If You've Flown a FLARM Stealth Contest, Vote Here

;-). Exactly.

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 11:05:24 AM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Hi Hank,

I thought team flying was permitted at the WGC, so teams already do send "rabbits" out in front of their best placing pilots. I've heard people on both sides of the technology argument say they quite enjoy team flying, be it formal teams or informal pickup groups that cruise along and take turns finding thermals.

I prefer totally open info sharing to formal team flying, because of the "best prom date" effect, but we do allow it in Regional rules as you know. US Nationals is the one place where it is forbidden.

Paying a non-competitor to generate information just for you seems like a violation of human assistance principle.

9B

Yes they do at the WGC, but we do not in the US. That, of course opens another topic for ranting.
In Regionals it can be permitted on assumption that it could be a useful teaching tool for newbies.
Maybe the information sharer is a friend who is a competitor. Who wants to get beaten by 2 people who are team flying and we don't even know it? Not me.
UH

;-)

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 8:25:08 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 11:05:24 AM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Hi Hank,

I thought team flying was permitted at the WGC, so teams already do send "rabbits" out in front of their best placing pilots. I've heard people on both sides of the technology argument say they quite enjoy team flying, be it formal teams or informal pickup groups that cruise along and take turns finding thermals.

I prefer totally open info sharing to formal team flying, because of the "best prom date" effect, but we do allow it in Regional rules as you know.. US Nationals is the one place where it is forbidden.

Paying a non-competitor to generate information just for you seems like a violation of human assistance principle.

9B

Yes they do at the WGC, but we do not in the US. That, of course opens another topic for ranting.
In Regionals it can be permitted on assumption that it could be a useful teaching tool for newbies.
Maybe the information sharer is a friend who is a competitor. Who wants to get beaten by 2 people who are team flying and we don't even know it? Not me.
UH

All the more reason for openness. Then there is no advantage because the information isn't proprietary.

FYI, I just ordered one of those consumer ISM-band (like Flarm) GPS tags and basestation systems that are used by consumers. The tags last for 45 days, are the size of a set of car keys and have a range on the ground of up to four miles - presumably more in the air without obstructions. You could have one on your glider (maybe you put it there yourself, maybe not) - depending on the location it could be very hard to find.

9B

Exactly.

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 10:16:09 AM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
I am skeptical of the usefulness of an instantaneous God-map of lift. The weather is too dynamic for that and gliders just don't cover anywhere near enough of the available territory. The occasional convergence line or other local secret will be a little less secret and the occasional newbie landout will be avoided. Racing will be ever so slightly more competitive because some of the randomness of getting stuck for 45 minutes or landing out will go away - some, not most, certainly not all. You can take comfort in the certainty that people will still land out. If you want more landouts we can go back to requiring all assigned tasks or making tasks a lot longer. Oddly, packing gliders tighter together with more leeching possible has been associated with more landouts, not less.

Power pilots have a different name for what glider pilots call lift - turbulence. I can't imagine any serious power flight deciding to run glider lift lines to save energy or gain speed. It's a rough ride and makes it harder to hold altitude steady. I've tried it. The FAA won't be a fan - ever. Plus there are more power planes than gliders by a lot. They get a lot more benefit out of matching flight levels to more favorable winds.

I just don't see giving the pilot more information as a bad thing and setting rules to filter information to the pilot seems a losing battle.

Cheap Lidar will arrive eventually. It could be cool. Blipmaps are cool too - on convergence and wave days they take most of the guesswork out of where the lift will be. I quite like Blipmaps, but I'm not going to program them into an autopilot.

9B

Andy,
You are assuming here that we will develop and use all these great things and somehow stop short of being able to fly around more or less at will. It is hard to imagine now, yes, but who is to say what is possible.

Remember that general aviation will evolve as well. Flying in a straight line may be a thing of the past as we find a more energy efficient way of navigating the sky for them. Holding altitude will fall by the wayside as well as it is very inefficient. GA aircraft may come to look very much like gliders. They may glide and only provide bursts of propulsion when needed. With the blending of the future glider technology, the range of GA aircraft could be seriously extended. ATC is not static either, though it is the FAA. You could imagine an entirely flexible ATC system that would allow for these glider like, bobbing and weaving routes.

Even if you are unwilling to envision an overlap of GA with gliding, you might concede that the two types of flying could become very similar. The result for us would be the same, the loss of the our identity, the loss of our sport.

XC

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 10:16:09 AM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:

Power pilots have a different name for what glider pilots call lift - turbulence. I can't imagine any serious power flight deciding to run glider lift lines to save energy or gain speed. It's a rough ride and makes it harder to hold altitude steady. I've tried it. The FAA won't be a fan - ever. Plus there are more power planes than gliders by a lot. They get a lot more benefit out of matching flight levels to more favorable winds.



