Seniors Contest

wrote in message
ups.com...

There is nothing inherently dangerous in a line finish accomplished by
skillful pilots exercising good judgement. There IS unbounded risk in
any maneuver attempted by pilots who take the environment too lightly.

So, let's take a few minutes off the pilot's elapsed time for a low pass.
A few more off for a low pass with an aileron roll on the upline.
Still more for an inverted low pass.
I'm sure we could come up with a graded series of maneuvers, that could all
be accomplished by skillful pilots exercising good judgement. Judges could
add time for sloppy execution.
Just think of the additional entertainment for spectators!

If you don't want to improve your skills, why compete? That's the point
snippage hath occurred

Or it might be a case of: what skills, exactly, do we want to compare when
we race?

Tim Ward

Bill Daniels wrote:

You sound like a bunch of wusses.

If the kitchen's too hot for you, get out.

This particular, 'Wuss' has flown 200 combat missions
in Vietnam (RF-4C) and have a hand full of Air medals
+ a DFC. I didn't take unnecessary chances over there
and I haven't done it in 4300 hours spent racing sailplanes.
The advent of GPS has completely negated the need for
the 'Neanderthal' finish line. Why do we keep it in
the rules?

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Bill Daniels wrote:

This ELT rule is the last straw. Maybe if I could borrow a PLB to put in my
parachute it would be OK but build it into the glider? No way. ELT's have
been used in GenAv for decades and 99% of all activation's have been hard
landings with no damage.

It doesn't appear that it's near this bad for gliders. I don't know why
it's different, but maybe it's the ELT being mounted close to the gear,
and the shorter gear of the gliders keeps the forward forces from a hard
landing low enough to avoid setting it off.


How much hassle is it going to be when a pothole activates the damn thing in
the trailer? I can see it now, a glider trailer humming down the interstate
with a swarm of CAP planes overhead trying to triangulate on the thing.

Not a problem in metal trailers, of course. Personally, I've trailered
an ELT equipped glider as far as Alaska and San Diego (over the years,
about 40,000 miles) and it's never activated. I think the trailers ride
smoothly enough, so even behind a motorhome with a harsh suspension it's
not a problem.

Even so, I think requiring an ELT should be up to the contest organizers.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Oh for God's sake JJ.....you know full well that a low pass is LEGAL re the
FAR's when over an airport. If you don't believe that then explain why
there have been numerous instances of the FAA being present during finishes
at airports around the US for years without a single citation.

When we do passes for fun (yes they can be fun for those of you that are
thinking after reading these threads that only psychotic wackos do them) at
our local airport we do them down the runway with radio calls typically at
10, 4 and 1-2 miles alerting traffic and asking for advisories. So help me
understand how that is ANY different than a landing. And just to ensure you
that I really am a rational being....I broke off a pass last weekend when an
ultralight and other glider traffic presented a possible conflict.

Casey

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Fred Mueller wrote:

I'm kinda new at this,


New enough that you haven't used a finish line with the ground at the
bottom? If you haven't, it might be harder to understand how it works
out in practice.


Not that new.

Fred

Most people do not understand the implications of having flown an RF-4
in Vitenam.

What I know about the RF-4 in Vietnam I learned while going through USAF
pilot training in the early 80's. There was a video in our viewing room
called "Alone, Unarmed, and Unafraid." It was about the RF-4.

You see, the RF-4 has no weapons, only cameras. After the US would bomb
something, as you might imagine, all the people that had lived through
the bombing were really ****ed. They were real eager to damage something
US and they knew that they would have a chance by just waiting at the
bombed out sites for the lonely RF-4 that was going to be coming by soon
to take pictures. The damage isn't real until there's a picture, gotta
have a picture. The RF-4's defense was low altitude and speed---lots of
speed. And they still got there ass shot up all the time.

200 missions in an RF-4 over Vietnam. I can't possibly imagine what
might qualify as an unnecessary risk in those circumstances. I tip my hat.

Fred




John Sinclair wrote:
Bill Daniels wrote:


You sound like a bunch of wusses.


If the kitchen's too hot for you, get out.


This particular, 'Wuss' has flown 200 combat missions
in Vietnam (RF-4C) and have a hand full of Air medals
+ a DFC. I didn't take unnecessary chances over there
and I haven't done it in 4300 hours spent racing sailplanes.
The advent of GPS has completely negated the need for
the 'Neanderthal' finish line. Why do we keep it in
the rules?

