German Club class championship calls a +500KM task!

On May 29, 9:12*am, wrote:
On May 29, 10:05*am, rlovinggood wrote:



On May 29, 2:19*am, Andy wrote:

On May 28, 6:48*am, wrote:

Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

Impressive - Tim's example rightly takes the wind out of the argument
that the US needs a separate Club Class based on the belief that Club
Class gliders can't go out on "big boy" tasks.

9B

9B,

I disagree. *Those of us who support a Club Class in America aren't
concerned about the length of the task called. *Heck no. *What we want
is the ability to call Racing Tasks (also called Assigned Tasks)
instead of just Turn Area Tasks and Modified Assigned Tasks. *We also
want a group of gliders more closely matched in performance. *And, we
would like to get a handle on the assignment of handicaps. *Since many
other countries already fly Club Class, I think they are using an IGC
based system of assigning handicaps. *Is it any better than the Carl
Herald (sp?) system (and modified Carl Herald numbers) that we now
use? *I hope so. *And maybe we here in the US can start using the IGC
handicaps for future Club Class races.

I flew in the First United States Club Class Race in Cordele, Georgia
just a couple of weeks back and it was real fun to line up on the grid
and not see a bunch of ASW-27's, Duo Discii, Ventus V2's, Discus D2's,
JS1's, 304s', Diana's, etc in our class. *The weather cooperated one
day for a real assigned task to be called. *Hallelujah!
Unfortunately, the Cordele weather of legend didn't show up and the
three other days we flew, we had Turn Area Tasks. *But at least our
CD, Sam Giltner, kept the circles small which gave us more of a chance
to stay and race together rather than spreading us out over many
square miles that really big circles can do.

I'm not concerned about "big boy" tasks. *Of course, any of my friends
who might be tasked to come get me might have a bit more concern...

Sincerely,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

I'll second all that. *Having flown in the same contest, it was really
cool to share thermals all the way around the course.
At one point I think there were 6 gliders (out of 17) all in one
thermal out on course. *At the end we all ended up
in adjacent fields (since only about 5 made it around thanks to a big
cloud shadow shooting most of us down).

The contest ended up being much more competitive than sports class
contests I've flown. *Being that it was
the first in the US it took on something of a "national competition"
character, and it attracted pilots
from all across the country and Canada too. *Many mentioned 15+ hour
drives to get to the contest.

Sports class still has its place. *It might be a better venue for
someone starting out to have easier tasks
to fly. *If our assigned task had been called as a 3 turn MAT a larger
number of pilots may have made it back
after 1 or 2 turnpoints because that would have been less challenging,
but where's the point in that when
you're trying to call a strong challenge for everyone?

-- Matt

Mostly I just thought I'd provoke a discussion. I'm pretty sure it HAS
been a past argument in favor of Club Class that older gliders can't
keep up with the new equipment and so need a narrower handicap range
so we can call ASTs without a lot of landouts. A portion of that
argument now appears to lean in the opposite direction, that having
more landouts is a good thing. Certainly ASTs generally lead to more
landouts, but it's not so much due to range of handicaps - the big
variable in task speed is pilot skill/experience, not glider
performance (with the exception of something like a Twin Astir - XS/TF
you listening?).

The argument in favor of ASTs and landouts reflects a renewed
Darwinian fervor in the sport. The general trend in soaring is to try
to reduce the number of landouts as it is generally viewed as raising
the luck factor and reducing competition over the length of a contest.
The recent rule changes to increase distance points is indicative of
this viewpoint. Increasing landouts also has safety implications. I
think it stands to reason that contests with a lot more landouts would
drive down participation as "crewless" pilots (whose numbers have gone
up dramatically since the mid-90s) would race less frequently. To make
it work in the FAI classes ASTs tend to get called on days when the
conditions are predictable and the times on task tend to run lower
that the other task types as a way to ensure fewer landouts. I
personally like ASTs on occasion when the weather is good, but I also
feel like they are lesser tests of piloting skill because there is a
lot less decision-making involved because there is less opportunity to
read the weather and pick a course that takes best advantage of
conditions across the task area. Much as we all like the social
experience of seeing a competitor or two out on course, AST's also
tend to lead to more leeching, which reduces the test of individual
skill. The trend in the sport is to try to split the field up more not
bunch the gliders together.

Of course the Europeans tend to call longer tasks, perhaps more ASTs
too. They also have more landouts, but they either don't have or are
unconcerned the way we are about the effects on safety and
participation. It is a reasonable question whether we should call more
Euro-style tasks in the US and what that would mean for participation
and testing of pilot skill. Should we be testing for physical stamina
in a contest?

