Logan contest reporting now only on Soaring Cafe

On Jul 25, 6:38*pm, Tuno wrote:
Although I personally disagree with this decision, it is within the
purview of the on-site contest management to decide who posts to the
SSA website.
QT
Rules Committee

And as reported by Ken Sorenson, "Logan, UT contests have apparently
elected to change reporters at the contest".

All that is clear, and no argument from me, but none of it explains
why SSA removed the old posts. I would like to know why that
additional step was taken.

2NO

On censorship:
It's up to the organizers to select the individual to post daily
contest reports. They are within their rights to change writers or
even delete posts - though it doesn't look good when they do. When
you ask someone who injects color and personal opinion into his
writing to post on behalf of the contest organizers, then have some
marginal days with intimidating flying you are going to get the
obvious injection of perspective to the commentary.

On Logan as a site:
I broke my beloved -27B landing in barley in a mountain valley on Day
2 of the 15M nationals. I made all the decisions myself and live with
the consequences. In the end if I had flown about 2 miles farther
away from landable fields I likely would have made it home, but I
didn't feel comfortable with the all-or-nothing proposition that
appeared to represent at the time.

Logan is a very technical site and that fact is particularly apparent
when the top of lift is 10,000' or lower. The spread in the scores,
large numbers of outlandings and significant numbers of withdrawals -
along with a couple of broken gliders - all stand as evidence of how
challenging the flying can be.

The challenges this year at logan fall into three broad categories:
1) The lift starts on the late side - generally after 2pm. It might go
on until 7:30, but sometimes it doesn't. This makes it challenging to
get a 4-hour Nationals task in when you account for launching all the
gliders and giving them time to climb up. Yesterday's task shows the
challenge of getting a 3 1/2 hour task in.

2) Climbing out is a challenge. The Logan ridge is 10,000 feet high
and 4-5 miles from the airport. It's a steep series of ridges and
canyons and you really have to rack it up (but not past 45-50 degrees
or your circle get's bigger not smaller - shockingly even experienced
pilots forget this). You have to work your way from one spur to the
next and when you get to the top you have about a 1,000- foot working
band before you are below the ridge tops and have to start over.
Better weather make this less of a challenge, but in 10 days there
this was the case every day this year. This year we towed to 2,500
feet to try to give pilots a better chance to get a climb, bit it
exacerbates #1 when you spend the additional 25-30% in timer per tow.

3) Ridge transitions are the name of the game. There is not reliable
lift in the valleys so you fly ridge to ridge. Given the nature of the
terrain you may ridge soar or choose thermals in the high ground. When
the top of lift is low you have to do both - climb up on one ridge and
dive to the next one, ridge soar upon arrival until you can find a
thermal - or ridge run for a bit.

4) There are broad swaths of terrain in the contest areas that are
unattractive, either because they are in marine air, filled with water
or made of lava (hardened, not molten), among other things. This is
true of many sites to one degree or another. Most problem areas were
briefed at various pilots' meetings. If you combine #4 with #3 you get
areas like where I got into trouble where you need the ridge to work
our are faced with a 15-mile glide to landable spots. When the lift
doesn't go very high you end up with what amounts to a 500-1,000'
working band. In my case I decided to glide toward the fields to play
it safe but with the air running down instead of up in the valleys my
achieved L/D was cut in half - 23:1 instead of 48:1 according to
SeeYou. Which brings me to the final point...

5) It's mountain flying. Mountains are big geographic features that
can have a big impact on the local weather conditions. Large areas of
lift and sink that you might not find in the flatlands are the main
things to think about. It's all the more critical when you are flying
low-level.

To me all of this adds up to a need to do a lot of homework when going
to fly at a place like Logan. If the conditions are strong you likely
have enough margin to mask many of the challenges, but when you are
among, rather than above, the mountains you need to take care.

It's a beautiful place with a great airport and a supportive
community. I'd go again - I've already made a big investment in
learning about how to fly there.

9B

On Jul 25, 8:09*pm, Andy wrote:
On Jul 25, 6:38*pm, Tuno wrote:

Although I personally disagree with this decision, it is within the
purview of the on-site contest management to decide who posts to the
SSA website.
QT
Rules Committee

And as reported by Ken Sorenson, "Logan, UT contests have apparently
elected to change reporters at the contest".

All that is clear, and no argument from me, but none of it explains
why SSA removed the old posts. I would like to know why that
additional step was taken.

2NO

On censorship:
It's up to the organizers to select the individual to post daily
contest reports. *They are within their rights to change writers or
even delete posts - though it doesn't look good when they do. *When
you ask someone who injects color and personal opinion into his
writing to post on behalf of the contest organizers, then have some
marginal days with intimidating flying you are going to get the
obvious injection of perspective to the commentary.

