Is the 200ft below Min Finish Height Rule Working?

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 4:55:14 PM UTC-5, wrote:
You presume that I haven't flown a line finish outside of contests. I

normally fly predeclared tasks with a line start and a line finish.



Cheers,



Luke



It's a world of difference flying back to your own airport for fun vs. last day of nationals, lots of wind, no lift, you're in third place, you started at Mc 3 + 1000' but lost it all, and now you need to cross the oil derricks with MacCready 0 and 100 feet on the clock. The sirens will sing.



John Cochrane

John, we obviously approach flying differently, hence our divergent points of view. Every time I fly I strive to do my very best, whether in a contest, record attempt, or a personal best. I have yet to take a risk in a contest that I am not willing to take in my regular flying, I hope to maintain that level of self discipline for the remainder of my gliding career. One thing I know for sure; I will not do something stupid just because a rule does or does not exist, when I do make a mistake it will be my own poor judgement that got me there.

Happy soaring.
Luke

Mmmm....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOL-oH7oC8c

On 01/22/2014 6:21 PM, wrote:
Mmmm....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOL-oH7oC8c


Thanks Sean, very constructive, hope you're enjoying the show....

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 2:04:27 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Most racing pilots have clearly spoken that they feel it is fundamental unfair to make it home and not be given credit for completing the task.



Tim:



You're missing a basic point. When a finish cylinder is in effect, the task ends at the top of the finish cylinder, not at the home airport. "Making it home" does not mean "completing the task."



If you take off at the home airport and miss the start cylinder or start time, you do not get credit for completing the task, even though you took off at the same airport as everyone else and went around the same turnpoints.. You may "feel" you should get credit, but you don't.



That's like saying you want credit for finishing a running race because, though you didn't go through the finish line with everyone else, you did make it to the locker room after the race.



Pilots may "feel" this way. I'm sure some pilots "felt" this way when rules were changed that you could not use your takeoff time rather than start time if you missed the gate. Sorry. The race is from start cylinder after start gate opens, through turnpoint cylinders, and to the finish cylinder. The start and finish cylinders have a maximum and minimum altitudes. That's the task, and where you land is pretty irrelevant to having completed the task.



Other pilots may "feel" that if they stopped in a half not rag to make it home at the finish height, it's unfair that some guy willing to bust his glider over the oil derrecks can still get speed points for floating in and pulling up over the fence.



Remember, all points are relative! To every pilot who gets ahead by squeaking in a low final glide for speed points, it is just the same as taking away points from the guys who don't do this stuff. If you're a competitive but also safety minded pilot, don't think about these structures as "how will they take points away from me." Think about it as "how will they keep some other guy from beating me by doing stupid stuff."



John Cochrane

Actually John I do see the point, that is why I proposed a very simple solution that tries to deal with the perceived fairness issues of racing so that our rules are not too extreme.

We allow:

1. Missed start height or time below by using a penalty
2. Missed turn points with a penalty
3. Missed finish height with penalty

All of these could be removed and make it black or white, zero points for all errors. Does that encourage pilots to race? No we will just see more pack up early or not come at all.

Why?

Because a pure black and white system would be very discouraging to pilots for simple mistakes. We are all in this for the chicks or guys, and the money right?

Is anyone going to miss the finish gate on purpose? Absolutely not! Am I going to risk my glider and life for a few hundred points? No! I carry an extra 500 feet (or equivalent energy) if possible and burn it in the last few miles. It is not about someone willing to risk more than the others to win, anyone that flies like that will not win over a full contest. The price of error or risk/reward ratio is too high. Those are the hero or zero pilots that many of see at contests. Contest flying is about calculated risk and optimization, not risky flying.

The rules need to be as "simple as possible, but not simpler". All the convoluted scenarios you are trying to prevent is no longer simple and are not needed. You can not prevent all pilot error with a rule and there is no reason to. The 500 foot finish with a gradated penalty is enough. At roughly 5 points per minute I am not going to trade 45 minutes to come home with nothing left. But as others have said, is a simple mistake worth the penalties you are using to legislate your version of the perfect world?