I agree with BB's assessment - we would be well advised to monitor the
trends. Cordele had good participation and a good outcome - despite
the weather. The fact that it drew from such great distances
underscores the passion of it's adherents, but also raises some
questions about the impact of expanding Club Class to Regionals
broadly. I continue to have serious concerns about the fragmentation
of contests (by having Sports AND Club Classes represented), or the
progressive exclusion of pilots who have Sports Class, but not Club
Class, gliders. My bigger concern is that we start hearing arguments
for restricting WGC Club Class team member selection to pilots who fly
in Club Class gliders. I for one would want to make sure that we draw
from the bigger pool of pilots to ensure that Club Class doesn't serve
a narrow agenda of reducing competition to win that team spot.

9B

So if the US were finally to get serious about properly prepping and
selecting Pilots for Club Class WGCs Assigned Tasks should be the norm
and not the exception, tasks on a good day should be in the 300 to 500
km range with flight times possibly getting close to 5h on a booming
day... And then there is the issue of team flying being illegal in the
US while having been developed to an art especially by the Germans,
British and French...

Markus Graeber

Some comments:

1. Long tasks. The US rules already strongly encourage long tasks.
Nothing hurts like taking two weeks off of work and going to a
contest, only to sit on the ground under a great sky after a short
task call. See the rules below. The CD can and should call 5 hour plus
tasks whenever possible, under current rules. If CDs aren't, you don't
need a new class, and you don't need new rules. You need to complain
to the CD and tell him to follow the current rules!

Note also that assigned tasks and long tasks work counter to each
other. Assigned task guidelines says don't land out more than 25% of
the fleet. You can call a much longer time-limited task than you can
call an assigned task!

2. "Preparation for the team." We have to remember that the main
function of US contests is NOT to train pilots for the world team. Why
not? If we focus only on that goal and in so doing make the whole
operation unpleasant for everybody else, nobody else shows up. If
nobody else shows up, you don't have a contest in the first place.
Already, many nationals are only attracting 20-30 pilots and are on
the edge of being financially viable and able to attract volunteers to
run them. If it becomes unpleasant for the bottom of the scoresheet,
the whole thing dies. The argument "do X because that's how it's done
in the worlds" with no further justification that it makes any sense
is always going to fall on deaf ears for this reason.

I've long been a fan of the idea of a "US Team Camp" which could
follow world rules exactly, and do any nutty thing the IGC dreams up
for the next worlds -- start gates with altitude limit and no speed
limit, tasks in which the right strategy is to dive for the ground 150
mi downwind of home at 3:00 exactly and then try to limp home, final
glides straight in to the airport over unlandable terrain, scoring
systems that make sticking with the gaggle mandatory even if that
means doing start gate roulette all afternoon and landing back at the
airport, tasking that lands everybody out, launching in the rain, you
name it. Along with team flying, ground weather support, extensive
pre- and post-flight briefings and the other things missing in our
contests. And along with a club class whose rules eliminate two thirds
of the gliders that currently show up for sports class nationals.
Events like that might support themselves f by hefty entry fees from
wannabees like myself. That's the right answer for "prepare pilots for
the worlds." I like it almost enough to get off my butt and organize
it myself! Hopefully someone more devoted to the "prepare for the
worlds" concept will have more energy.

10.3.1.1 † Task Parameters
....
• Standard Task Time: 4.0 hours

10.3.1.3 Normal Task - Tasks should make as full use of the available
soaring weather as is practical...
10.3.1.5 Maximum Task - Tasks should be set such that the total time
on course of the highest-scoring flights on any two consecutive days
is less than 10 hours. But, consistent with this and as conditions
allow, it is it is appropriate for the CD to set occasional tasks that
are substantially longer than the Standard Task Time.


A10.3.1.1 The minimum time is supposed to be a minimum, not a
target..... A longer task is desirable if the weather will allow it.

A10.3.1.2 Task-calling considerations for the CD General ...- Try to
use the full day, not merely the best part of it.

John Cochrane BB

On May 29, 1:14 pm, John Cochrane
wrote:

Second, you can achieve an "assigned task" in the MAT structure by
simply calling a lot of turnpoints. I don't know why this is not done
more often but it should be. You get all the joys of assigned task
racing -- start gate roulette, big gaggle flying, everyone on the same
course, leeching, watching your buddies go by, and so forth. But after
X hours everyone gets to go home rather than land out the bottom 25%
of the fleet.

