US SSA Contest Pilot Opinion Poll

The annual SSA/SRA Pilot Opinion Poll is open at
http://adamsfive.com/survey/surveys.php. The poll closes on October 18. You
are eligible to participate if you're on the US Pilot Ranking List
(basically if you've flown an SSA-sanctioned contest in the past 3 years).
Please take a few minutes to respond to the poll - they're your Contest
Rules.

The position on the SSA Rules Committee currently filled by Hank Nixon was
up for election this year. The only nomination received was for Hank's
re-election. Since Hank ran unopposed, no vote is required.

Thanks.

Ken Sorenson
SSA Contest Committee Chair

Thanks, Ken! Lots

Wow, the TAT/MAT proposal is a tough one! "Favoring" long-distance
landouts over short-distance finishers would be an interesting change
of philosophy. Right now all tasks are set up so that finishing the
task that is assigned to you is the top priority, and your decision-
making flows from there. This proposal seems to introduce the idea
that completing the task is NOT top priority; scoring at least a
certain distance is top priority, with a good finish being a secondary
objective. Hrmm...

If this applied only to MATs I might be cool with it; but I'm inclined
to say "no" simply because TATs comprise the bulk of the contest tasks
I've flown and it seems odd to put a premium on distance instead of
finishing the course. I don't like giving short-distance finishers
too much credit for "wimping out"; but sometimes getting home and
making a good finish is the smart/commendable move! Encouraging
people to fly into iffy weather or risk landing out more often in
order to lengthen their TATs

I've only been racing for two seasons. The poll description is brief
and doesn't really describe all of the ramifications of the scoring
change. The examples don't show much of the scoring change in terms
of long-landouts beating short-finishers (only 1); it mostly shows how
the change increases the points-spread between finishers when people
finish under-time or with a short flight. If no one had finished
under-time in example two, would their scores have still been spread-
out by a similar amount, under these new rules? Is this someone's
idea of bringing back the "distance tasks" of the old days?

Does anyone with more racing experience than I want to provide clarity
or more info?

Thanks,

--Noel

On Sep 21, 10:56*am, "noel.wade" wrote:
Thanks, Ken! *Lots

Wow, the TAT/MAT proposal is a tough one! *

Well, you can probably guess who came up with that one! I did my best
to write a poll question that explained the issue sufficiently, but
yet was somewhere near short enough to put on the poll. I'm happy to
answer questions directly or via r.a.s. I know it's a complex issue,
but if we do what is, I think, the right answer, we need to all
understand that means a 60 mile, one hour "finish" might score less
than a 250 mile landout.

It does apply mostly to MAT, but can apply to turn area tasks. Some
CDs love 30 mile circles, so it is possible to nick the circles, fly
60 miles and "finish" in one hour, while the "real" task flies 250
miles in 3.5 hours. Current rules guarantee you 600 points (i.e. give
you the same as the winner's distance points) for this little gambit;
the proposal will not. That's especially a problem in sports class;
the circles have to be set large enough so a short course is available
for the 1-26; but then the nimbus 4 gets the "nick the circle and
finish" option.

John Cochrane

On Sep 21, 1:21*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
On Sep 21, 10:56*am, "noel.wade" wrote:

Thanks, Ken! *Lots

Wow, the TAT/MAT proposal is a tough one! *

Well, you can probably guess who came up with that one! I did my best
to write a poll question that explained the issue sufficiently, but
yet was somewhere near short enough to put on the poll. I'm happy to
answer questions directly or via r.a.s. *I know it's a complex issue,
but if we do what is, I think, the right answer, we need to all
understand that means a 60 mile, one hour "finish" might score less
than a 250 mile landout.

It does apply mostly to MAT, *but can apply to turn area tasks. Some
CDs love 30 mile circles, so it is possible to nick the circles, fly
60 miles and "finish" in one hour, while the "real" task flies 250
miles in 3.5 hours. Current rules guarantee you 600 points (i.e. give
you the same as the winner's distance points) for this little gambit;
the proposal will not. *That's especially a problem in sports class;
the circles have to be set large enough so a short course is available
for the 1-26; but then the nimbus 4 gets the "nick the circle and
finish" option.