The point that you don't seem to understand is most pilots see it as fair that if they get home they should get credit for finishing the task. This is purely a perception issue and why the new rules draw such a negative response from most pilots. It was clear at 15M/Open Nats that the rule was not popular among the pilots there.

TT

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:37:24 AM UTC-8, Bravo Zulu wrote:

John - Interlinear comments. My personal views - not in any official capacity.

In response to 9B:

The original post that started this discussion provided some data indicating that the current rule is not working as well as hoped in certain situations, and made some suggestions that might improve it.

As to the hard deck idea, I do not understand how that will affect a pilot who is faced with a deteriorating final glide that places him near the land-out penalty altitude just outside the finish circle. He will have been above any proposed hard deck all the way. A pilot who is watching the final glide knows early on that he might not make the MFH and is looking for lift all the way. The crunch comes in the last mile or so when he has not found it and is now looking to avoid a big penalty, as described (with concrete examples) in the original post.


The finish is a new use of the hard deck concept and makes a slightly different set of tradeoffs from the current rule. I'll try to articulate some preliminary thoughts on it, but it probably bears some detailed analysis.

First - in contrast to the current rule a hard deck would define the bottom of the finish cylinder in reference to the ground instead of 200' below MFH. Below the bottom of the cylinder means you didn't finish the task and you get distance points. For a 1000' MFH and a 500' hard deck this means the graduated "penalty zone" would be 500' instead of 200'. Points per foot of penalty TBD - choices are either to make it linear to 400 points (=landout) or something more like the current gradual penalty for 200, depending on whether having the penalty discontinuous at the bottom of the cylinder creates an incentive for risky behavior. I believe the second feature of the hard deck - a larger radius than the finish cylinder - decreases potential adverse incentives resulting from a discontinuous penalty at the bottom of the cylinder. More on that later.

Second - the hard deck as described here would extend out presumably 4-5 miles at an altitude below which a safe approach to an orderly landing starting at finish cylinder radius is not possible - This is consistent with the requirements of 10.9.4.1. In my thinking this hard deck height has been 400' to cover a variety of airport and finish cylinder configurations. Here it's been discussed at 500'. If finish cylinders were always 1 mile centered on an airport maybe you could MAYBE imagine 300' but I don't know who out there would make a serious argument that they could make a finish, fly to some sort of abbreviated pattern IP and make an orderly landing from 300' AGL..

Aside: Remember that GP-style starts will be allowed this year so you also have to think about being able to do this with a class of gliders finishing within a smaller time window than before. If we could be certain that every airport had a 1000' wide runway this would be less of a problem, but congestion is an issue at many sites. Somebody has to think about all this stuff...

I think the way a 4 mile (from the finish cylinder edge) hard deck might help is that it makes it a lot less likely that someone is going to come at a steep penalty zone all at once from the side. The so-called "penalty cliff" that started this thread has effectively been moved out to a point where most pilots will overfly the edge by 1000-1500', depending on MFH. If you were actually at 400', 4 miles out you would not be on final glide, you'd be on task (barely) and you be doing what pilots do when they are at 400' AGL on task, picking a field and (maybe) hoping for a climb.

So I think it's pretty clear that anyone coming at the hard deck would be coming at it from above, probably at best L/D because their glide computer has been telling them for some time that they are going to be WELL below MFH at the finish so they are stretching the glide. Once they are over the hard deck but not on a glidepath to get to the bottom of the finish cylinder, the correct and natural thing to do is head for the finish at best L/D and hope for lift. There's no energy to do a zoomie at the edge of the finish cylinder because you are trying to glide to it over a flat hard deck at best L/D. Pulling up to hit the bottom of the cylinder also means you already went below the hard deck and your day is done so that would be dumb. Would someone go halfway into the hard deck and then turn around so they could look for lift at below 400' outside of 4 miles? That would be stupid too as you probably close off more options than you open up by heading away from the finish. Would you bleed off airspeed trying to get a little more glide to reach the finish - maybe, but it would be counter-productive to go to the back side of the polar. So, maybe people would do stupid random stuff, but not for any rational reason that I can find.