How may years have I been staring at the rules and it never occurred
to me that you could go home without hitting all the declared
turnpoints. Mostly I've seen "free-for-all MATs with one or zero
declared turnpoints. I wonder why CDs don't call this version in
Sports Class for all the AST-hungry types? With some longer middle
legs it wouldn't even have the "get home exactly on time" feature of
tasks with a minimum time - just set it so the fastest expected speeds
get you to the last turnpoint just before minimum time, but going home
without the last turn would have you well under. 3 or 4 turnpoints
would be more than enough to cover a broad range of pilot and ships.

9B

On May 31, 10:23 am, Andy wrote:
On May 29, 1:14 pm, John Cochrane
wrote:

Second, you can achieve an "assigned task" in the MAT structure by
simply calling a lot of turnpoints. I don't know why this is not done
more often but it should be. You get all the joys of assigned task
racing -- start gate roulette, big gaggle flying, everyone on the same
course, leeching, watching your buddies go by, and so forth. But after
X hours everyone gets to go home rather than land out the bottom 25%
of the fleet.

How may years have I been staring at the rules and it never occurred
to me that you could go home without hitting all the declared
turnpoints. Mostly I've seen "free-for-all MATs with one or zero
declared turnpoints. I wonder why CDs don't call this version in
Sports Class for all the AST-hungry types? With some longer middle
legs it wouldn't even have the "get home exactly on time" feature of
tasks with a minimum time - just set it so the fastest expected speeds
get you to the last turnpoint just before minimum time, but going home
without the last turn would have you well under. 3 or 4 turnpoints
would be more than enough to cover a broad range of pilot and ships.

9B

It's starting to catch on in the East now. Check out Saturday
(yesterday)
at Mifflin -- they called 5 turnpoints for all the classes. Hank
Nixon
came in 2nd in Sports class (in a K21) and obviously didn't hit all
the
turnpoints since he flew less that the total called distance. Others
hit
all the turnpoints plus some since they came in longer. A CD could
call
all 11 turnpoints and take all the choosing of extra turnpoints out of
the competitors' hands (since you can't go to more than 11 on a MAT).
I've flown a MAT with 3 called turnpoints and did enjoy seeing others
in the class along the course (although I probably saw more gliders
from OTHER classes once I passed the first turnpoint!).

Now, as to the purpose of contests, isn't it to choose champions,
especially at the National level? I agree if we make them too
unpleasant, dangerous, frustrating, etc then people won't fly them,
but if we make them too soft/easy we're not really selecting
champions either. It IS satisfying to fly well in difficult
conditions
or with challenging tasks, even if you don't win.

-- Matt

Gentleman:

Perhaps my first post was mildly misunderstood. While it is great that
Club Class ships can perform like the big boys in the right hands, my
main point was not that our ships are capable of feats like the newer
ships, but rather was that we completed, at a fast speed, a called
ASSIGNED TASK (!!!) of 498km in Club Class Worlds. Getting to fly AT's
in club class ships is part of the fun of this class. In sports, it is
all theoretical racing, very rarely real racing. That takes much of
the fun out of it for me anyways.

If I had not been working weekends all spring (rowing coach), I would
definitely hauled my ass and my glider out to Cordele to have gotten
in on this 1st.

ASIDE: Rules Committee, why do we have increasing numbers of big,
popular contests in the spring when young people with real jobs and
families are stuck with school schedules or ther conflicts and have to
miss this stuff???

Getting to race against one's own and the ability to get to fly
assigned tasks against like competition (glider wise) is VERY
EXCITING. Any of the doubters should try it before they get all
defensive that the Club Class is going to eat another classes lunch.
Myabe the other classes lunch needs to be eaten inorder to breathe
more life into the other classes???

As far as Markus' stats at the last two WGC's go, some of those speed
tasks in Vinon were more or less Racing tasks - thereby skewing the
task calling way in the direction of assigned tasks in club class in
Europe

To 9B and BB and other doubters, why is there this constant drumbeat
in your posts about the evils of "specialisation" in the club class
and against the "club class specialist"???

What makes this any different from the pilot who owns a ASW-27 0 if
you are serious you are going to compete in 15m, or the pilot in a new
shiny ASG-29 - if you are serious you are going to compete in 18m.
Yeah, your ships are good enough to also swing into some other fai
classes should you wish. If youa re truly serious about flying and
winning open class, shouldn't you do it in an ASW-22 or Nimbus 4?

BUT for all of us in 1st/2nd generation glass ships, the only truly
fair and nearly head-to-head racing to be had is in a CLUB CLASS as it
is run trhoughout the rest of the world.

