World Gliding Championships British Team

Pete Smith s comments read:

Amazing how a congratulatory message can be turned
into a chat on yank issues. Supprised no-one has mentioned
schweizer spam cans.

Be glad that they aren't discussing "World Class"
--
Tim - ASW20CL "20"

"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message ...
"Hank Nixon" wrote...
Please provide info to member of the rules comm. as to what rule says
that team flying is not allowed in US competition. I have not been
able to find such a rule.

U.S. National FAI-Class Competition Rules, Contest Year 2003:

10.7.2.7 Relaying of information between aircraft for any reason other than
safety is prohibited. This specifically forbids team flying.

Team flying happens now- you simply are not aware of it.

Somehow, I'm not surprised...

Marc

Reply: As you might well expect, there are many elements to team
flying. One of the more useful is the exchange of information by
radio. As noted, this is not permitted in our rules.
There are many other elements and techniques that can be used by
cooperating pilots to help each other without verbal communication.
Those who have flown with and watched the skilled team flyers can see
them as obvious.
These include cooperative search patterns in both climb and glide,
agreement as to lead and follow, waiting for partner so both can stay
in the same air, and a variety of other techniques.
These occur today and are legal within our rules. It does not involve
cheating as you seem to imply.
With 2 frequencies available for us to share among ourselves and other
users, I suspect it would not be pretty. Those who could team fly with
little or no radio communication would simply have the benefit of the
portion of radio chatter that is useful and would not use the radio to
pass on useful info to others.
UH

Well... I just wanted to point out that there were some guys who started =
the team flying and made use of it first.
Just remind some names like Makula (Edward), Kepka, Popiel, Witek, =
Muszczynski and some other Poles whose names I can't remember at the =
moment.

Just my 2c,

Regards,


--=20
Janusz Kesik

visit www.leszno.pl - home of the www.wgc2003.pl


U=BFytkownik Marcel Duenner w wiadomooci do =
grup dyskusyjnych =
gle.com...
(OscarCVox) wrote in message =
...

One form of team flying (the form you and most are probably thinking
of) is the close team where the two gliders are rarely or never more
than a few hundred meters apart. The extreme variant: If for some
reason the gap gets too big, the one ahead waits (even deploys
spoilers!) for the other to catch up. If one has to outland, the other
will join him. Successful examples: French team at the WGC in Wiener
Neustadt, the Frei brothers who won the pre-Worlds in Bayreuth. They
tied for first place twice in the Swiss Nationals.

(Hank Nixon) wrote in message . com...

A bit of a challange for Kirk:
Please provide info to member of the rules comm. as to what rule says
that team flying is not allowed in US competition. I have not been
able to find such a rule.

Others have beaten me to it. But there it is.

Team flying happens now- you simply are not aware of it.

Sure it does. Depending on your point of view, it is either friends
flying together, or cheating. Take your pick...

Would be interested in your explanation of why the new 18M World
Champion beat the only team in the 18M- the former WC and his brother.
Possibly you can explain how John Coutts managed to win the 15M with
no team mate.

Look back over the past several WGCs and I think you will find team
flying has had significant effects on the scores.

As to getting beaten by Mac. He is an excellent pilot who has
dedicated his life becoming the best pilot he can be. I consider him a
friend and find it insulting to him that you would refer to him in
such a manner.

Oh give me a break. That's like saying you wouldn't care if your
favorite football team - which lets say has lots of talent to choose
from - gets consistently beaten by some team from the backwoods that
plays everybody they've got. I ****es me off not because they are
better, which they obviously are, but because we should be better. I
know I sure as hell was ****ed off when Australia, then New Zealand,
took the America's cup away. And cheered when we took it back, and
was ****ed again when we lost it again.

Heaven forbid a little passion in our sport - someone will just make a
rule to eliminate it. Safer, you know.

Kirk
66

On 12 Aug 2003 07:51:10 -0700, Kirk Stant wrote:
hard time getting any of them to join our club and fly our G-102 (GPS,
glide computer, O2, XC encouraged, 20$/hour or $500/year all you can
fly!) - they mostly seem to want to grind around in 2-33s or 1-26s
until they get bored or run out of money, then we never see them
again.

I noticed this sort of thing when I lived in Houston as a member of the
SCOH. They had a 2-33, several Blaniks, and a Grob 103.

The 2-33 and Blaniks were difficult to schedule during the flying
season. I was learning gliders at the time, and I decided to schedule
the under-used G103 instead. Instantly, my scheduling woes were gone.

I couldn't figure out why no one would fly the ship - it flew nicely,
thermalled well, and as a consequence of no one scheduling it, I had
a couple of very enjoyable multi-hour soaring flights whilst working
on my ticket, including a couple of memorable flights where I got it
slow enough in a thermal to go around with the hawks.

Admittedly, I like the Blaniks too, they handle very nicely even if
they aren't a cross country machine (and living where I do now, it's
more important to have something that will thermal on a fart rather
than the latest 50:1 super glass). But the 2-33? Very nostalgic and
all that, bit it steers like a cow.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Why have we decided to restrict team flying in US competition?

Bill Snead
6W

Congratulations to the British Team! Their placings were well
deserved.

Regarding team flying, I had the good fortune to team fly with Peter
Harvey (Open Class) at Leszno, and yes we formed a cross-cultural
"team." Since Open Class is presently restricted to one pilot per
country, any team flying had to be international. Peter took the
initiative to help me on a day that went blue. Next day I was in front
and relayed what I hope was valuable info to him.

But it should be understood that it was a matter of timely coincidence
and convenience and since we knew each other's radio frequencies, we
were able to communicate to our mutual benefit. Peter placed 4th and
I was 5th, but I promise that our final placings were not changed as a
result of "teaming up."

Team flying is not absolutely vital it seems. Consider this outcome.
The pilot that won with the largest margin (points and percentage) in
any class was Holger Karow (Open). Look at the start times and you
will see that generally, he went early -- often alone -- read clouds
and made good decisions. I assume that Holger received whatever
ground-based information the German team had which may have been more
useful than a teammate on a wingtip. I flew with Holger enough to
know that our decisions would have changed little if we were talking
things over.

In my experience, the benefits from team flying are generally minor
and very definitely dependant on the situation. It is some use in
dicey weird weather but in good weather a lot of team flying goes as
follows: "I'm over here...Where are you?" It is more distraction than
benefit.