On Logan as a site:
I broke my beloved -27B landing in barley in a mountain valley on Day
2 of the 15M nationals. I made all the decisions myself and live with
the consequences. *In the end if I had flown about 2 miles farther
away from landable fields I likely would have made it home, but I
didn't feel comfortable with the all-or-nothing proposition that
appeared to represent at the time.

Logan is a very technical site and that fact is particularly apparent
when the top of lift is 10,000' or lower. *The spread in the scores,
large numbers of outlandings and significant numbers of withdrawals -
along with a couple of broken gliders - all stand as evidence of how
challenging the flying can be.

The challenges this year at logan fall into three broad categories:
1) The lift starts on the late side - generally after 2pm. It might go
on until 7:30, but sometimes it doesn't. *This makes it challenging to
get a 4-hour Nationals task in when you account for launching all the
gliders and giving them time to climb up. Yesterday's task shows the
challenge of getting a 3 1/2 hour task in.

2) Climbing out is a challenge. The Logan ridge is 10,000 feet high
and 4-5 miles from the airport. *It's a steep series of ridges and
canyons and you really have to rack it up (but not past 45-50 degrees
or your circle get's bigger not smaller - shockingly even experienced
pilots forget this). You have to work your way from one spur to the
next and when you get to the top you have about a 1,000- foot working
band before you are below the ridge tops and have to start over.
Better weather make this less of a challenge, but in 10 days there
this was the case every day this year. This year we towed to 2,500
feet to try to give pilots a better chance to get a climb, bit it
exacerbates #1 when you spend the additional 25-30% in timer per tow.

3) Ridge transitions are the name of the game. There is not reliable
lift in the valleys so you fly ridge to ridge. Given the nature of the
terrain you may ridge soar or choose thermals in the high ground. When
the top of lift is low you have to do both - climb up on one ridge and
dive to the next one, ridge soar upon arrival until you can find a
thermal - or ridge run for a bit.

4) There are broad swaths of terrain in the contest areas that are
unattractive, either because they are in marine air, filled with water
or made of lava (hardened, not molten), among other things. This is
true of many sites to one degree or another. Most problem areas were
briefed at various pilots' meetings. If you combine #4 with #3 you get
areas like where I got into trouble where you need the ridge to work
our are faced with a 15-mile glide to landable spots. When the lift
doesn't go very high you end up with what amounts to a 500-1,000'
working band. In my case I decided to glide toward the fields to play
it safe but with the air running down instead of up in the valleys my
achieved L/D was cut in half - 23:1 instead of 48:1 according to
SeeYou. Which brings me to the final point...

5) It's mountain flying. Mountains are big geographic features that
can have a big impact on the local weather conditions. Large areas of
lift and sink that you might not find in the flatlands are the main
things to think about. It's all the more critical when you are flying
low-level.

To me all of this adds up to a need to do a lot of homework when going
to fly at a place like Logan. *If the conditions are strong you likely
have enough margin to mask many of the challenges, but when you are
among, rather than above, the mountains you need to take care.

It's a beautiful place with a great airport and a supportive
community. I'd go again - I've already made a big investment in
learning about how to fly there.

9B

Meant to say "five categories" - or in the words of Monty Python, "No
one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

On Jul 25, 9:09*pm, Andy wrote:
On Jul 25, 6:38*pm, Tuno wrote:

Although I personally disagree with this decision, it is within the
purview of the on-site contest management to decide who posts to the
SSA website.
QT
Rules Committee

And as reported by Ken Sorenson, "Logan, UT contests have apparently
elected to change reporters at the contest".

All that is clear, and no argument from me, but none of it explains
why SSA removed the old posts. I would like to know why that
additional step was taken.

2NO

On censorship:
It's up to the organizers to select the individual to post daily
contest reports. *They are within their rights to change writers or
even delete posts - though it doesn't look good when they do. *When
you ask someone who injects color and personal opinion into his
writing to post on behalf of the contest organizers, then have some
marginal days with intimidating flying you are going to get the
obvious injection of perspective to the commentary.

On Logan as a site:
I broke my beloved -27B landing in barley in a mountain valley on Day
2 of the 15M nationals. I made all the decisions myself and live with
the consequences. *In the end if I had flown about 2 miles farther
away from landable fields I likely would have made it home, but I
didn't feel comfortable with the all-or-nothing proposition that
appeared to represent at the time.

Logan is a very technical site and that fact is particularly apparent
when the top of lift is 10,000' or lower. *The spread in the scores,
large numbers of outlandings and significant numbers of withdrawals -
along with a couple of broken gliders - all stand as evidence of how
challenging the flying can be.

