starting out the back or back of the top and bumping gaggles along the
top edge of the start cylinder.

Yes, the area in which you get full credit for distance is described
by a gentle semicircle defined by the first turn fix. *Therefore, yes,
you don't know exactly where the area is before you get to the first
turnpoint.

However, nothing terrible happens to you if you start outside of the
"front half." No penalties, no invalid starts, nothing. You just don't
get full credit for distance. In typical starts out the top, a half
knot of extra thermal strength will be much more important than even
being a mile outside of the extra credit area. Remember, people used
to start out the top back when they got no credit at all for extra
distance. Knowing the exact location of the "extra credit" area is
just not that important.

Thus, if you want to start out the top, the right strategy is to look
for the best possible thermal in the front half to two thirds of the
start cylinder. Programming semicircles into your flight computer and
staring at that isn't going to do any good compared to looking for a
good thermal.

In these extreme situations such that you might be heading 30 degrees
to the left or right of "courseline" into a huge first turn area, let
me suggest that if you have no idea before start whether you're going
to head 30 degrees to the left or 30 degrees to the right, you need to
do some better pre-start thinking rather than worry about start
geometry!

Yes, this means that the very back of the start cylinder is
disadvantaged for starts out the top. The RC is very worried about the
"bump the gaggle" business, especially if the first leg is downwind.
We judged that at least to start with the benefit outweighs the cost.

In the future, we can remove or relax this rule if it is proving too
constraining. Another possibility is to remove some of the "last valid
start" language and let this simple rule alone police the "bump the
gaggles" problem. But clearly if we see bump the gaggles behavior, or
heaven forbid a crash, the whole start anywhere concept will be in
danger. Hence, we thought it better to start conservatively.

Let us know your experiences this year

John Cochrane BB

We do turn into tire-biters in the winter don't we?

Now, back at it:

John - I take your points on the scenarios probably being relatively
low probability If risk of traffic conflict in the start cylinder is
the big concern I can totally understand the RC taking a conservative
approach - the last thing you'd want to do is make a rule change that
gets somebody hurt or their glider broken. It's a big responsibility.

The conundrum is that the conservative approach is kind of like the
old joke about clapping your hands to keep the elephants away - the
only way to know if it works is to stop clapping, but who wants to
risk it? Inch by inch we add little complexities into the rules
because we can imagine something that might not be right about the
simple version. That of course means that it can be hard to work
these things out of the rules because you never know at what point the
elephants come back. But what if the elephants are just in our
imagining? It's not an easy question and please don't take this
discussion as criticism of what you guys do. I, for one, am just
trying to figure out what it means so I don't have to deal with in on
the fly next year.

Tuno's recommendation is a good one - which is to look at a reasonable
sample of 2007, 2008 and 2009 contests from the east and west, big and
small (especially big), with MSHs in all the various relationships to
top of lift and cloud base to see what pilots actually do differently.
The RC may do this already in some form. Obviously individual feedback
is the only way to know how people feel about the operational and
workload aspects of it.

Andy

On Jan 8, 2:45�pm, wrote:
Guys, I think we're all stressed from lack of flying and need to calm
down a bit and stop over-analyzing this one.

Yes, the point of the "front half" business is to further discourage
starting out the back or back of the top and bumping gaggles along the
top edge of the start cylinder.

Yes, the area in which you get full credit for distance is described
by a gentle semicircle defined by the first turn fix. �Therefore, yes,
you don't know exactly where the area is before you get to the first
turnpoint.

However, nothing terrible happens to you if you start outside of the
"front half." No penalties, no invalid starts, nothing. You just don't
get full credit for distance. In typical starts out the top, a half
knot of extra thermal strength will be much more important than even
being a mile outside of the extra credit area. Remember, people used
to start out the top back when they got no credit at all for extra
distance. Knowing the exact location of the "extra credit" area is
just not that important.

