Video on contest safety

I find alarm id / flarm net spreads out the gaggle, and raises my enjoyment of a contest. With only visual, you have to stick right with the gaggle not to lose them. With flarm radar, you can go a few miles off, explore something, try a different cloud, and yet if the chips are down not lose sight of the gaggle. It's also nice to see what others are doing some miles away and how it's working out.

John Cochrane BB

Well, I’m not seeing any support on breaking up the gaggles............does this mean most of us secretly like the gaggle? Have we found ways to use the gaggle to our advantage? Obviously, the low end of the score sheet doesn’t want to fly alone, but it’s looking like the other end of the score sheet might like to keep things just the way the are?
Just thinking out loud, here!
JJ

Thanks Cliff, got a suggested solution?Â* At present my flying buddy has
ADS-B out and no Flarm so I appreciate being able to "see" him when not
in direct visual contact.Â* I know I could turn off ADS-B in my Flarm
unit, but that would reduce other safety issues as we do often fly in
the arrival paths to ABQ.

On 4/17/2020 8:24 PM, wrote:
Dan I only see that on adsb out/in not power flarm!

--
Dan, 5J

Nobody chimed in on my two start cylinder idea. If site sets up three non- overlapping cylinders and the first "steering" turnpoint is equidistant from the two used...?

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 11:30:00 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Nobody chimed in on my two start cylinder idea. If site sets up three non- overlapping cylinders and the first "steering" turnpoint is equidistant from the two used...?

Well as long as I am not stuck in the one with no thermals.

Just clip yours before start, same as today.

On Saturday, April 18, 2020 at 2:30:00 PM UTC-4, wrote:
Nobody chimed in on my two start cylinder idea. If site sets up three non- overlapping cylinders and the first "steering" turnpoint is equidistant from the two used...?

The concept has been used. We used 4 start cylinders in the Club Class WGC in Australia in 2001. It helped reduce gaggle flying and made team flying much more difficult.
Coming out of that experience, the option was added to US rules. I only recll it being used once. The option was removed a few years ago as a simplification.
I believe the rule is still in place in Oz.
UH

Nobody chimed in on my two start cylinder idea. If site sets up three non- overlapping cylinders and the first "steering" turnpoint is equidistant from the two used...?

The concept has been used. We used 4 start cylinders in the Club Class WGC in Australia in 2001. It helped reduce gaggle flying and made team flying much more difficult.
Coming out of that experience, the option was added to US rules. I only recll it being used once. The option was removed a few years ago as a simplification.
I believe the rule is still in place in Oz.
UH

I was at one of the US nationals that tried it, Uvalde in the 2000s sometime. It was not popular for two reasons. First, one cylinder was always noticeably advantaged -- easier lift, better lined up with the clouds, and so forth. Even Uvalde is not easy. That introduced a good deal of luck of the draw.

I think a second reason for distaste with this, as with all the other anti-giggling rules is that following the gaggle, especially on a blue day, is still the crucial strategy. If you leave with or just after the gaggle, you do great. If you fly on your own, you're in trouble. The existing IGC rules make this much much worse. The new scoring formula will make it only as important as it remains in US rules.

If getting with the other gliders remains the critical decision to a good contest score, and you make getting with the other gliders harder, that just loads up the start strategy with extra stress and high tension. Think of the PEV rule, for example. It's one more hurdle to follow. Have you picked up the subtle signals that this is the time to go? Did a group of pilots get together to agree to go at a certain time? Do you have someone listening on the crucial frequencies? Did you guess right? The whole day depends on getting this right. Once you push the PEV too soon, or fail to do it, the whole day is a disaster before you leave the start gate.

John Cochrane
BB

It seems to me that our rules support gaggling, rather than taking direct action to reduce their importance! I flew to 1980(?) Ephrata 15 meter nationals where something like 80 entrants flew. I remember vividly one thermal on the high ground north of the field, everybody in the contest was in that thermal and the lift stopped at 3000 AGL! The guy directly above me decided to leave and pushed over...........I was forced to push over too, I could clearly see the rivets on his gear doors! There was 4 mid-airs in that contest and one fatality. We restricted the total entrants and made other changes, but no direct action to reduce gaggles.

How about bringing back the Start Time Interval? It could work something like this: It takes 1:00 hour to launch the fleet + :15 minutes to open the gate, now we add a reasonable decision time, say :15 minutes. All contestants have an STI of 1:30. The launch spacing would spread out the required starting times! We basically did this in the first Sports Class Nationals held at Minden 1985 (?) where contestants picked their launch time, but were required to start within :15 minutes after launch! The CD could change the STI as required, but everyone’s clock would start at the end of his/ her STI, unless they had started before each pilots STI, expired.

I believe this would reduce the stress level that is almost overwhelming in out Nationals today..........pilots under extreme stress don’t make good decisions!
JJ

I think that was Ephrata 1984, JJ. I missed that one, fortunately.

I would argue that we did take one action to reduce gaggling: you no longer have to radio to announce your start time. Some pilots didn't announce it for a while anyway. But today if you're contemplating a leeching or gaggling strategy, you have to find your tow before the start and stick with him/her like glue. You can't just hover at the top of the start cylinder and wait until KS or one of his known shadowers announces and then jump on the end of the freight train.

Another way is to reduce the number of gliders. I flew a nationals last year with 8 competitors. True, we had another 9 (wow!) pilots in another class, although we didn't always fly the same task. There's a lot less gaggling in single-digit contests. We seem to be headed there more and more for a variety of reasons, many of them outside of our control. That said, sometimes I've felt like our efforts to make competition "purer" for the top echelon have made it less attractive for many to enter contests.

Chip Bearden
JB