FAI Sailplane Grand Prix USA 🇺🇸 Orlando

I certainly can't speak for Seminole but I wonder if that, for a well-establish event like the Seniors, some--maybe even much--of that "lost"revenue is actually pushed to the week(s) before or after the contest by guests who are already aware or are advised about the potential conflict ahead of time..

Walk-in traffic would be affected--especially if operations close for an entire contest day. But on the other hand, such traffic might increase because of the publicity of the event. I also wonder how many pilots arrive a week early for the contest to practice and/or schedule trips at other times who wouldn't otherwise even know much about Seminole.

Taking a more comprehensive, long-term view, I suspect it's a more complex and less zero-sum game than has been described.

Chip Bearden

🥂���

Here is to a little well placed spin! 😉

I'm all for large contests. But I'll admit that I am shocked by how much nicer small ones can be. So was the staff and participants at the recents SGP USA 🇺🇸 Orlando. I had the same experience in Australia 🇦🇺. The WGC in Benalla was amazing, but the SGP Australia in Horsham was a much more fun event! This sentiment was similar for the other competitors.

Large contests are clearly much more stressful in many ways. They also carry higher risk. The seniors event is a massive operation for a very small airfield to endure. It is very, very stressful on the staff (stop kidding yourselves). I continue to stand firmly behind that statement. Let's just be honest about it, shall we?

So at the risk of further blasphemy, I think that it is worthwhile to make some points about the virtues of smaller, more efficient soaring competitions. Huge contests are not easy for the pilots or the organizers. They can be fairly inefficient. Remember last year a certain event where a certain class often started launching at 3:30 pm? Please 😂.

The contrast for everyone in Seminole was stunning considering the FAI SGP USA 🇺🇸 event was held a week after the seniors event ended. In addition to being FAR less disruptive, it's also important to point out that the smaller contest is far easier to manage and safer (1/6 the gliders, similar gliders identical wing loadings). A small event made up of nearly identical gliders, IMO, equals far higher competition quality for the competitors and results considerably more fun for the pilots (and staff, and spectators, etc.). Just ask them. We could literally see it on the faces of the pilots (and staff). Several articulated their relief openly. We did not have to deal with all the waiting around trying to grid and launch. We had far more room for parking. We had far more room to move the gliders. It was more relaxing, etc. Everything was dramatically more manageable. Good things, no?

In the air, the often intense traffic and gaggles which the seniors contest experiences (especially in the start area) is basically eliminated. I won't go into specific examples, but there were several from what I heard. Furthermore, our assigned tasking meant no airspace infringements. Any experienced CD will tell you that wide TAT competitors (such as this years seniors) are much more likely to wander into closed or restricted airspace. This happened in this years seniors several times I believe...B, D... As FAI SGP events use a simple start line and regatta start, there was no confusion as to which direction the competitors are going (and when to start) as is common in "open start" scenarios in traditional rules. Finally, the intense traffic sometimes experienced in the contest landing pattern during the 65 sailplane strong seniors (especially after very short TAT tasks) is significantly reduced or eliminated in SGP. As the SGP is a race around a set course (meaning the leaders actually finish ahead, not at the same time having travelled further), we rarely have two gliders enter the finish area or landing pattern at the same time. If the SGP competitors do finish together, they are well aware of each other (after racing to beat eachother!) and therefore landing behavior is highly predictable for them.

It sure seems to make sense to me to consider the value of high quality, smaller events...but go ahead, keep telling yourselves everything about 65 gliders crammed into a tiny airfield is just great �! That's not 🦇 **** crazy at all...

Cheers �

Sean

Bruce, Herb & Chip, For the Seniors we did training/rides right up to the end of the pilots meeting. During the march to the grid the airport is effectively closed to operations. Once the competitors are launched, we go back to training operations and local pilots can fly. Student training stops around the expected arrival time of the competitors.
For the Sailplane Grand Prix we did not completely block the runway during movement to the grid and training was less disrupted. We flew before and after the arrival of the gaggle and we didn't have any issues.
Giving priority to the contest participants did not cause any problems for our local pilots, instructors or customers. Everyone enjoyed the extra excitement and the competitors were more than hospitable when asked questions by our guests.
As a company, we enjoyed hosting both events. Of course if the SGP was a 60+ ship event we would not have been able to do it so close to the Seniors. All of our volunteers were pretty tired after the Seniors but looked forward to a different style event. The ability to watch the race in near time was a big plus. Everyone enjoyed the SGP and we would be honored to host the event again if asked. The work put into this event by Sean and Tiffany made our job so much easier! They are a hard working, duel threat offense, that is making our sport better.

Best Regards,
Rich Owen
ZO

I'll jump in as one of the organizers for the Nephi events every year:

We have pushed hard to maximize the 65 spots allowed by insurance. If insurance allowed us to have 70 spots, at Nephi we would probably have 70 spots since we now seem to end up with 65 spots taken and still another 35+ on the waiting list. Why? We hate to turn away pilots who want to come fly. Also, running a contest in Nephi right now requires that we bring the entire show and supporting cast into town. Someday when Nephi is a year round soaring base this will lesson some of our costs.

I am not at all offended by Sean's comments. In fact I completely agree with them and him. If we limited Nephi events to only 30 gliders, we could give everyone who can get into the event a better time. We would also be turning away 70+ pilots. It is tricky. Nephi events are already pretty expensive for the pilots.