Thus, if you want to start out the top, the right strategy is to look
for the best possible thermal in the front half to two thirds of the
start cylinder. Programming semicircles into your flight computer and
staring at that isn't going to do any good compared to looking for a
good thermal.

In these extreme situations such that you might be heading 30 degrees
to the left or right of "courseline" into a huge first turn area, let
me suggest that if you have no idea before start whether you're going
to head 30 degrees to the left or 30 degrees to the right, you need to
do some better pre-start thinking rather than worry about start
geometry!

Yes, this means that the very back of the start cylinder is
disadvantaged for starts out the top. The RC is very worried about the
"bump the gaggle" business, especially if the first leg is downwind.
We judged that at least to start with the benefit outweighs the cost.

In the future, we can remove or relax this rule if it is proving too
constraining. Another possibility is to remove some of the "last valid
start" language and let this simple rule alone police the "bump the
gaggles" problem. But clearly if we see bump the gaggles behavior, or
heaven forbid a crash, the whole start anywhere concept will be in
danger. Hence, we thought it better to start conservatively.

Let us know your experiences this year

John Cochrane BB


John Cochrane, the below is your post from DEC. 24, 2008............


More options Dec 24 2008, 1:37 pm

Newsgroups: rec.aviation.soaring
From:
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:37:40 -0800 (PST)
Local: Wed, Dec 24 2008 1:37 pm
Subject: Start Anywhere
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Maybe we can convince John to write us a nice explanation of the
various tactical advantages/disadvantages of side vs top starts with
high or low MSH and strong/weak lift!



Alas, there's not much to say. The RC is very determined not to
introduce rules that require lots of strategizing and have secret
tricks to them. I can't think of anything clever to do with this one.
Much of the attraction is that it removes a lot of tactics and
geometry.

In most contests, thermals are weak near the top of the start
cylinder, or the top is near cloudbase, so there really isn't much to
be gained by going out the top. Then, the most important
consideration
is to pick a start position that lines up well to clouds or lift
sources on course.


If there is wind, being on the upwind side of the cylinder is
advantageous. Other things equal, the optimal start point is directly
into the wind. Other things aren't equal of course. It will take a
howling wind to get me away from a good looking cu that seems to line
up with energy on course.

...................Now, can we have a public explaination, as to why on
Dec. 24th, you tell us ( yes, in the above quote) what the rules
committee doesn't want to do, BUT JUST DID, with this new half
cylinder start. We are asked to debate the issue and then told by you
not to worry about the flaws, as its only a few points???

Present day transparence should be required for all entrants, just not
a few selected indiviuals. If you knew of these flaws when the half
cylinder was designed, why didn't you speak then and why did you wait
till now???? We are given an short notice on the review and when the
flaws are discovered, we are then told not to worry about them, as its
only a few points?? I want those few points, so why take them away and
not give me them, oh, your doing it because of a flawed rule? Sounds
like TARP all over again.............

Talking around the issue doesn't solve the problem. If the concern is
about starting out the top, then stop it. If their is NO proof of
starting out the top as being a problem, then stop "thinking" of ways
it could become one. Address the problem, if theirs been one to begin
with, and stop creating new ones.

On Jan 8, 2:45*pm, wrote:

I asked in my initial post "How, with the proposed rule change, is the
pilot expected to know whether the selected start cylinder exit point
will result in a devalued first leg distance?"

and part of your reply was

However, nothing terrible happens to you if you start outside of the
"front half." No penalties, no invalid starts, nothing. You just don't
get full credit for distance.

I'm surprised the RC thinks that not getting full credit for distance
flown is of no consequence. In the past pilots have worked thermals
away from the optimum start point and then lost altitude to exit at
the optimum start point just so they are not timed on a mile or less
that didn't earn any score.

How is this different?

I see no reason why a pilot that chooses to exit from the back of the
cylinder cannot work any gaggle on route to the first turnpoint. Why
does joining a gaggle in the vicinity of the start have a higher risk
than joining one on course?