John Cochrane

Hmm, is this an unintended side-effect of an earlier rule change to
give long landouts more points (from 400 to 600 IIRC)? Before that
change, scores for finishers were spread over 600 pts. The larger
spread meant that a 'short finisher' was more heavily punished,
relative to the day winner.

If the two rule changes are viewed together, they represent a very
significant change away from the philosophy that it is more important
to finish than it is to rack up distance.

I'm not sure that's all bad, but it is a significant change

TA

Hmm, is this an unintended side-effect of an earlier rule change to
give long landouts more points (from 400 to 600 IIRC)? *Before that
change, scores for finishers were spread over 600 pts. *The larger
spread meant that a 'short finisher' was more heavily punished,
relative to the day winner.

If the two rule changes are viewed together, they represent a very
significant change away from the philosophy that it is more important
to finish than it is to rack up distance.

I'm not sure that's all bad, but it is a significant change

TA

A little bit, but really it is more an unintended effect of applying
assigned task rules to MAT and TAT. In an assigned task, if you
"finish" you made it all the way around the course, so it makes sense
to give everyone who does that the same distance points. In the TAT
and MAT, there is the option to "finish" by flying 61 miles, when
everybody else goes 250. On an assigned task, this would be counted as
"landing at an airport near the first turn" and get very few points.
On TAT and MAT, you get to call that a "finish" and get the same
distance points as everyone else who went 250 miles. Whether that's
400 or 600 points is a bit of a difference, but minor. We would still
be giving everyone who went from 60 to 249 miles the same distance
points.

So it's really about what do we think of as "finishing the task" when
everybody goes different distances.

John Cochrane

On Sep 22, 11:21*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
Hmm, is this an unintended side-effect of an earlier rule change to
give long landouts more points (from 400 to 600 IIRC)? *Before that
change, scores for finishers were spread over 600 pts. *The larger
spread meant that a 'short finisher' was more heavily punished,
relative to the day winner.

If the two rule changes are viewed together, they represent a very
significant change away from the philosophy that it is more important
to finish than it is to rack up distance.

I'm not sure that's all bad, but it is a significant change

TA

A little bit, but really it is more an unintended effect of applying
assigned task rules to MAT and TAT. In an assigned task, if you
"finish" you made it all the way around the course, so it makes sense
to give everyone who does that the same distance points. In the TAT
and MAT, there is the option to "finish" by flying 61 miles, when
everybody else goes 250. On an assigned task, this would be counted as
"landing at an airport near the first turn" and get very few points.
On TAT and MAT, you get to call that a "finish" and get the same
distance points as everyone else who went 250 miles. Whether that's
400 or 600 points is a bit of a difference, but minor. We would still
be giving everyone who went from 60 to *249 miles the same distance
points.

So it's really about what do we think of as "finishing the task" when
everybody goes different distances.

John Cochrane

Hmm, good point about the meaning of 'finisher'. I can see this
change also increasing the motivation to avoid coming home early, even
at the cost of a significantly higher chance of landing out.

Right now, coming home early is much more preferable to landing out,
so the decision to turn back in the face of deteriorating weather is
usually a no-brainer. However, if turning back and taking a
significantly under-time finish is going to put your score among the
landouts anyway, why not continue and see what happens - maybe I'll
make it through that man-eating thunderstorm over unlandable terrain
after all? ;-).

Do we, as an organization, really want to be biasing the 'Sporting
Risk' equation in that direction?

TA

On Sep 23, 7:26*am, Frank wrote:

Do we, as an organization, really want to be biasing the 'Sporting
Risk' equation in that direction?

TA

Exactly my concern with this rule, too.