The original post suggested increasing the penalty zone from 200’ to 500’, thereby reducing the per foot penalty and providing more incentive to continue to a safe landing. In light of the excellent explanation from 9B about the RC’s deliberations leading to the current rule, I would appreciate his opinion as to how increasing the penalty zone from 200’ to 500’ (with a commensurate increase in the MFH) would effect the pilot’s decision in the case of a degrading final glide where the pilot can still make the field safety but is facing a land-out finish penalty. It would seem to me that decreasing the penalty for a low (but safely above the bottom of the PZ) entry would increase the motivation to continue to a safe landing rather than stopping to thermal at an unsafe altitude. Imagine a pilot facing a small penalty for a busted glide vs the same pilot facing a huge penalty; which has the stronger motivation to continue to a safe landing rather than attempting a 'hail Mary' play?

The good thing about the hard deck idea is it takes the edge off the bottom of the finish cylinder by making it impossible to climb up or zoom up to a finish in order to avoid the landout penalty. That's good to the extent you believe the steeper the penalty the more unpredictable the behavior to avoid it. The other think it does is pin the hard deck/landout height to the ground rather than the top of the finish cylinder. This means that the higher you make MFH the more buffer you have between MFH and the hard deck. Without the zoomie/low thermalling potential at the bottom of the cylinder you can be more comfortable with a gradual penalty from MFH to the bottom of the finish cylinder. (BTW I agree with UH this is probably a rare event, but something you'd prefer not to encourage).

The fly in the ointment is that some sites really like the 700' or 500' finish (I think for ridge missions), so you need to be careful about setting MFH too low, but with a 400' hard deck a 700' MFH has 300' of gradual penalty zone and a 1000' MFH has 600' of gradual penalty zone. A 500' MFH (drum roll for the math) has only 100' of gradual penalty, but I only hear a few voices who think that's a preferred target height for finishing a fleet of gliders and you still have 100' of buffer. Again with GP-style racing an option, we should be a little careful about how much congestion we can handle.


I still suggest that we increase the width of the penalty zone as above for the 2014 season. This would be a trivial change to implement, and has the virtue that its effects can be easily measured and compared to prior-year data.

Actually I think there is scoring software programming for some of this and we are past the comment deadline for 2014 rules so this may have to go on the agenda for 2015 if there is broad support to consider it. This thread was initially promising, but I have also heard some voices against it so it remains to be seen what will happen. The process requires a pilot survey of any significant changes, rather than a r.a.s. discussion. I think that's prudent due process.

9B

"The process requires a pilot survey of any significant changes, rather than a r.a.s. discussion. I think that's prudent due process.

9B"

Andy, the problem was that this years survey was so poorly worded that there is no meaningful data to be had. I write exams for a living and I can tell you that this question was one of the worst ever written. I don't know if it was designed to confuse on purpose or just poorly written but the results from it told us nothing about what pilots actually thought about the new rules implemented with the hard deck. The survey has become a whole lot of double talk and the committee ignores clear results when they get it. Next year maybe they will ask a few pilots to review the survey before it goes out.

TT




" The current rules for finish cylinders specify t
hat for the first 200 feet
below the minimum finish
height (MFH), the pilot receives a mild penalty of
20 points per 100 feet low. More than 200 feet
below MFH, the pilot is
scored as if he landed out at the home ai
rport. The intent is to make it
transparent to the pilot when he gets no points benefit from cont
inuing a marginal final glide.
However, it moves the end of the race for speed
points from landing at the airport to crossing a
point at MFH-200'.
Which philosophy do you favor? When a cylinder finish is used (i.e. task scoring ends at the finish
cylinder, with a specified minimum altitude):

A:
The penalty for crossing the finish cylinder below
the finish height should be the same as the
penalty for a high start, all the way to the ground.

B:
The penalty for crossing the finish
cylinder below the finish height
should be more severe than for
a high start, since safety as well
as fairness is a concern, but it should remain a linear penalty all the way to the ground.

C:
Scoring for crossing the finish
cylinder below the fini
sh height should be the same as coming up
short on a line finish - if you come up short
you are scored as a landout (with an allowance for
instrument error)"

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 5:08:32 PM UTC-8, Tim Taylor wrote:
"The process requires a pilot survey of any significant changes, rather than a r.a.s. discussion. I think that's prudent due process.