I just don't see that the proposed rule, with its hidden complexity,
is justified. Unsafe flying has always been subject to a severe
penalty and anyone flying dangerously in, or above, the start cylinder
is subject to that rule.

Andy

On Jan 9, 9:30*am, Andy wrote:

I see no reason why a pilot that chooses to exit from the back of the
cylinder cannot work any gaggle on route to the first turnpoint. *Why
does joining a gaggle in the vicinity of the start have a higher risk
than joining one on course?

Traffic density near top of gate/cloud base, for starters. There's
also the issue of blending on course traffic with pre-start traffic.

From my point of view, the potential increase in opposing traffic near
cloud base/top of gate would justify the rule by itself. More
broadly, the rules strategy seems to be to take the incentive for
competitive flying out of the gate area and move it out on course
where it belongs.

-T8

On Jan 9, 8:43*am, wrote:
On Jan 9, 9:30*am, Andy wrote:

I see no reason why a pilot that chooses to exit from the back of the
cylinder cannot work any gaggle on route to the first turnpoint. *Why
does joining a gaggle in the vicinity of the start have a higher risk
than joining one on course?

Traffic density near top of gate/cloud base, for starters. *There's
also the issue of blending on course traffic with pre-start traffic.

From my point of view, the potential increase in opposing traffic near
cloud base/top of gate would justify the rule by itself. *More
broadly, the rules strategy seems to be to take the incentive for
competitive flying out of the gate area and move it out on course
where it belongs.

-T8

I'm still trying to work out in my mind how going with a 50% smaller
start area DEcreases traffic density. I think the only relevant
scenarios here are ones where you can start out the top of the
cylinder - but can't climb high enough to clear the edge of the
cylinder. That means the top of useable lift has to be within around
1,500' of MSH. Lower than that and pilots will find thermals closer to
the edge of the cylinder or start out the side. Higher than that and
any thermals you hit post-start will be with gliders that also have
already started, which is basically indistinguishable from entering a
thermal 5 miles out on course. That wouldn't appear to me to happen
all that often and the CD could certainly try to avoid setting MSH
close to the forecast top of lift.

TT made the point that even with the proposed modification you still
have 5 miles of radius to find a great start thermal that's somehow
lined up with a gaggle on your intended course line. I don't think I
can reliably see a glider from more than 5 miles away anyway so I
don't think offering the full cylinder will do much to increase
instances of people trying to do this in a premeditated way. I think
it's safe to say that the main scenario is someone starting out the
top who suddenly sees a gaggle along the way.

BB made the point that some pilots may elect to start from behind the
arc where they get distance credit if there's a good thermal to be had
since they can still get a legitimate start. They will just fly a mile
or two without getting credit for it. I'm thinking that would only
really make sense it the lift were really awesome (to save the lost
two minutes of on-course time you'd need to climb the fifteen hundred
feet at 15 knots rather than at 5 knots for example), or you might do
it if you were a dedicated pre-start gaggle bumper (the advantage here
seems minimal - I don't think I can save 2 minutes - or 1 minute by
bumping gaggles). In either case it would mean the rule change wasn't
very effective.

I get that the very back of the cylinder narrows a bit and so starters
from way back there would tend to overfly the middle of the cylinder.
I also get that traffic can fan out a bit on course - particularly if
you have a short first leg with a very big turn area. But a 10-mile
diameter start cylinder is pretty darn big - so the amount of fan-out
on course seems to be small for most TATs and all ASTs and MATs with a
first turn specified.

My perception is that a factor in gaggling is pilots who wait for the
post-start radio calls of other pilots and start right after them.
Under the old rule you had a good sense of where they'd be because the
optimal start point was at the edge of the cylinder near course line.
Under the original start anywhere rule a starter could be anywhere in
a 10 mile distance along course line and was a lot less likely to be
near MSH if the lift was going higher, so it became pretty hard to
time your start to reliably make a marker out of another pilot. Under
the modified rule it may become a more manageable strategy.

9B