I understand your arguments, John; they make a fair amount of
sense... I don't want to reward someone who "took it easy" because
their glider has long legs. But a big part of me also thinks its just
weird to reward someone who didn't make it around the course! Even
though ATs, TATs, and MATs are all very different, they start with the
core idea that you have a start, some waypoints, and a finish. And
the overriding theme is to make it around the course and to the
finish. Screwing up that fundamental "getting to the finish" part can
be interpreted as a bad performance and/or bad decision-making. I
don't want to reward that, simply because the pilot has big cojones
and is willing to fly into a bad situation on the gamble that he or
she will rack up more distance points than others before hitting the
dirt. And when does one "flip the switch" mentally, to go for that
instead of speed points? Would it be on the worst of days, when
everyone's cutting the task really short (isn't this when we usually
see MATs called most-often, too)? That's when we want to encourage
people to strike out on their own? hrrm...

Also: What other sport defines a course and a finish, but gives some
people more credit if they DON'T cross the finish-line?

Like I said befo It seems to me that we're turning the system on
its ear. We're moving away from "the course" as the underlying
foundation, and moving towards "speed and distance are more important
than the course"; which is a big shift IMHO.

I'm not vehemently opposed to this, but I still am not comfortable
with it. In some ways, it seems like a fix primarily for the Sports
Class, since the "1-26 vs Nimbus4" argument only applies there.
Performance levels are so much closer in the FAI classes, you're
"fixing" anything (no one can use min-distance to gain a big advantage
over others). In the FAI classes, the way I see it, you're flat-out
shifting the focus of the TAT & MAT away from "fly the course and
return at minimum time, go for max speed". You're moving the focus
towards "make nominal (or greater) distance in a reasonable time
without sacrificing much speed and if it starts to go bad screw
getting home and make max distance you can".

I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view
competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and
foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide
performance-level variance. For the other classes its more about how
you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_
criteria for judging someone's performance. Is it speed around the
course and across the finish line? Or is it distance?

--Noel
P.S. BTW, since other threads on RAS are talking about the Worlds -
just out of curiosity do any other countries (or the IGC) have scoring
rules like this, wherein non-finishers can score higher than
finishers?

On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote:

I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view
competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and
foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide
performance-level variance. For the other classes its more about how
you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_
criteria for judging someone's performance. Is it speed around the
course and across the finish line? Or is it distance?

In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we
had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about
completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can
draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the
course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to
complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own
course.

And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the
reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the
other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote:

I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view
competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and
foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide
performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how
you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_
criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the
course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance?

In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we
had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about
completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can
draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the
course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to
complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own
course.

And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the
reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the
other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a
"course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that
doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the
same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and
get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue.

It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the
poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT
with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain
weather.

I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad
weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those
discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not
obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one
particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one
sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the
airport bonus is a more sensible step.

Part of my preference is because the change removes and awful roll-
the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed
points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which
the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just
keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system
removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT
because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick
the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the
right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the
home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't
take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay
safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near
the home airport.

John Cochrane

I to really perfer assigned tasks when the conditions allow for it,
and that is why for years I flew my HP16T in the regional 15 meter
category. Of course at the time Sports Class used strictly PoST
Tasks.

I really like the change from PoST to MAT tasks, and in unpredictable
conditions Turn Area Tasks aren't bad either. This year I flew Sports
Class for only my 3rd time (1st in a 1-26, 2nd in a National Sports
Class). My reason for changing from 15 meter was two fold. 1st with
the ASW20's and LS6's being replaced with even high performing ships
it was just about impossible for me to come even close to placing
anywhere but last on the score sheet, even though that was where I
typically was anyway. And 2nd even the 15 meter class has moved away
from AST tasks. At our region 8 regionals this year TAT tasks were
called every day for both 15 meter and Sport Class. For all but the
last day I think this was appropriate. However the last day was
forcast to be the best conditions of the contest and I thought it
would have easily supported a AST task for the 15 meter and an
Identical MAT task (using the same turn points) for the Sports Class.
I would like to see a few more Assigned tasked called when good
conditions exist. And MAT's that are laid out like an Assigned task
for Sports Class.

Brian