Scoring when abandoning a contest turnpoint

On Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at 6:43:29 AM UTC-7, Ron Gleason wrote:
On Monday, 3 August 2020 23:10:34 UTC-6, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Monday, August 3, 2020 at 2:38:45 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Hey all. I somehow got the idea that there was strategy involved to maximize score on contest flights where one decides not to continue to a turnpoint. But I don't see anything in the rules other than incomplete tasks essentially being scored as a landout.

Am I missing something?

Good to make it home regardless!

The one case where your strategy might be the case is on a "Long MAT" task, where the next turnpoint is in a sinkhole and going home undertime gets you speed points instead of pressing on to the turn point and landing out.. Under an Assigned Task or Turn Area Task heading home before the next turn will cost you whatever distance points you might've scored by pressing on.. Of course, depending on the landout, getting home might leave you in a better physical state to score points on subsequent contest days. Most racing pilots try to score as many points as they can on the current day - short of risking the glider to do so. Having seen some pilots on the grid who got home from a retrieve at 5 am, it's not clear to me that a few extra points are worth it - assuming you have a choice to get home at a relatively modest cost in points. It's certainly a big advantage of having a motor.

Andy Blackburn
9B

In 2010 or 2011 at the Logan UT events a pilot decided to get maximum distance instead of landing at a designated airport and get the 25 point airport bonus. This decision cost him approximately 12-15 points for the day, small percentage for the day and the contest, but it was enough to cost him a one place in the yearly rankly and he missed a position on the world team which he was coveting.

Ron's correct. We set the airport landing bonus at 25 points for a reason. It's an incentive to fly airport to airport at the end of the day. In many situations you are unlikely to get more distance points by pressing on to lawn dart in a field vs landing at a nearby airport.

Andy Blackburn
9B