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

At 05:00 12 March 2005, Kilo Charlie wrote:

Oh for God's sake JJ.....you know full well that a
low pass is LEGAL re the
FAR's when over an airport. If you don't believe that
then explain why
there have been numerous instances of the FAA being
present during finishes
at airports around the US for years without a single
citation.

A low pass may be tolerated by the FAA when done down
the runway. Our finish gates are normally not situated
so that the sailplane makes a low pass right down the
runway. Anyway, the big potential problem isn't getting
a citation from the FAA, it's being named in a law
suit. Those of us that run soaring contests have an
obligation to do everything in our power to make the
event as safe as possible.
Bill took some of us to task for being 'Wooses' and
said we should run our contests like they did in the
'66 nationals at Reno-Stead. Quote from Sterling Starr's
excellent article, 'Ten pilots, because of landing
damage and other problems, were unable to compete.'
And this was only after 4 days. I'll take our present
rules, but we have an opligation to do this as safe
as we possibly can.
JJ

Hi Mark
A control point in simply an additional turnpoint
(as opposed to a remote finish) placed next to the
airport so as to bring gliders round to finish from
a direction where an appropriate finish gate can be
provided. As per UK rules this is the usual 1/2 km
radius circle and 20k (I think) thistle. If you aren't
sure about the thistle part (I don't know if it has
an equivalent in US rules) there is a diagram on page
11 of:
http://www.gliding.co.uk/forms/competitionrules2005.pdf


For an example of Control Point use look at this
task from last years junior nationals:

http://www.lasham.org.uk/comps/natio...p?comp=b&ddate
=Saturday%2021st%20August

Lasham has a very open finish line coming in from the
west but no suitable place to locate a finish line
from the north, so each day where the task came in
from the north an aditional turn point (in this case
TP4) was added to force competitors to approach from
the west.
A glider has not finished until it has crossed
an on airfield finish line or entered the finish circle
(page 12 of the above pdf).

You mentioned the self selection of turnpoints
in the US Sports class (I assume that is similar to
our Club Class). In this case might it not be an idea
to have the provision for a mandatory turn point at
the end of the task and say 'you may select the order
of your turnpoints but your final turnpoint must be
this one'. This would seem to eliminate the whole
problem of converging gliders at low level without
necessitating the use of such a large finish cylinder
(which I have to admit I am sceptical of the value
of). There are obvious issues regarding the use of
thistles and penalty sectorsif the direction you are
approaching the airport is not fixed (in UK competitions,
the order of turns is usually fixed), but I think these
could be alleviated by the use of a simple 1k cylinder.
The idea of the thistle I believe is to allow a pilot
to round a turnpoint further out if the conditions
at the turnpoint are unfavorable, but as the control
point is very near the finish a pilot would be trying
to get to that exact location so the thistle could
be discarded at this point, leaving a 1 or 2 km radius
cylinder as the only point.

Cheers

Jamie

p.s. I have to admit that on that day during the Juniors
I forgot about the conrol point and went straight for
the finish, recording a gps landout a few k from the
airfield, d'oh!



At 18:30 11 March 2005, Mark James Boyd wrote:
Jamie,

That is exactly what I was thinking. A control point.
Yes, sort of like what we locally call an IP (initial
point)
when entering on the 45 for our normal pattern to land.

We are fortunate to have a huge metal tank maybe
50 meters
diameter that could be used as this remote 'control
point' and
is in line with the 45 entry (sort of). It is probably
3-4 km
away. At 500ft AGL in a 2-33 with a headwind this
would be a little
close, but in the L-13 or anything sexier it looks
ok.

Thanks for your post! Control point. I like that.
Is it scored as an OZ or a cylinder? Scoring as an
OZ
would take a little bit of thought, and as a cylinder,
I'd
expect it'd need to be pretty narrow to not cover the
airport.

In article ,
John Doe wrote:
Mark,

I think what you are getting at is what we in the UK
call a control point, a final turnpoint that must be
rounded in the normal way, but is only maybe 5-10 km
from the airfield, each glider is a few hundred feet
(or more depending on the pilots saftey margins) up
at this point and after turning the control point,
competitors turn to the airfield and dive to a known
linear finish gate. There is generally no minimun
finish height so often the gate is crossed under 50
ft but as all competitors are coming in from a fixed
direction towards a small and clear area of land it
eliminates the vast majority of head to head at low
altitude issues and I've never seen congestion at a
control point myself (altough as my own competition
experience is rather limited I won't say it never happens).

