US SSA Contest Pilot Opinion Poll

On Sep 24, 7:34*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:



On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote:

I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view
competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and
foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide
performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how
you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_
criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the
course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance?

In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we
had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about
completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can
draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the
course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to
complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own
course.

And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the
reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the
other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress....

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a
"course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that
doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the
same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and
get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue.

It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the
poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT
with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain
weather.

I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad
weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those
discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not
obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one
particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one
sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the
airport bonus is a more sensible step.

Part of my preference is because the change *removes and awful roll-
the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed
points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which
the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just
keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system
removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT
because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick
the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the
right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the
home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't
take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay
safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near
the home airport.

John Cochrane

Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy

Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy

Have you actually read the FAI rules? I have, and flown under them,
and I think adopting them for US contests would be a terrible idea.
Start with frequent mass landouts. If we basically say that everybody
needs a crew to fly in a contest, that alone will cut participation in
half. At least half of our pilots show up crewless. The FAI has known
for over 20 years that its day devaluation formulas lead to dangerous
and unpleasant mass gaggling start roulette and leeching, yet does
nothing about it. Then there are little gems like a start with an
altitude limit but no time or speed limit. Pilots diving at VNE out of
clouds. At WGC Szeged we saw what happens with a finish line set 1 cm
over a barbed wire fence at the airport perimeter -- crash into a
truck on the airport road. We got rid of that nonsense a long time ago
by moving the finish up. And on and on. Yes, adopting FAI rules would
better train our US teams -- we were at a real disadvantage from not
having much practice with them. It would also mean nobody but the team
shows up for contests!

John Cochrane

On Sep 24, 5:10*pm, Andy wrote:
On Sep 24, 7:34*am, John Cochrane
wrote:





On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:

On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote:

I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view
competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and
foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide
performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how
you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_
criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the
course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance?

In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we
had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about
completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can
draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the
course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to
complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own
course.

And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the
reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the
other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a
"course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that
doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the
same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and
get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue.

It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the
poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT
with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain
weather.

I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad
weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those
discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not
obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one
particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one
sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the
airport bonus is a more sensible step.

Part of my preference is because the change *removes and awful roll-
the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed
points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which
the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just
keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system
removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT
because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick
the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the
right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the
home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't
take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay
safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near
the home airport.

John Cochrane

Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. Don't you guys on the rules
committee have something better to do like fly gliders. Guy may also
be able to fly more rather than pumping code.

You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou
Competition.

Richard

On Sep 24, 11:45*am, Richard wrote:
On Sep 24, 5:10*pm, Andy wrote:



On Sep 24, 7:34*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

On Sep 23, 6:48*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:

On 9/23/2010 9:29 AM, noel.wade wrote:

I see the "problem" with the current system; but if you view
competition tasks through the lens of "complete the course, first and
foremost" then its only a problem for the Sports Class with its wide
performance-level variance. *For the other classes its more about how
you want to view tasks and what should be the _most-important_
criteria for judging someone's performance. *Is it speed around the
course and across the finish line? *Or is it distance?

In the olden days, when we had waypoints that were actually points, we
had a well defined course, and it was reasonable to talk about
completing it. Now we no longer have points, but huge areas, and you can
draw millions of courses, so maybe we should drop the idea of "the
course" and just talk about the Task. That's what people are trying to
complete - "the course" no longer exists, as each pilot picks his own
course.

And while that is the backbone of the Sports Class, it is also the
reason I had little interest in it, and eventually stopped racing as the
other classes flew fewer and fewer assigned speed tasks. But I digress...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl
- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

My view is quite similar to Eric's. Back in the AST days, there was a
"course" and if you made it home you "finished". I'm not so sure that
doing 61 miles and beetling home on a 270 mile day qualifies in the
same way. It's as if we let people turn around at the first turn and
get a "finish" anyway. That is the central philosophical issue.

It does happen in TATs, and in FAI classes too. The examples on the
poll question were from FAI classes. Newcastle day 2 just had a TAT
with possible distances from 66 o 245 miles, in view of very uncertain
weather.

I'm as concerned about safety and incentives not to push on in bad
weather as the next guy, and I'm usually on the other end of those
discussions. However, we have an airport bonus for that. It's not
obvious to me that we should give 600 points for landing at one
particular airport and 25 points for landing at another one. If one
sees a problem in people pushing on in bad weather, raising the
airport bonus is a more sensible step.

Part of my preference is because the change *removes and awful roll-
the-dice decision, stop in an hour for a "finish" or push on for speed
points. I hate big roll of the dice decisions. In the AST, on which
the scoring equation was based, there was no such decision, you just
keep plugging along as long as you can. The proposed new system
removes a lot of that agonizing. It's especially bad in the TAT
because you have to commit early if you want to use the option to nick
the cylinders and finish in one hour. I also dislike MATs where the
right strategy is always to buzz around in gliding distance of the
home airport so you make sure to get those "finisher" points. I didn't
take two weeks off of work and drive a thousand miles for that. Stay
safe, yes. Stay near airports, sure. But not necessarily right near
the home airport.

John Cochrane

Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. *Don't you guys on the rules
committee have something better to do like fly gliders. *Guy may also
be able to fly more rather than pumping code.

You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou
Competition.

Richard

No, I have to agree with John on this one. I (virtually) fly with the
IGC
rules and scoring in Condor. Vne starts, leeching, mass landouts,
low finishes to stall/spin turning final, half the field dead in the
rocks,
yeah, all that. At least it's only our virtual selves that suffer all
that.
I'm glad I don't have to fly that at real life contests.