The challenges this year at logan fall into three broad categories:
1) The lift starts on the late side - generally after 2pm. It might go
on until 7:30, but sometimes it doesn't. *This makes it challenging to
get a 4-hour Nationals task in when you account for launching all the
gliders and giving them time to climb up. Yesterday's task shows the
challenge of getting a 3 1/2 hour task in.

2) Climbing out is a challenge. The Logan ridge is 10,000 feet high
and 4-5 miles from the airport. *It's a steep series of ridges and
canyons and you really have to rack it up (but not past 45-50 degrees
or your circle get's bigger not smaller - shockingly even experienced
pilots forget this). You have to work your way from one spur to the
next and when you get to the top you have about a 1,000- foot working
band before you are below the ridge tops and have to start over.
Better weather make this less of a challenge, but in 10 days there
this was the case every day this year. This year we towed to 2,500
feet to try to give pilots a better chance to get a climb, bit it
exacerbates #1 when you spend the additional 25-30% in timer per tow.

3) Ridge transitions are the name of the game. There is not reliable
lift in the valleys so you fly ridge to ridge. Given the nature of the
terrain you may ridge soar or choose thermals in the high ground. When
the top of lift is low you have to do both - climb up on one ridge and
dive to the next one, ridge soar upon arrival until you can find a
thermal - or ridge run for a bit.

4) There are broad swaths of terrain in the contest areas that are
unattractive, either because they are in marine air, filled with water
or made of lava (hardened, not molten), among other things. This is
true of many sites to one degree or another. Most problem areas were
briefed at various pilots' meetings. If you combine #4 with #3 you get
areas like where I got into trouble where you need the ridge to work
our are faced with a 15-mile glide to landable spots. When the lift
doesn't go very high you end up with what amounts to a 500-1,000'
working band. In my case I decided to glide toward the fields to play
it safe but with the air running down instead of up in the valleys my
achieved L/D was cut in half - 23:1 instead of 48:1 according to
SeeYou. Which brings me to the final point...

5) It's mountain flying. Mountains are big geographic features that
can have a big impact on the local weather conditions. Large areas of
lift and sink that you might not find in the flatlands are the main
things to think about. It's all the more critical when you are flying
low-level.

To me all of this adds up to a need to do a lot of homework when going
to fly at a place like Logan. *If the conditions are strong you likely
have enough margin to mask many of the challenges, but when you are
among, rather than above, the mountains you need to take care.

It's a beautiful place with a great airport and a supportive
community. I'd go again - I've already made a big investment in
learning about how to fly there.

9B

Frank was never asked by the contest management to be the reporter for
the contest therefore we did not change reporters.

Posts to the SSA contest page are permanent parts of contest
reporting. The Logan contest management expected that material posted
to the official webpage would be factual. While blogs may embellish
or exaggerate to make the material more interesting, it is important
to provide true statements on the official website that do not mislead
readers. Unfortunately the posts to the website had misleading
statements that were beyond mild exaggeration. The statement that led
to the removal of the posts was from the Day Three report (July 22,
2011):

“As it turned out, a huge cloud street set up well to our north over
Sherman Peak running horizon to horizon east-northeast to west-
southwest that ran right through the 15m task area. ”All” we had to
do was get to Sherman Peak, connect with the street, run it for 80
miles out over completely unlandable (and uninhabited) terrain, turn
around and get home, and all but one 15m pilot was able to do this in
some fashion or another.”

While the statement makes for sensational reading and from the
comments on RAS many believed it; unfortunately it was misleading and
was well beyond exaggeration for effect. After reviewing Frank’s
flight for that day (July 21st), it is evident that he was never more
than eight miles from landable fields and this was at flight altitudes
of 4500 to 9000 feet agl. You can download his KML file from the OLC
and review it in Google Earth. Please notice both the many
communities, farms, airports and landable fields he and the rest of
the competitors flew over. You can review my July 3rd flight where I
landed in the flight zone of the July 21st contest flight to see that
many of the fields that are not green are also landable. Almost every
valley in the flight area is filled with landable fields. In general,
most of the tasking area in Logan has many airports and landable
fields in all quadrants. It is one of the safest mountain sites that
I have ever flown at and I have received similar comments from top
pilots that have flown at Logan. It is somewhat intimidating to the
new pilots that are not familiar with mountain flying, but those that
embrace it come away excited about the possibilities and find they
approach their flying in a different way after the experience. I
encourage the readers here to do their due diligence and review flight
logs and tasks in Google Earth before believing everything they read
in blogs and RAS.

