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2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open



 
 
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  #61  
Old October 29th 19, 05:04 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Alex Okeefe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

Watching this from the UK and finding it ever so entertaining -
thanks all.

I've somehow managed to survive all of my competition years so far
without meeting an untimely end. That includes a good number of
landouts in the early years which, would you believe with decent
training and without an unfounded and inflated percetion of risk
were carried out incident free.

I do especially enjoy that we can race on a level playing field,
without having to create scoring formulae and task formats to make
slower pilots feel like they've done better than they have. A sad
consequence of this is that the slower pilots, who score much lower
and land out more often are especially driven to improve and
become quite formidable competition. What a bother.

I know you're all fans of winscore (I had to look it up). If anyone
would like to change to Seeyou then just ask myself or one of the
many people around the world who are familiar with it to show you.
I'm afraid this could take up to 10 minutes.

Carry on!

At 15:51 19 October 2019, John Godfrey QT wrote:
On Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 7:40:59 PM UTC-4, Andy

Blackburn wrote:
US contest pilots.

The 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll is now open and

will remain
open through October 20, 2019. You must be on the SSA Pilot

Ranking List to
participate. We look forward to your input.

You can access the poll online at:

http://www.adamsfive.com/a5soaring/survey/surveys.php

Rich Owen is running unopposed for re-election to the Rules

Committee.
Consequently, Rich will return to his RC seat for a four-year term.
Congratulations Rich!

For the SSA Contest Rules Committee
Andy Blackburn, Chair
9B


Just a reminder here. In spite of the missives being written

highlighting
the "incredible downsides" of a "big switch" approach to adoption

of FAI
rules, that IS NOT WHAT IS ON THE TABLE.

What is on the table (via the poll) is: SHOULD THE 2020 FAI

CLASS NATIONALS
BE TASKED AND SCORED ACCORDING TO FAI SC3A TASK

DEFINITIONS AND SCORING
FORMULAE AND THE RESULT EVALUATED.


I am personally a bit confounded and disappointed at the

resistance to this
experiment by the introduction of all the "big switch - death panel"
arguments, which are at best peripheral to the immediate decision.

Record your opinion please.

QT


  #62  
Old October 29th 19, 08:10 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
John Foster
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 354
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

On Tuesday, October 29, 2019 at 10:15:10 AM UTC-6, Alex Okeefe wrote:
Watching this from the UK and finding it ever so entertaining -
thanks all.

I've somehow managed to survive all of my competition years so far
without meeting an untimely end. That includes a good number of
landouts in the early years which, would you believe with decent
training and without an unfounded and inflated percetion of risk
were carried out incident free.

I do especially enjoy that we can race on a level playing field,
without having to create scoring formulae and task formats to make
slower pilots feel like they've done better than they have. A sad
consequence of this is that the slower pilots, who score much lower
and land out more often are especially driven to improve and
become quite formidable competition. What a bother.

I know you're all fans of winscore (I had to look it up). If anyone
would like to change to Seeyou then just ask myself or one of the
many people around the world who are familiar with it to show you.
I'm afraid this could take up to 10 minutes.

Carry on!

At 15:51 19 October 2019, John Godfrey QT wrote:
On Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 7:40:59 PM UTC-4, Andy

Blackburn wrote:
US contest pilots.

The 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll is now open and

will remain
open through October 20, 2019. You must be on the SSA Pilot

Ranking List to
participate. We look forward to your input.

You can access the poll online at:

http://www.adamsfive.com/a5soaring/survey/surveys.php

Rich Owen is running unopposed for re-election to the Rules

Committee.
Consequently, Rich will return to his RC seat for a four-year term.
Congratulations Rich!

For the SSA Contest Rules Committee
Andy Blackburn, Chair
9B


Just a reminder here. In spite of the missives being written

highlighting
the "incredible downsides" of a "big switch" approach to adoption

of FAI
rules, that IS NOT WHAT IS ON THE TABLE.