At a popular location like Nephi, do we reduce event pilot count in half and double the price to attend, or do we keep stuffing every available spot and keep trying to look for ways to make it easier on pilots? One example of our working on this is putting in a watering station at every tie down. It cost many thousands of dollars and took many hundreds of man hours to design and install. Pain yes, but it worked amazing last year at the nationals. Pilots attending Nephi events can water their planes at the tie down and don't have to move until heading out to the grid. We will keep trying to make things easier and run faster for the big crowds. Thanks for your understanding and patience.

Again - I completely agree with Sean that small events would be likely the best experience for the participating pilots, but with all the work and effort we put in (at least at Nephi), right now we can only see making it work by doing one huge event per year. We just don't have the energy or man power to do multiple smaller events per year. We tried that twice over a couple of years, had a blast, and almost killed ourselves putting on two events in a year. I am surprised Ron will still talk to me! Haha.

Thanks Sean for all the work you put into the SGP and for the work and efforts you will be putting in at near future soaring events!

Bruno - B4

On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 3:36:46 AM UTC+3, wrote:
I'll jump in as one of the organizers for the Nephi events every year:

We have pushed hard to maximize the 65 spots allowed by insurance. If insurance allowed us to have 70 spots, at Nephi we would probably have 70 spots

What makes "insurance" decide that 65 is the right number?

On Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 6:59:17 PM UTC-6, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 3:36:46 AM UTC+3, wrote:
I'll jump in as one of the organizers for the Nephi events every year:

We have pushed hard to maximize the 65 spots allowed by insurance. If insurance allowed us to have 70 spots, at Nephi we would probably have 70 spots

What makes "insurance" decide that 65 is the right number?

The 65 maximum is stated explicitly in the rules. As for the foundation for that maximum, I can't say how it evolved.

On Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 5:59:17 PM UTC-7, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 3:36:46 AM UTC+3, wrote:
I'll jump in as one of the organizers for the Nephi events every year:

We have pushed hard to maximize the 65 spots allowed by insurance. If insurance allowed us to have 70 spots, at Nephi we would probably have 70 spots

What makes "insurance" decide that 65 is the right number

Bruce,
SSA (Soaring Society of America) states in the competition rules that there is a maximum of 65 gliders per event. While the Nephi gathering is not a "competition", Bruno (CM) uses the SSA to get insurance and therefore has to abide by their rules. I'm sure he has looked into private insurance and I'm guessing that cost was prohibitive.

Guys its all good and everyone involved with these events are great people. Especially the organizers who really go above and beyond in almost every case.

My only point here is that a smaller event can be great too, and have many virtues which I feel are overlooked.

Looking forward to this summer already. Good luck to everyone on the great range of events and contests which are scheduled.

Back into hiding...

Sean


On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 10:50:26 AM UTC-4, Craig Reinholt wrote:
On Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 5:59:17 PM UTC-7, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 3:36:46 AM UTC+3, wrote:
I'll jump in as one of the organizers for the Nephi events every year:

We have pushed hard to maximize the 65 spots allowed by insurance. If insurance allowed us to have 70 spots, at Nephi we would probably have 70 spots

What makes "insurance" decide that 65 is the right number

Bruce,
SSA (Soaring Society of America) states in the competition rules that there is a maximum of 65 gliders per event. While the Nephi gathering is not a "competition", Bruno (CM) uses the SSA to get insurance and therefore has to abide by their rules. I'm sure he has looked into private insurance and I'm guessing that cost was prohibitive.

Here are some videos (SeeYou replays) of the first two SGP USA Orlando races...

https://www.youtube.com/user/faisail...w=0&shelf_id=0

These might be fun for some of you to watch. You can download the IGC files yourself by clicking he

http://www.sgp.aero/usa2017/results-...ontestID=28476

Then click view on the right of each pilot's stats, then IGC log tab on the top.

Sorry no mass download option but only 12 pilots...



On Sunday, March 26, 2017 at 7:23:37 AM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
SGP USA begins today at Seminole Lake Gliderport near Orlando, Florida.

Website: www.sgp.aero/usa2017

Live tracking: http://www.sgp.aero/usa2017/race-cov...ontestID=28476

Facebook: @FAISailplaneGrandPrixUSA

Yesterday's practice race results: http://www.sgp.aero/usa2017/results-...ontestID=28476

On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 5:50:26 PM UTC+3, Craig Reinholt wrote:
On Saturday, April 8, 2017 at 5:59:17 PM UTC-7, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 3:36:46 AM UTC+3, wrote:
I'll jump in as one of the organizers for the Nephi events every year:

We have pushed hard to maximize the 65 spots allowed by insurance. If insurance allowed us to have 70 spots, at Nephi we would probably have 70 spots

What makes "insurance" decide that 65 is the right number

Bruce,
SSA (Soaring Society of America) states in the competition rules that there is a maximum of 65 gliders per event. While the Nephi gathering is not a "competition", Bruno (CM) uses the SSA to get insurance and therefore has to abide by their rules. I'm sure he has looked into private insurance and I'm guessing that cost was prohibitive.

Well, I guess it's a good problem to have.

That doesn't mean it's not a problem!