The Logan contest management felt that while it was perfectly fine for
Frank or any other blogger to write their opinions, they should not be
posted as part of the official website. There were also many other
bloggers at the contest and this leads to the question of how best to
provide easy access to all bloggers without officially endorsing
them. The best solution was to remove the posts and provide links to
Frank’s and others’ blogs as part of the official daily report.
Readers can easily link to the blogs and it provides a clear
separation from the official report.


Tim Taylor

Ted,

My understanding is that the contest organizer, who has responsibility for
the contest reports, asked the SSA webmaster to remove the reports, which he
did. The decision to remove the reports was made by the contest organizer. A
posting elsewhere in this thread by Tim Taylor explains their rationale.

As you know from your own experience as a contest organizer, putting on a
contest is a huge amount of work, usually done entirely by a small group of
volunteers. Those of us who are privileged to fly these contests really
appreciate the effort put in by all contest organizers, however imperfect
they may seem at times. It has become increasingly difficult to find the
volunteers needed to host, organize, and run contests. Hopefully the folks
who have become wound up over the handling of Frank's entertaining reports
will give the contest organizers, and the SSA volunteers, the benefit of the
doubt on this matter. The last thing we can afford to do is to run off the
few SSA volunteers and contest organizers we have. There is no "them", its
just "us".

Ken Sorenson


"Tuno" wrote in message
...
Although I personally disagree with this decision, it is within the
purview of the on-site contest management to decide who posts to the
SSA website.
QT
Rules Committee

And as reported by Ken Sorenson, "Logan, UT contests have apparently
elected to change reporters at the contest".

All that is clear, and no argument from me, but none of it explains
why SSA removed the old posts. I would like to know why that
additional step was taken.

2NO

On Jul 26, 7:37*am, "Ken Sorenson" wrote:
Ted,

My understanding is that the contest organizer, who has responsibility for
the contest reports, asked the SSA webmaster to remove the reports, which he
did. The decision to remove the reports was made by the contest organizer.. A
posting elsewhere in this thread by Tim Taylor explains their rationale.

As you know from your own experience as a contest organizer, putting on a
contest is a huge amount of work, usually done entirely by a small group of
volunteers. Those of us who are privileged to fly these contests really
appreciate the effort put in by all contest organizers, however imperfect
they may seem at times. It has become increasingly difficult to find the
volunteers needed to host, organize, and run contests. Hopefully the folks
who have become wound up over the handling of Frank's entertaining reports
will give the contest organizers, and the SSA volunteers, the benefit of the
doubt on this matter. The last thing we can afford to do is to run off the
few SSA volunteers and contest organizers we have. *There is no "them", its
just "us".

Ken Sorenson

"Tuno" wrote in message

...







Although I personally disagree with this decision, it is within the
purview of the on-site contest management to decide who posts to the
SSA website.
QT
Rules Committee

And as reported by Ken Sorenson, "Logan, UT contests have apparently
elected to change reporters at the contest".

All that is clear, and no argument from me, but none of it explains
why SSA removed the old posts. I would like to know why that
additional step was taken.

2NO

2NO,

The removal of the reports we done by the contest organizers, in fact
I performed the actions after ALL of the contest organizations agreed
to the action. There was no involvement by anyone at the SSA. We
understood the risks of our decision and actions.

Ron Gleason

Thank you Ron and Ken (and Tim) -- I am fine with all of these
explanations. It just strikes me as a bit extreme that the posts were
removed.

While I have experience as a contest organizer and manager, my
sensitivity on this topic stems from much longer experience as a field
reporter in sanctioned contests (both USPA and FAI). I wasn't in Logan
of course, and I don't mean to second-guess the organizer's actions,
but if I was doing the field reports and the organizer didn't like
them, I hope I'd be given the opportunity to make a correction, as
opposed to being censored! That just makes everybody look bad.

2NO (suffering from lack-of-flying syndrome ... and looking forward to
flying at Logan someday)

On Jul 25, 8:09*pm, Andy wrote:

To me all of this adds up to a need to do a lot of homework when going
to fly at a place like Logan. *If the conditions are strong you likely
have enough margin to mask many of the challenges, but when you are
among, rather than above, the mountains you need to take care.

It's a beautiful place with a great airport and a supportive
community. I'd go again - I've already made a big investment in
learning about how to fly there.