What is on the table (via the poll) is: SHOULD THE 2020 FAI

CLASS NATIONALS
BE TASKED AND SCORED ACCORDING TO FAI SC3A TASK

DEFINITIONS AND SCORING
FORMULAE AND THE RESULT EVALUATED.


I am personally a bit confounded and disappointed at the

resistance to this
experiment by the introduction of all the "big switch - death panel"
arguments, which are at best peripheral to the immediate decision.

Record your opinion please.

QT


I can't speak for everyone in the US, but I feel it is safe to say that real practical training for land-outs, at least in the US is very poor. We read about the theory of it, and get verbal instruction from our instructors on it. But it would be very seldom that it is actually done on purpose. I believe this is largely due to the type of training gliders most people fly here in the US--the SGS 2-33. It is a real bear to take apart and trailer back to the gliderport after a land-out, and would likely take a large crew of people working on it for a large part of the day to accomplish this. As such, folks around here--at least where I trained in WA, are very apprehensive about land-outs, and at least with the newer generation of pilots, very inexperienced in it. Of course, there are individual exceptions to this, but I think it is a safe generalization to make.
  #63  
Old October 29th 19, 09:14 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 699
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

On Tue, 29 Oct 2019 12:10:49 -0700, John Foster wrote:

I can't speak for everyone in the US, but I feel it is safe to say that
real practical training for land-outs, at least in the US is very poor.
We read about the theory of it, and get verbal instruction from our
instructors on it. But it would be very seldom that it is actually done
on purpose. I believe this is largely due to the type of training
gliders most people fly here in the US--the SGS 2-33. It is a real bear
to take apart and trailer back to the gliderport after a land-out, and
would likely take a large crew of people working on it for a large part
of the day to accomplish this. As such, folks around here--at least
where I trained in WA, are very apprehensive about land-outs, and at
least with the newer generation of pilots, very inexperienced in it. Of
course, there are individual exceptions to this, but I think it is a
safe generalization to make.

In the UK the necessary training for XC flying (Navigation, Field
selection and Field Landing) tends to be done in Touring Motor Gliders,
e.g Grob G109 or Scheibe SF-25.

My club uses an SF-25 for this. With a bit of power on the SF-25
approximates an ASK-21 well enough for this exercise, so a field can be
selected and the circuit and landing approach flown, with power going on
again when either its obvious its going wrong (so try again) or its clear
the landing would be good and in a well-chosen field. None of these three
are pass/fail exercises - its normal to do them until both instructor and
student are happy.

However, I realise that this may not work for smaller US clubs - no
rentable SF-25s or G-109s in the locality would be a show stopper, along
with, quite possibly, no TMG-current instructors.

FWIW in my club its normal for a new solo pilot to fly SZD Juniors until
they have their Bronze badge, and often Silver height and duration as
well, since all these can be done with local soaring. Then they go for
Silver distance on the next suitable day after getting signed-off for
their exercises in the SF-25. I did Bronze and Silver in a Junior off the
winch and only then got my aero-tow sign-off and converted onto the
club's Pegase 90 and Discus As.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

  #64  
Old October 30th 19, 12:48 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
John Cochrane[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 351
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

"I've somehow managed to survive all of my competition years so far
without meeting an untimely end. That includes a good number of
landouts in the early years which, would you believe with decent
training and without an unfounded and inflated percetion of risk
were carried out incident free."

"I put this revolver to my head, pulled the trigger 3 times and it hasn't gone off yet. It must be safe"

I thought we in aviation got rid of this sort of thinking about safety a long time ago. Two words: selection bias.

I read Sailplane and Gliding, the wonderful UK publication. The incident reports in the back of the magazine are full of landout damage, much of it in contests.

I would be curious whether the fraction of UK pilots who fly contests is any greater than the number in the US. My impression from S&G is an active contest scene, like the east coast of the US -- and a whole lot of pilots who do not touch the stuff.