9B"



Andy, the problem was that this years survey was so poorly worded that there is no meaningful data to be had. I write exams for a living and I can tell you that this question was one of the worst ever written. I don't know if it was designed to confuse on purpose or just poorly written but the results from it told us nothing about what pilots actually thought about the new rules implemented with the hard deck. The survey has become a whole lot of double talk and the committee ignores clear results when they get it. Next year maybe they will ask a few pilots to review the survey before it goes out.



TT









" The current rules for finish cylinders specify t

hat for the first 200 feet

below the minimum finish

height (MFH), the pilot receives a mild penalty of

20 points per 100 feet low. More than 200 feet

below MFH, the pilot is

scored as if he landed out at the home ai

rport. The intent is to make it

transparent to the pilot when he gets no points benefit from cont

inuing a marginal final glide.

However, it moves the end of the race for speed

points from landing at the airport to crossing a

point at MFH-200'.

Which philosophy do you favor? When a cylinder finish is used (i.e. task scoring ends at the finish

cylinder, with a specified minimum altitude):



A:

The penalty for crossing the finish cylinder below

the finish height should be the same as the

penalty for a high start, all the way to the ground.



B:

The penalty for crossing the finish

cylinder below the finish height

should be more severe than for

a high start, since safety as well

as fairness is a concern, but it should remain a linear penalty all the way to the ground.



C:

Scoring for crossing the finish

cylinder below the fini

sh height should be the same as coming up

short on a line finish - if you come up short

you are scored as a landout (with an allowance for

instrument error)"


Hey Tim,

A few pilots do review the survey before it goes out. I'm sure there is room for improvement. I also thought the results were pretty clear. No, there was not a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the issues - it was intended to survey views on paths forward and overall objectives rather than a vote on a specific penalty structure which had plenty of detailed feedback provided already. The very specific structure of a rule is not practical to survey for in multiple-choice format. Verbatims help as do focus-group format discussions.

9B

-snip from Dave-

Perhaps you were absent when a pilot blew a final glide from

the North, and landed on a street in a housing development

close to the airport?


-snip from John -

As Dave said, one of our most safety minded pilots landed on a city street two miles out. A lot of the rest of us had no fun at all on a long wave suppressed liftless final glide -- and the huge incentive to squeak it in on the last day of a national.





I had to check the score sheet just to make sure I was there.

Link to score sheet on the ssa website http://www.ssa.org/ContestResults.as...ss+Nation als.

The top finisher in my class (15m) on the day did 79.4mph (~128kph), I was 8th with 75.18mph (~121kph). I was first to leave on task at 13:56 the last start time of a pilot who finished the task was at 14:54, he flew on task for almost 4 hours and finished with a speed of 63.57 mph (~102kph) - 15th on the day. Perhaps the day wasn't as bleak as you gentleman seem to remember. Yes, the day had it's challenges, but isn't that why we do this?

-snip from John-
Take a look down sometime while you glide in to Hobbs at Mc 0 + 50 feet,

No thanks, I'll try very hard not to put myself in that position again. I've had a few marginal MC 0 final glides before. I am not proud of them, each one means that I screwed up somewhere earlier in the flight, to add insult to injury I then demonstrated poor judgment by continuing on to the finish. These were not contest flights, there were no points on the table, no outside pressure, just pure stupidity on my part. I sincerely hope that the lessons have sunk in to my thick concrete skull by now.


Perhaps slightly off topic but:
-snip from John
-- huge incentive to squeak it in on the last day of a national.


Do you mean to imply that some pilots knew on July 3rd that July 4th would be called off due to logistical issues on the ground not directly related to the contest itself? To my knowledge all of the contestants thought that July 4th would be a contest day until the pilots meeting. Personally I was rigged, taped, watered up, and and on the grid before the meeting.


Cheers,
Luke Szczepaniak

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 8:26:55 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 5:08:32 PM UTC-8, Tim Taylor wrote:

"The process requires a pilot survey of any significant changes, rather than a r.a.s. discussion. I think that's prudent due process.