-- Matt

On Sep 24, 8:35*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy

Have you actually read the FAI rules? I have, and flown under them,
and I think adopting them for US contests would be a terrible idea.
Start with frequent mass landouts. If we basically say that everybody
needs a crew to fly in a contest, that alone will cut participation in
half. At least half of our pilots show up crewless. The FAI has known
for over 20 years that its day devaluation formulas lead to dangerous
and unpleasant mass gaggling start roulette and leeching, yet does
nothing about it. Then there are little gems like a start with an
altitude limit but no time or speed limit. Pilots diving at VNE out of
clouds. At WGC Szeged we saw what happens with a finish line set 1 cm
over a barbed wire fence at the airport perimeter -- crash into a
truck on the airport road. We got rid of that nonsense a long time ago
by moving the finish up. And on and on. Yes, adopting FAI rules would
better train our US teams -- we were at a real disadvantage from not
having much practice with them. It would also mean nobody but the team
shows up for contests!

John Cochrane

I have not flown under the FAI rules but I did study them when I was
following this year's WGC.

All you objections are valid I'm sure, hence the second part of my
proposal "Use any surplus energy to participate in refining the FAI
rules if changes are needed."

Surely mass landouts as much a function of the task setting as the
rules.

Also nothing to say that US contests could not have exceptions to FAI
rules where is was appropriate. E.g. It would seem quite easy to use
the same tasking and scoring rules but with a modified finish
altitude.

The fact that the FAI rules are not perfect does not seem to justify
having a completely separate set of rules.

Andy

On 9/24/2010 8:45 AM, Richard wrote:
On Sep 24, 5:10 pm, wrote:


Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy- Hide quoted text -


I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. Don't you guys on the rules
committee have something better to do like fly gliders. Guy may also
be able to fly more rather than pumping code.

You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou
Competition.

Speaking as a 35 year SSA member, a former Board of Directors member, a
former contest pilot, but still very active pilot, I have believed the
following for decades:

"The USA contest rules primary goal, in my opinion, should be to
maximize soaring participation in the USA. I don't care what rules are
used as long as they achieve this goal, and all rules should be judged
against this goal. If the rules obtained in the pursuit of this goal are
not the optimum for selecting or preparing the US Team for the World
contests, that is an unfortunate but acceptable outcome."

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)

On Sep 24, 10:21*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 9/24/2010 8:45 AM, Richard wrote:



On Sep 24, 5:10 pm, *wrote:

Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy- Hide quoted text -

I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. *Don't you guys on the rules
committee have something better to do like fly gliders. *Guy may also
be able to fly more rather than pumping code.

You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou
Competition.

Speaking as a 35 year SSA member, a former Board of Directors member, a
former contest pilot, but still very active pilot, I have believed the
following for decades:

"The USA contest rules primary goal, in my opinion, should be to
maximize soaring participation in the USA. I don't care what rules are
used as long as they achieve this goal, and all rules should be judged
against this goal. If the rules obtained in the pursuit of this goal are
not the optimum for selecting or preparing the US Team for the World
contests, that is an unfortunate but acceptable outcome."

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)

On Sep 26, 2:52*pm, Andy wrote:
On Sep 24, 10:21*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:

On 9/24/2010 8:45 AM, Richard wrote:

On Sep 24, 5:10 pm, *wrote:

Please adopt the FAI rules and stop wasting everyone's time with
inventing new ones! * Use any surplus energy to participate in
refining the FAI rules if changes are needed.

Andy- Hide quoted text -

I agree with Andy adopt the FAI Rules. *Don't you guys on the rules
committee have something better to do like fly gliders. *Guy may also
be able to fly more rather than pumping code.

You could use an established accurate scoring program like SeeYou
Competition.

Speaking as a 35 year SSA member, a former Board of Directors member, a
former contest pilot, but still very active pilot, I have believed the
following for decades:

"The USA contest rules primary goal, in my opinion, should be to
maximize soaring participation in the USA. I don't care what rules are
used as long as they achieve this goal, and all rules should be judged
against this goal. If the rules obtained in the pursuit of this goal are
not the optimum for selecting or preparing the US Team for the World
contests, that is an unfortunate but acceptable outcome."

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)

Sorry - wrong button.

On Sep 21, 10:22*am, "Ken Sorenson" wrote:
The annual SSA/SRA Pilot Opinion Poll is open athttp://adamsfive.com/survey/surveys.php. The poll closes on October 18. You
are eligible to participate if you're on the US Pilot Ranking List
(basically if you've flown an SSA-sanctioned contest in the past 3 years)..
Please take a few minutes to respond to the poll - they're your Contest
Rules.

The position on the SSA Rules Committee currently filled by Hank Nixon was
up for election this year. The only nomination received was for Hank's
re-election. Since Hank ran unopposed, no vote is required.

Thanks.

Ken Sorenson
SSA Contest Committee Chair

Reminder- the US competition rules poll remains open until 10/18. If
you have not responded to the poll, please take a few minutes and
provide youir input.
Thanks
Hank Nixon UH
SSA Competition Rules Committee Chair

Speaking as a 35 year SSA member, a former Board of Directors member, a
former contest pilot, but still very active pilot, I have believed the
following for decades:

"The USA contest rules primary goal, in my opinion, should be to
maximize soaring participation in the USA. I don't care what rules are
used as long as they achieve this goal, and all rules should be judged
against this goal. If the rules obtained in the pursuit of this goal are
not the optimum for selecting or preparing the US Team for the World
contests, that is an unfortunate but acceptable outcome."

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)- Hide quoted text -



If I had a vote, this would get it.