John Cochrane



  #65  
Old October 30th 19, 08:14 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
krasw
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 668
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

FAI Annex A rules (which are undergoing massive change) do not drive pilots to land out. Many WGCs and EGCs are run in eastern Europe and gliding/competition culture there is different. It is common to set task to sky that is totally dead. First turnpoint or even start point in steady rain? No problem, just go. And then we have 130 outlandings.

We have run nationals using Annex A for decades with very little problem of outlandings. Usually AAT is set on trickier days and if it's raining, we do not feel obliged to fly.

It is very convenient to blame rulebook for bad task setting.

I should add that proposed scoring change to Annex A (by USA) creates MASSIVE incentive to scratch home over the last trees and creates a huge outlanding risk. If I'm not wrong the same people here complaining the risk level introduced by Annex A rules actually drafted that proposal.
  #66  
Old October 30th 19, 10:23 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Alex Okeefe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

Hi John,

Thanks for the response. I'm not really looking to get involved but I
suppose I must respond as I believe fear mongering around landouts
may account for part of the US reluctance to progress and people
need to see both sides of the argument, not just the opinion of one
or two stubborn individuals whenever someone mentions change.

Of course it's not completely safe. Very few aviation activities are.
I'm sure you yourself have completed many takeoffs and landings
safely, yet accidents happen there too. Do we blame the takeoffs
and landings? should we find a way of reducing them? Maybe golf?

No wonder there is apprehension around the topic when we have
people comparing landing out to putting a revolver to ones head. If
we were to use that analogy though I would point out that I've been
trained not to put any rounds in it. I'd have a hard time getting hold
of one though, here in the UK we just wave our fists at one another.

A good example of selection bias would be noting that a community
that lands out extremely regularly does have accidents now and
then, and deducing from this data that the chances of an accident
are high despite knowing only the final output figure.

I might add, by far the most field retrieves I see happen during the
course of normal club flying, rather than at contests. I wonder what
rules are driving these non competitors to landout?..



At 23:48 29 October 2019, John Cochrane wrote:
"I've somehow managed to survive all of my competition years so

far
without meeting an untimely end. That includes a good number of
landouts in the early years which, would you believe with decent
training and without an unfounded and inflated percetion of risk
were carried out incident free."

"I put this revolver to my head, pulled the trigger 3 times and it

hasn't
gone off yet. It must be safe"

I thought we in aviation got rid of this sort of thinking about safety

a
long time ago. Two words: selection bias.

I read Sailplane and Gliding, the wonderful UK publication. The

incident
reports in the back of the magazine are full of landout damage,

much of it
in contests.

I would be curious whether the fraction of UK pilots who fly

contests is
any greater than the number in the US. My impression from S&G is

an active
contest scene, like the east coast of the US -- and a whole lot of

pilots
who do not touch the stuff.

John Cochrane





  #67  
Old October 30th 19, 11:01 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Alex Okeefe
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

Hi John,

Thanks for the response. I'm not really looking to get involved but I
suppose I must respond as I believe fear mongering around landouts
may account for part of the US reluctance to progress and people
need to see both sides of the argument, not just the opinion of one
or two stubborn individuals whenever someone mentions change.

Of course it's not completely safe. Very few aviation activities are.
I'm sure you yourself have completed many takeoffs and landings
safely, yet accidents happen there too. Do we blame the takeoffs
and landings? should we find a way of reducing them? Maybe golf?

No wonder there is apprehension around the topic when we have
people comparing landing out to putting a revolver to ones head. If
we were to use that analogy though I would point out that I've been
trained not to put any rounds in it. I'd have a hard time getting hold
of one though, here in the UK we just wave our fists at one another.

A good example of selection bias would be noting that a community
that lands out extremely regularly does have accidents now and
then, and deducing from this data that the chances of an accident
are high despite knowing only the final output figure.

I might add, by far the most field retrieves I see happen during the
course of normal club flying, rather than at contests. I wonder what
rules are driving these non competitors to landout?..