As for non comp gliders, everywhere I've been competing
the daily briefing for non-comp pilots always stressed
the comps procedures as well as use of the radio to
ensure separation in launch, landing and finishing.
As long as the finish gate is suitably chosen to be
away from the main landing area and obstacles with
space to land after as well as an easy entry into circuit
for those with the speed to do so it can be both a
safe and an exciting way to finish without the artificial
complications of raised finish lines.

John,

Whilst some of those accidents are attributable
to finish gates, I'd certainly question your thinking
the last three.
Taking the Discus crash for example, in a Discus
(in which I have a reasonable if not spectacular amount
of time), 500' is adequate, if not totally comfortable,
for a decent enough circuit, that crash, as well as
the others, from the reports seem to be the whole 'slightly
low in the circuit leads to a poor turn leading to
a spin in' issue.
Where the blame in that lies is the topic for another
thread but that, like the other last three, does not
seem to be attributable directly to finish gate issues
as surely a pilot just making it over a 500' 1 mile
finish gate would be in exactly the same situation
as someone who has just got a few hundred feet of height
from a competition pullup?

The others seem to be 'insufficient speed, insufficient
time to recover from the spin', afaiks the same situation
as trying to scrabble over a start gate at 450' and
screwing up.

It's been said before but unfortunately you can't legislate
good judgement.

Cheers

Jamie Denton

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Mark J. Boyd

At 05:00 12 March 2005, Kilo Charlie wrote:

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Oh for God's sake JJ.....you know full well that a
low pass is LEGAL re the
FAR's when over an airport.

The FAR point was debunked in a similar thread more
than a year ago. You can fly as low as you want as
long as you aren't within a specified distance of a
'man-made structure'. Anyone remember the distance?
As I recall the debate then turned to whether runways,
corn fields, other gliders constituted 'structures'
as they are often the only man-made objects near a
finish gate. It was decided that this couldn't be
the intended meaning because the way the reg was worded
it would make landing, formation flying and a bunch
of known legal maneuvers illegal too. There is no reference
to 'down the runway' found in the FARs either.

The thread ended with a discussion of the safety merits
of JJ painting his barn atop a 20' extension ladder
and whether it should be legal for him to do something
that injures 14,000 people each year. I thought that
put things in perspective. :-)

9B

Thanks Marc. this is helpful.

In article ,
Marc Ramsey wrote:
Mark James Boyd wrote:
I'm trying to think about this from the Sports Class perspective too.
If I understand it, in Sports Class one chooses their own TPs,
so the pilots can come in from any direction, and a cylinder around the
airport wouldn't seem to solve much in terms of head-on
surprises.

The finish cylinder is basically a circle with (minimally) a 2 mile
*diameter*. A typical one will have a floor of 500 feet and no top.
Once the edge of the cylinder is crossed, one pulls up from the final
glide speed, which may well in excess of 100 knots, to a more reasonable
55 or 60 knots for pattern and landing. Following the pull up you are
usually at a minimum of 600 to 700 feet, and there is plenty of time to
sort out traffic, and sequence for landing. People finishing from the
same direction are no more of a problem than they are with a finish
gate. People finishing from the opposite direction are also not a big
deal, as both you and the head-on glider have normally slowed to 60
knots or less by the time you are within a mile of each other. Most
people by that point have started a series of gradual clearing turns, so
they can assess the traffic situation.

By contrast, with a finish gate, you have gliders converging on the same
point in space (thanks to GPS) at final glide speed of 100+ knots (if
you're under 100 feet, you better be going at least that fast), pulling
up to 200 feet or so (unless they have too little energy), then having
to sort themselves within a few moments and land. Now throw an MAT
(modified assigned task) into the mix, and things get interesting, as
you get some gliders running straight into the gate, and others
approaching the gate from one side or the other (and every once in a
while some bozo goes through the gate in the wrong direction), then
having to make a last minute high speed turn to go through the gate in
the proper direction. Now yes, things are easier with a required final
turnpoint (control point), several miles away from the finish gate, to
get everyone finishing in the same direction, but not all (or even most,
in my experience) contest directors bother to use them.

Marc


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Mark J. Boyd