9B

I will say, when I did my "long cross country" (Middletown NY to Keuka Lake NY & back) for power SEL private, I was a "glider pilot" partly because I was in a Cessna 150.
I got up near cloudbase, then ran streets using the trim to maintain altitude but gained a lot of speed at times.
A 150 is not known for cross country speed.......

Winds that day were very minor, lift streets MORE than made up for it (along with a slightly longer distance covered). Flying higher, the winds would likely have made more of a difference.

In general though, I would agree with you.

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 11:45:57 AM UTC-8, XC wrote:
On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 10:16:09 AM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
I am skeptical of the usefulness of an instantaneous God-map of lift. The weather is too dynamic for that and gliders just don't cover anywhere near enough of the available territory. The occasional convergence line or other local secret will be a little less secret and the occasional newbie landout will be avoided. Racing will be ever so slightly more competitive because some of the randomness of getting stuck for 45 minutes or landing out will go away - some, not most, certainly not all. You can take comfort in the certainty that people will still land out. If you want more landouts we can go back to requiring all assigned tasks or making tasks a lot longer. Oddly, packing gliders tighter together with more leeching possible has been associated with more landouts, not less.

Power pilots have a different name for what glider pilots call lift - turbulence. I can't imagine any serious power flight deciding to run glider lift lines to save energy or gain speed. It's a rough ride and makes it harder to hold altitude steady. I've tried it. The FAA won't be a fan - ever. Plus there are more power planes than gliders by a lot. They get a lot more benefit out of matching flight levels to more favorable winds.

I just don't see giving the pilot more information as a bad thing and setting rules to filter information to the pilot seems a losing battle.

Cheap Lidar will arrive eventually. It could be cool. Blipmaps are cool too - on convergence and wave days they take most of the guesswork out of where the lift will be. I quite like Blipmaps, but I'm not going to program them into an autopilot.

9B

Andy,
You are assuming here that we will develop and use all these great things and somehow stop short of being able to fly around more or less at will. It is hard to imagine now, yes, but who is to say what is possible.

Remember that general aviation will evolve as well. Flying in a straight line may be a thing of the past as we find a more energy efficient way of navigating the sky for them. Holding altitude will fall by the wayside as well as it is very inefficient. GA aircraft may come to look very much like gliders. They may glide and only provide bursts of propulsion when needed. With the blending of the future glider technology, the range of GA aircraft could be seriously extended. ATC is not static either, though it is the FAA.. You could imagine an entirely flexible ATC system that would allow for these glider like, bobbing and weaving routes.

Even if you are unwilling to envision an overlap of GA with gliding, you might concede that the two types of flying could become very similar. The result for us would be the same, the loss of the our identity, the loss of our sport.

XC

You can never say never - well, almost never. ;-)

It's also impossible to predict what will become of glider racing in a world where you, for instance, almost never need to stop and thermal as a result of improvements in materials, aerodynamics, dynamic soaring and even variometers, flight computers and sensors. The thought of not grinding around as much in the heat and humidity, getting vertigo and dehydrated certainly appeals. Many people marvel at and quite like the cruising of lift lines that has come with the latest technologies in hardware and software. I'd hate to preclude it before it gets here. The increases in speeds and distances could be astonishing.

The part that I am most skeptical about is that the pilot will become irrelevant. It's just way too dynamic and varied an environment to leave to even a supercomputer with deep learning algorithms, access to all the boundary layer weather models and every single bit of real-time data we can capture. I see the micro-level forecasting models getting better faster than any predictions of what you can glean from 1-second samples of gliders position, course and speed. That information you'll be able to download before launch..

Yes, we may face a different range of differentiation in competitor performance as the sport evolves. Back when I first started racing and there were only assigned tasks (Sean Fidler - you missed it!) we had a lot more landouts, a lot more scatter in the scores and a lot more randomness I think most would argue. Less randomness and more finishers keep more good pilots in the hunt which is good. It should surprise no one that the general ordering of the scoresheet doesn't change very much over years (or decades!) altered only by the exceptional new talent, retirement and the occasional old dog who learns new tricks (usually by flying A LOT). Anxiety that some skateboarding kid with Xbox gaming as his main racing credential will snake us all out of our medallions is misplaced. But should that come to pass - well, we can take it up then. I for one would like to see a few more kids give up Xbox gaming for glider racing and I am heartened by some small gains in junior soaring - including a talented trio in Australia right now!

Wow. We are really out there now. I think the word is "philosophizing!" Deep guys! Deep! Deep words with Jack Handey deep!

;-). https://youtu.be/Ea5fqGrx7sI

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 4:24:07 PM UTC-5, Sean Fidler wrote:
Wow. We are really out there now. I think the word is "philosophizing!" Deep guys! Deep! Deep words with Jack Handey deep!

;-). https://youtu.be/Ea5fqGrx7sI

Sean,
Thanks for the laugh!

I still think many are enamored with all the technology on the horizon. It certainly is coming at us with such a rapid pace. We are not thinking what is beyond the horizon.

XC