At 23:48 29 October 2019, John Cochrane wrote:
"I've somehow managed to survive all of my competition years so

far
without meeting an untimely end. That includes a good number of
landouts in the early years which, would you believe with decent
training and without an unfounded and inflated percetion of risk
were carried out incident free."

"I put this revolver to my head, pulled the trigger 3 times and it

hasn't
gone off yet. It must be safe"

I thought we in aviation got rid of this sort of thinking about safety

a
long time ago. Two words: selection bias.

I read Sailplane and Gliding, the wonderful UK publication. The

incident
reports in the back of the magazine are full of landout damage,

much of it
in contests.

I would be curious whether the fraction of UK pilots who fly

contests is
any greater than the number in the US. My impression from S&G is

an active
contest scene, like the east coast of the US -- and a whole lot of

pilots
who do not touch the stuff.

John Cochrane





  #68  
Old October 30th 19, 11:12 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Jim White[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 286
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

At 07:14 30 October 2019, krasw wrote:

I should add that proposed scoring change to Annex A (by USA) creates

MASSIVE incentive to scratch home over the last trees and creates a huge
out landing risk.

There is already a strong incentive to scratch home and pretty much
everyone I fly against in the UK 15s would do so anyway. I like the
proposal as it simplifies the scoring rules.

Sensible pilots will choose a flat landable field before the line that can
be used safely if they cannot make the hedge. In circumstances where there
is a finish ring the decision to land will probably be made higher and with
reduced risk.

Landing out is a integral part of competition flying in gliders. We train
for it and do it regularly. If you fly a motor glider (dig) then you
probably are less current and more at risk when the engine doesn't behave.

Jim

  #69  
Old October 30th 19, 01:55 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
krasw
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 668
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 12:15:07 PM UTC+2, Jim White wrote:
At 07:14 30 October 2019, krasw wrote:

I should add that proposed scoring change to Annex A (by USA) creates

MASSIVE incentive to scratch home over the last trees and creates a huge
out landing risk.

There is already a strong incentive to scratch home and pretty much
everyone I fly against in the UK 15s would do so anyway. I like the
proposal as it simplifies the scoring rules.

Sensible pilots will choose a flat landable field before the line that can
be used safely if they cannot make the hedge. In circumstances where there
is a finish ring the decision to land will probably be made higher and with
reduced risk.

Landing out is a integral part of competition flying in gliders. We train
for it and do it regularly. If you fly a motor glider (dig) then you
probably are less current and more at risk when the engine doesn't behave..

Jim


If you are the one out of 50 pilots who gets home and others land out on the last field next to finish line, current scoring gives you maybe ten point spread over pilots landing out. Proposed scoring would increase this to 250 points (devaluation scheme applies to both, depending on the day). In my opinion the incentive is not the same.
  #70  
Old October 30th 19, 03:40 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Tango Eight
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 962
Default 2019 SSA Contest Rules Pilot Opinion Poll Now Open

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 8:55:15 AM UTC-4, krasw wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 12:15:07 PM UTC+2, Jim White wrote:
At 07:14 30 October 2019, krasw wrote:

I should add that proposed scoring change to Annex A (by USA) creates

MASSIVE incentive to scratch home over the last trees and creates a huge
out landing risk.

There is already a strong incentive to scratch home and pretty much
everyone I fly against in the UK 15s would do so anyway. I like the
proposal as it simplifies the scoring rules.

Sensible pilots will choose a flat landable field before the line that can
be used safely if they cannot make the hedge. In circumstances where there
is a finish ring the decision to land will probably be made higher and with
reduced risk.

Landing out is a integral part of competition flying in gliders. We train
for it and do it regularly. If you fly a motor glider (dig) then you
probably are less current and more at risk when the engine doesn't behave.

Jim


If you are the one out of 50 pilots who gets home and others land out on the last field next to finish line, current scoring gives you maybe ten point spread over pilots landing out. Proposed scoring would increase this to 250 points (devaluation scheme applies to both, depending on the day). In my opinion the incentive is not the same.


Provides incentive to fly your own race, yes. That's a good thing.

T8
 




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