9B"







Andy, the problem was that this years survey was so poorly worded that there is no meaningful data to be had. I write exams for a living and I can tell you that this question was one of the worst ever written. I don't know if it was designed to confuse on purpose or just poorly written but the results from it told us nothing about what pilots actually thought about the new rules implemented with the hard deck. The survey has become a whole lot of double talk and the committee ignores clear results when they get it. Next year maybe they will ask a few pilots to review the survey before it goes out.







TT



















" The current rules for finish cylinders specify t



hat for the first 200 feet



below the minimum finish



height (MFH), the pilot receives a mild penalty of



20 points per 100 feet low. More than 200 feet



below MFH, the pilot is



scored as if he landed out at the home ai



rport. The intent is to make it



transparent to the pilot when he gets no points benefit from cont



inuing a marginal final glide.



However, it moves the end of the race for speed



points from landing at the airport to crossing a



point at MFH-200'.



Which philosophy do you favor? When a cylinder finish is used (i.e. task scoring ends at the finish



cylinder, with a specified minimum altitude):







A:



The penalty for crossing the finish cylinder below



the finish height should be the same as the



penalty for a high start, all the way to the ground.







B:



The penalty for crossing the finish



cylinder below the finish height



should be more severe than for



a high start, since safety as well



as fairness is a concern, but it should remain a linear penalty all the way to the ground.







C:



Scoring for crossing the finish



cylinder below the fini



sh height should be the same as coming up



short on a line finish - if you come up short



you are scored as a landout (with an allowance for



instrument error)"





Hey Tim,



A few pilots do review the survey before it goes out. I'm sure there is room for improvement. I also thought the results were pretty clear. No, there was not a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the issues - it was intended to survey views on paths forward and overall objectives rather than a vote on a specific penalty structure which had plenty of detailed feedback provided already. The very specific structure of a rule is not practical to survey for in multiple-choice format. Verbatims help as do focus-group format discussions.



9B

After reviewing the data the result's were very clear.

73% (168 out of 231) of the pilots voted that they wanted the points to go all the way to the ground. That is nearly 3/4 of the pilots said they DID NOT want a hard deck or any type of land out penalty imposed on those that crossed the finish line.

Rules committee please explain why we did not immediately reverse the land out rule on finishes when you saw these results? How much clearer do you need the data to be to react and rectify a rule that was not liked by 3 out of 4 pilots?

Tim Taylor

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:41:04 PM UTC-8, Tim Taylor wrote:

Rules committee please explain why we did not immediately reverse the land out rule on finishes when you saw these results? How much clearer do you need the data to be to react and rectify a rule that was not liked by 3 out of 4 pilots?

Tim Taylor


Here's the explanation - my personal interpretation.

The survey included a question on the overall rule approach to get pilots' view of relative proportionality versus other penalties.

The least severe option as applied to a 1000' finish cylinder (which in my experience is the mode MSH currently in use) would invoke a penalty such that a rolling finish would get distance points. This is slightly more severe than your option - 0.5 points per foot (less a 100' buffer). It is more severe than the current rule for the first few hundred feet (I'd need to model it to get the crossover), less severe for middle altitudes and about the same for a rolling finish. We saw it as less severe overall.

The middle choice called for a more severe penalty than the start penalty - it did not specify how much more. Let's say 0.75 to 1.0 points per foot. For a 1,000' gate this would be 675-900 point penalty for a rolling finish. This was viewed as about the same as current option, since there are several hundred feet in the middle where the points penalties are close and we didn't assume pilots took it that the rules would ever penalize to a total score less than distance points.

The most severe option was a landout for being lower than MFH (allowing for altimeter error). This was viewed as more severe than the current option - mandatory landout for missing MFH.

So the summary was 1/4 for less severe, 1/2 for about the same and 1/4 for more severe. It wasn't just the survey that was used as input, there was a lot of discussion of the SRA meeting feedback. The overall conclusion was not to tweak the rules every year - especially on a change that was only in force for a year. The RC minutes reflect this.

I think it's fair to say this is continues to be an area of focus.

9B