As someone who flew Logan both last year and this year, I wanted to
add a couple of things to Andy's thoughtful post:

My big takeaway from the contest (at least during the Regionals week)
was that Logan was a more challenging place to fly this year than
"normal". Mostly it was bad timing on the part of the weather Gods -
but there were a lot of things, including:
1) Weaker lift during a period of intense glider activity, especially
with folks who were keen to carry a lot of water and fly hard.
2) Somewhat lower lift heights than last year
3) A bad winter causing crops to be "behind schedule" in being
harvested, slightly reducing the landout options a bit
4) Contest organizers wanting to make sure that a very large field of
aircraft had enough time to get organized and ready. Coupled with the
late days this meant baking on the tarmac for 2 hours every day;
something that I think contributed to fatigue, concentration, and
frustration levels (especially after launch while crawling up the
ridge in groups).
5) A very large and diverse set of pilots, including a lot of people
who aren't used to mountain flying and didn't seem to be comfortable
with key aspects of such flying (including when to "change gears" to
fly conservatively, and planning ahead to ensure that you stop soaring
with enough altitude left to reach a landout field that may be a few
miles from your position).

I've got some minor quibbles (such as the backup tasking that others
have mentioned); but overall I think the contest staff did the best
they could, including many safety briefings, strategy tips, and "data-
dumps" by local experts gathered around big maps and slide-show
presentations. Scoring was handled very promptly and openly. Karl S
was a stern-but-reasonable CD while I was there. And although I had
some frustrating days myself, I *like* the fact that this was a
challenge (for both the Regional pilots and the Nats competitors). As
I've said befo in my opinion there's a big difference between a
"fun-fly" and a contest; especially when we're talking about National
Championships!

One last thing: I've seen and heard so much about the "unlandable"
terrain around Logan, on this message group and other places. I am
not trying to make a personal attack on those folks; but do people
talk the same way about Montague? Parowan? Or (most of) Nevada? How
about soaring in the Alps or New Zealand (which most pilots talk about
whilst drooling)? It seems to me that anywhere you fly there are
going to be unlandable areas. I was taught that part of soaring is
learning to either avoid those areas, or to cease soaring and deviate
to landable terrain when you get below a safe altitude. As long as
proper judgement is used, unlandable terrain isn't necessarily
_unsafe_ terrain. And while I have full sympathy and respect for the
pilots who damaged their gliders, I'd like to point out that it wasn't
the youngest pilots or least-experienced contestants at Logan who got
into trouble - so its not like baby lambs were being led to slaughter
(I consider myself one of those baby lambs, since this was just my 5th
contest and I only have ~300 hrs in gliders). OK, OK, I'll get off the
soap-box...

Hope to see you all at future contests!

--Noel

On Jul 23, 5:20*pm, Frank Paynter wrote:
I have been asked by the contest management here at Logan to stop
posting my reports on the official SSA site, so henceforth these
reports will be available only on SoaringCafe.com. *Apparently I was
using the ‘U’ (Unlandable) word a little too often for their taste. *I
freely admit that a lot of the areas that from this flatlander’s
perspective looks unlandable may in fact be perfectly safe from the
point of view of a Logan regular, but hey – I’m not completely dumb
and it looked pretty scary to me! ;-).

Forrest Gump: "Momma says Stupid is as Stupid does." It's obvious
from the feedback that most enjoy your reporting. Thanks and keep it
up soaring and reporting-wise.

On Jul 23, 11:58*pm, Mike the Strike wrote:

"Based on my experience of flying out west, 2 out of 60 is pretty much
par for a contest."


Mike, I'm sure you will agree with me that 2 accidents is 2 too many.

All, what are we doing in this sport to prevent this from happening
again? It really makes me sick to my stomach to see contestants
demolish their gliders only to have it hushed up by contest
management. Seeing people get hurt or killed in contests lowers the
participation rate. We need to hear about the accidents in order to
learn a lesson!! I personally know two pilots who quit flying in
contests when they watched a glider cartwheel end over end landing in
an unlandable field. Yet, the contest report for that day said
nothing regarding the accident and just showed a W, F for Withdrew
from contest and Flight log.


If someone says a task was called over 80 miles of unlandable terrain,
yet another pilot claims there's always a suitable field within 8
miles of the course line, then why aren't these suitable fields being
entered into the turnpoint database? Situational awareness would
greatly improve if you got low and could see the distance, direction
and altituded needed to find this suitable field.

Looking at the turnpoint database for Logan, it shows lots of mountain
peaks for turnpoints. Nobody needs glide navigation into mountain
peaks. Pilots need glide navigation into suitable fields. How about
using actual suitable landing areas for turnpoints? We're not taking
pictures of easily identifiable turnpoints with Kodak cameras
anymore!! Maybe our accident ratio of 2 out of 60, would be much much
lower if people had these suitable fields marked on their GPS.

I love this sport and hate to hear of accidents happening.