500 foot rule and pilot opinion poll

"Dale Kramer" wrote...
Some of your responses deserve no response, however:

I will bet that unless your runway is in a 100 foot wide canyon, I can do a
safe speed pass down one side of it.

If there are buildings, cars, people, a town, etc., on one side of the runway
(which is the case at many airports) you probably aren't going to be allowed to
do high speed passes on that side of the runway.

The CD doesn't have to call anything. After I finish through the cylinder I
can do what I want unless there are instructions not to. I just think the
CD should give guidance for orderly speed passes.

What you said was confusing, I thought you were proposing some sort of finish
gate on both sides of a runway.

I've probably flown 20 or so cylinder finishes at regional contests over the
past couple of years. Except for the very first contest where I (and just about
everyone else) was exposed to them, everyone I've seen does an easy pullup after
they cross the edge of the cylinder.
This is the way finish cylinders are supposed to be used. They were intended to
eliminate the need for high speed passes. It doesn't preclude a high speed
pass, but around here very few people feel the need at this point, and if people
insisted upon doing them at a contest, in many cases the CD would tell them to
stop.

Obviously, there is at least one place where people routinely do high speed
passes after crossing the cylinder. The honest question in my mind is still,
why? If you all want to do passes, use a finish gate, it's clearly safer than
having people coming from different directions and pulling up in the center of
the cylinder.

Pulling up at the edge of the cylinder is probably more dangerous than
continuing down to a speed pass. If you finish at 550 feet what about the
guy finishing behind you that finishes at 650 feet, can you see him?

If you pull up from your pass at 50 feet, and the guy behind you is at 150 feet,
can you see him? Any problems with multiple people finishing simultaneously
from the same direction will be the same whether or not everyone is doing a low
pass. Using an appropriately sized cylinder, and pulling up at the edge,
greatly reduces the high speed conflicts with people coming from other
directions, and pretty much keeps everyone out of the traffic pattern until they
are actually landing.

Marc

I know on no runways, that contests are run at, that have buildings, or a
town, within 100 feet of the edge of both sides of the runway.

Cars and people should not be there either and if they are, they are
probably on the side with the obstructions.

I do not believe what I said was confusing, I believe you put in words that
were not there.

Again, I do not think you read or understood what I said. In my orderly
speed pass
directives from the CD, I said that the pull up should be at the midpoint of
the runway. This makes pulling up into someone much more unlikely than
doing your pullup at the cylinder edge where some people pull up and others
don't.

I'm done here.

Dale





"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message om...
"Dale Kramer" wrote...
Some of your responses deserve no response, however:

I will bet that unless your runway is in a 100 foot wide canyon, I can do a
safe speed pass down one side of it.

If there are buildings, cars, people, a town, etc., on one side of the runway
(which is the case at many airports) you probably aren't going to be allowed to
do high speed passes on that side of the runway.

The CD doesn't have to call anything. After I finish through the cylinder I
can do what I want unless there are instructions not to. I just think the
CD should give guidance for orderly speed passes.

What you said was confusing, I thought you were proposing some sort of finish
gate on both sides of a runway.

I've probably flown 20 or so cylinder finishes at regional contests over the
past couple of years. Except for the very first contest where I (and just about
everyone else) was exposed to them, everyone I've seen does an easy pullup after
they cross the edge of the cylinder.
This is the way finish cylinders are supposed to be used. They were intended to
eliminate the need for high speed passes. It doesn't preclude a high speed
pass, but around here very few people feel the need at this point, and if people
insisted upon doing them at a contest, in many cases the CD would tell them to
stop.

Obviously, there is at least one place where people routinely do high speed
passes after crossing the cylinder. The honest question in my mind is still,
why? If you all want to do passes, use a finish gate, it's clearly safer than
having people coming from different directions and pulling up in the center of
the cylinder.

Pulling up at the edge of the cylinder is probably more dangerous than
continuing down to a speed pass. If you finish at 550 feet what about the
guy finishing behind you that finishes at 650 feet, can you see him?

If you pull up from your pass at 50 feet, and the guy behind you is at 150 feet,
can you see him? Any problems with multiple people finishing simultaneously
from the same direction will be the same whether or not everyone is doing a low
pass. Using an appropriately sized cylinder, and pulling up at the edge,
greatly reduces the high speed conflicts with people coming from other
directions, and pretty much keeps everyone out of the traffic pattern until they
are actually landing.

Marc

John Cochrane wrote:

Maybe louder will help: THE 500 FOOT RULE DOES
NOT ELMINIATE THE FUN LOW FAST FINISH.

As for your need for some physical risk to keep soaring interesting
(as opposed to the constant risk of landout inconvenience, and the
risk of losing the race) ... well, we'll just have to disagree.

We spend a lot of time on RAS discussing theory vs. practice. John's
[loud] comment about the 500 foot rule not eliminating fun, low, fast
finishes is theoretically true. But anyone who's flown the cylinder
will agree that the practical effect is something else, often due to
the organizers' decision to ban high-speed passes.

With the legal environment in the U.S., many organizers will think
twice about allowing traditional "fun" finishes if the rules ever
mandate a 500-foot floor "for safety reasons." And if you think I'm
overreacting, consider an Eastern regional contest last year where the
organizers refused to give the airport bonus anywhere except for
turnpoint airport landings (i.e., on hard-surface runways) because
they had no way of verifying the condition of the many small private
airports marked on the Sectional charts. They didn't want to be sued
if a pilot landed at one and damaged his glider, their having
implicitly warranted the safety of all airports on the chart by
awarding bonus points. Check out the new wording of Rule 9.3 (and
A10.10.4 which explains it: "...But no such efforts [to note fields
that are not landable] in any way modify the pilot's responsibility to
evaluate the safety of any potential landing spot, as new wording in
Rule 9.3 makes clear. It will always be the case that some airfields
shown on a Sectional chart are unsuitable for gliders, especially for
long-wingers. No pilot should be under the mistaken impression that
the availability of a landing bonus constitutes an endorsement of the
safety of an airfield.").

This may seem like a ridiculous case of legislating common sense, but
I strongly believe it makes John's assurance that his proposed rule
won't result in the demise of the traditional high-speed pass naive at
best, and possibly disingenuous.

Regarding physical risk, I guess we do disagree. At least in theory.
In practice, I suspect John would concur that challenging Karl
Striedieck or Doug Jacobs to a rousing game on a PC just doesn't have
the same allure as tilting with them on the ridges at New Castle.

Seriously, I don't think admitting that the element of physical risk
inherent in soaring of ANY type (let's not revisit the
driving-to-the-airport vs. gliding risk debate again) renders our
sport more appealing makes me any less responsible, or mature, or safe
than my acknowledgement that I like skiing for some of the same
reasons. And I feel that those who imply otherwise, by dismissing the
comments of finish-line traditionalists as those of "adrenaline
junkies" or "thrill seekers," are edging down the slippery slope of
banning anything that remotely smacks of risk, be it low finishes,
outlandings, crowded gaggles, or--ultimately--soaring itself.

Chip Bearden

What's the record for the longest thread in this newsgroup?

Since the 8th Sept there's been about 180 postings
on the subject of ballasted pullups!

At 12:00 02 October 2003, Pat Russell wrote:
What's the record for the longest thread in this newsgroup?