Crazy Idea # 54-1A i.e. Erase all State Soaring Records every 10 years..

On Monday, May 18, 2020 at 3:55:50 PM UTC-6, Nick Kennedy wrote:
OK
The reason I'm pursuing this is to purely promote soaring, thats it, period.

People get bored and drop out as we know. I Want to try and slow that trend down.

How about this idea, State record keepers may not like it because its going to make a bunch of extra work for them, BUT..

How about in January of every year in soaring we publish the best flight in every current state record categorey, O&R's, Triangle speed, and then all those Distance awards. For each state.
Theres so much crap in Soaring now, IMHO, I'm sure they could free up the space.

That way it could keep pilots, like me, engaged by attempting ALOT more tasks, which is a challenge, easy to do and fun. Finishing any declared task is a blast.
Maybe we should start by polling the current state record keepers if they are up to this extra work.
What do you guys think?
Good Idea? or another lead balloon?
Nick
T

I have no issue with a "best flight in X category" THIS YEAR. But a record is a record, and if you want to beat it, then you need to have all your ducks in a row. Otherwise, it's meaningless.

But a record is a record, and if you want to beat it, then you need to have all your ducks in a row. Otherwise, it's meaningless.

Sorry, Nick, but I agree. What would it be like to erase all of the speed records set by the X-15, SR-71 and other legendary aircraft, simply because they haven't been surpassed recently?

John and Mark
Did you guys take the time to read my latest's post?
I'm suggesting keeping track of a Yearly Best and print those up in Soaring
Thats it
Nick
T

Sorry, Nick. I guess I was still fixating on the "Erase all State Records every 10 years" title of the thread.

Best of the Year sounds doable and desirable, but the requirements simply cannot be as stringent as an actual record declaration and claim. They are onerous enough, and I know of several Moriarty pilots who have actually applied for State records, with no satisfactory results. Either the record keepers are unwilling to process the claim, or too much time elapses and the claim gets rejected because of the time constraints.

On Monday, May 18, 2020 at 6:39:56 PM UTC-6, Nick Kennedy wrote:
John and Mark
Did you guys take the time to read my latest's post?
I'm suggesting keeping track of a Yearly Best and print those up in Soaring
Thats it
Nick
T

With all due respect, Nick, I thought I responded to your suggestion, stating "I have no issue with a "best flight in X category" THIS YEAR." Maybe I misunderstood you, or maybe I didn't communicate clearly what I was trying to say. In any event, I have no objection to people keeping track of highest altitude, or longest flight, or fastest flight, etc. etc. each year, or even printing these in Soaring Magazine, as long as there is someone willing to do all the work of validating the claims every year. It would even be interesting to see trends from year to year. But a true record is something different, I believe. It is an all-time achievement that stands until someone else betters it. To erase the record diminishes the accomplishment.. The only reason to erase a record is if information comes to light that it was achieved by some deceit or cheating--like Lance Armstrong and his 7 TdF wins. Sorry if I mis-understood you.

Nick, my recomendation is for you to set up such a competition within your state, or region, and run it. The results are not records, but best flights in category and class. Decide in advance what you are going to include for tasks, to keep the workload reasonable. No need to involve official record keepers unless a record is broken in the process. Publish in your state, or here. But the idea of all 50 states, publishing all best flights in all categories and classes will dilute what your trying to achieve.

As a record keeper, I don't have much interest in spending a lot of time processing a flight that I know is not going to achieve record performance.

Rick

Trying to find ways to motivate people to stay active and involved is a significant challenge.

The Pacific Soaring Council has a number of awards that you could replicate for your state or region.

https://www.pacificsoaring.org/awards/awards.html

Fair warning, I don't think these produce a lot of motivation. If it wasn't for Ramy doing all of the OLC analysis, I'm not sure too many people would even notice if they disappeared.

We also had to modify the rules. Basically Ramy's fault. Some awards have limits on how many times they can be won. Otherwise it's just the Ramy show at awards time. Total distance awards skew towards people with the skills and time available to fly long distances and lots of days.

Our club has a number of fun annual awards which are great for a good end of season presentation and light ribbing at the local level.

Good luck,

Morgan

Nick,

I know your also interested in straight out opportunities, perhaps a Soaring Record version similar to what Bob Maronde uses for tracking the Straight Out Cross Country Results? Its simple, informal, effective, and most important gets sent out in a timely fashion when there are updates. The last item being an unavoidable problem with the 1-2 month print delay with any magazine. The down side is most people have no idea it exists having only found it myself when researching straight out soaring ideas, so I think the big challenge would be getting the word out. Maybe at that point SSA can pick up the individual record story. All I can say is the Newsletter email "Gets my attention" when it shows up in my inbox. Anyway, just a thought and trying to help.

Bryce

On Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 11:32:54 AM UTC-7, Morgan wrote:
Trying to find ways to motivate people to stay active and involved is a significant challenge.

The Pacific Soaring Council has a number of awards that you could replicate for your state or region.

https://www.pacificsoaring.org/awards/awards.html

Fair warning, I don't think these produce a lot of motivation. If it wasn't for Ramy doing all of the OLC analysis, I'm not sure too many people would even notice if they disappeared.

We also had to modify the rules. Basically Ramy's fault. Some awards have limits on how many times they can be won. Otherwise it's just the Ramy show at awards time. Total distance awards skew towards people with the skills and time available to fly long distances and lots of days.

Our club has a number of fun annual awards which are great for a good end of season presentation and light ribbing at the local level.

Good luck,

Morgan