Flame shield on to high - but super-kudos to Sam Glitner et al for
succeeding and commiting to the Club Class idea in reality, when I
have only been able to beat the drum for it in writing. Great job
guys.

EY


On May 28, 8:48*am, wrote:
Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

On May 28, 6:27*am, Bob wrote:



Check out the website for the German 2009 Club Class Championships!
Sorry it is in German but a translator will let you see the important
info. The impressive 504KM task at 95kmh in a Libelle.http://www.lsv-schwarzwald.de/pages/dmwinzeln2009.php/

Bob- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On May 31, 4:47*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
1. Long tasks. The US rules already strongly encourage long tasks.
Nothing hurts like taking two weeks off of work and going to a
contest, only to sit on the ground under a great sky after a short
task call. See the rules below. The CD can and should call 5 hour plus
tasks whenever possible, under current rules. If CDs aren't, you don't
need a new class, and you don't need new rules. You need to complain
to the CD and tell him to follow the current rules!

There are rules giving a time limit from landing to submitting
evidence, but I'm not aware of any rules forcing you to land shortly
after completing the task.

I have seen at least several people do good old traditional contest
finishes and then thermal away and head off somewhere for another hour
or two of fun.

On May 31, 2:38*pm, wrote:
Gentleman:

Perhaps my first post was mildly misunderstood. While it is great that
Club Class ships can perform like the big boys in the right hands, my
main point was not that our ships are capable of feats like the newer
ships, but rather was that we completed, at a fast speed, a called
ASSIGNED TASK (!!!) of 498km in Club Class Worlds. Getting to fly AT's
in club class ships is part of the fun of this class. In sports, it is
all theoretical racing, very rarely real racing. That takes much of
the fun out of it for me anyways.

If I had not been working weekends all spring (rowing coach), I would
definitely hauled my ass and my glider out to Cordele to have gotten
in on this 1st.

ASIDE: Rules Committee, why do we have increasing numbers of big,
popular contests in the spring when young people with real jobs and
families are stuck with school schedules or ther conflicts and have to
miss this stuff???

Getting to race against one's own and the ability to get to fly
assigned tasks against like competition (glider wise) is VERY
EXCITING. Any of the doubters should try it before they get all
defensive that the Club Class is going to eat another classes lunch.
Myabe the other classes lunch needs to be eaten inorder to breathe
more life into the other classes???

As far as Markus' stats at the last two WGC's go, some of those speed
tasks in Vinon were more or less Racing tasks - thereby skewing the
task calling way in the direction of assigned tasks in club class in
Europe

To 9B and BB and other doubters, why is there this constant drumbeat
in your posts about the evils of "specialisation" in the club class
and against the "club class specialist"???

What makes this any different from the pilot who owns a ASW-27 0 if
you are serious you are going to compete in 15m, or the pilot in a new
shiny ASG-29 - if you are serious you are going to compete in 18m.
Yeah, your ships are good enough to also swing into some other fai
classes should you wish. If youa re truly serious about flying and
winning open class, shouldn't you do it in an ASW-22 or Nimbus 4?

BUT for all of us in 1st/2nd generation glass ships, the only truly
fair and nearly head-to-head racing to be had is in a CLUB CLASS as it
is run trhoughout the rest of the world.

Flame shield on to high - but super-kudos to Sam Glitner et al for
succeeding and commiting to the Club Class idea in reality, when I
have only been able to beat the drum for it in writing. Great job
guys.

EY

No need for flames Tim.

I guess I figure the real point of competition is to test the skills
of each pilot against as big a pool as is fair and practical. I find
the "specialization" arguments to be useful only up to a point. For
instance - the ultimate in specialization is to divide competitive
classes into single glider models - so you'd have a Ventus 2 class, an
ASW-27 class, an ASG-29/15 class, etc. All of these gliders have
slightly difference performance, so you can make an argument that each
deserves it's own class. Of course most of us would call this
absurd. But we already have the World Class. The result appears to be
to specialize down to the point that you can't hardly pull a nationals
together.

We don't have the Club Class numbers in the US that the Europeans
have, so the cost of specialization is reduced levels of competition
because of fewer numbers of pilots per class. If you take all the
Sports Class regional contests over the past 5 years and divide the
gliders into Sports and Club Classes you see that the number of
competitors per class would have been so small that something like
60-70 percent of the competitors would have ended up on the podium -
that's hardly robust competition.

The reason I argue for careful monitoring of the Club Class
experiments is to determine whether they are really growing the sport
or shrinking it by pushing Sports Class pilots (flying non-club class
gliders) out of competition. Watching UH finish #2 on a MAT at Mifflin
certainly is at least one data point that you can have AST-type tasks
AND low handicap gliders in Sports Class - and that they can be
competitive. Furthermore, I think the idea of including two-seaters
and older open class ships to have more potential for growing the
sport than Club Class, but of course Sports Class includes BOTH.

I find the AST fixation to be mostly a red herring. I grew up in the
sport flying nothing but assigned tasks. Never having to make
decisions about where conditions will be the strongest, increased
gaggle flying, leeching and the vagaries of thunderstorms at
turnpoints that land out half the field all argue that ASTs are less a
true test of pilot skill that the other task types. Sure, they are
more fun and easier to figure out who won - which have an emotional
appeal for us all, but let's not confuse that with testing piloting
skill. I'm willing to bet that the variance in speeds across a MAT or
TAT task on average is higher than an AST - separating out the scores
among finishers is the real test of skill, not landing out a bunch of
pilots because the day ended early or the leg home was got washed out.

One potential solution at the regional level is to do what we do in
the FAI classes, run combined Sports/Club class contests the same way
we offer combined Std/15M classes if you don't have enough pilots in
each separately. The point of racing should be to fly against a full
field of pilots, not to limit the number of competitors to improve
your chances of winning. This is particularly true when we are talking
about WGC team selection.

9B

On May 31, 5:16*pm, wrote:
On May 31, 10:23 am, Andy wrote:





On May 29, 1:14 pm, John Cochrane
wrote:

Second, you can achieve an "assigned task" in the MAT structure by
simply calling a lot of turnpoints. *I don't know why this is not done
more often but it should be. You get all the joys of assigned task
racing -- start gate roulette, big gaggle flying, everyone on the same
course, leeching, watching your buddies go by, and so forth. But after
X hours everyone gets to go home rather than land out the bottom 25%
of the fleet.

How may years have I been staring at the rules and it never occurred
to me that you could go home without hitting all the declared
turnpoints. Mostly I've seen "free-for-all MATs with one or zero
declared turnpoints. I wonder why CDs don't call this version in
Sports Class for all the AST-hungry types? With some longer middle
legs it wouldn't even have the "get home exactly on time" feature of
tasks with a minimum time - just set it so the fastest expected speeds
get you to the last turnpoint just before minimum time, but going home
without the last turn would have you well under. 3 or 4 turnpoints
would be more than enough to cover a broad range of pilot and ships.

9B

It's starting to catch on in the East now. *Check out Saturday
(yesterday)
at Mifflin -- they called 5 turnpoints for all the classes. *Hank
Nixon
came in 2nd in Sports class (in a K21) and obviously didn't hit all
the
turnpoints since he flew less that the total called distance. *Others
hit
all the turnpoints plus some since they came in longer. *A CD could
call
all 11 turnpoints and take all the choosing of extra turnpoints out of
the competitors' hands (since you can't go to more than 11 on a MAT).
I've flown a MAT with 3 called turnpoints and did enjoy seeing others
in the class along the course (although I probably saw more gliders
from OTHER classes once I passed the first turnpoint!).

Now, as to the purpose of contests, isn't it to choose champions,
especially at the National level? *I agree if we make them too
unpleasant, dangerous, frustrating, etc then people won't fly them,
but if we make them too soft/easy we're not really selecting
champions either. *It IS satisfying to fly well in difficult
conditions
or with challenging tasks, even if you don't win.

-- Matt- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It isn't starting to catch on in the East, the MAT was invented in the
East by Dave Welles who saw the opportunity to call tasks that would
challange the better pilots while still allowing the newer- or lesser-
or whatever , pilots to skip the last turn or two and get home to
drink beer with everybody else. This makes it fun for everybody. The
guy that cuts it short doesn't score so well, but still gets to have
fun and probably loses fewer points than a landout. The key is to call
the assigned portion long enough to use the entire allotted time.
We've been doing this for years.
It also keeps folks flying in the same air which can reduce the "luck"
factor.
Many CD's don't understand this very well and don't use this option.
We flew 510k as I recall in the Club Worlds in Musbach while the Open
Nats guys flew 503 or so. The last 20k was at Macready 0 with 100
feet to spare. The day was over. I saw a lot of my friends on the
ground in the last 10 miles or so. Enjoyed beating them but don't
recall it as being all that much fun. The contest was won on the timed
task days where the point spread more closely reflected the pilot
skill spread, at least as I saw it.
FWIW
UH