Make Sailplane Racing Great Again

FWIW,

I do enjoy racing and want to see sailplane racing gain popularity in the US. I enjoy the challenge of utilizing the same course and weather to measure speed and performance. I like to think that one day I will be fast enough to qualify for a spot on a world team. (Dream Big!)

This in mind, I will not likely be able to race for many years. Some of the reasons to follow:
1) A National Contest is 10 days in length, plus travel time to and from the contest. I currently get 7 days off per year and will eventually build up to 10 days per year.
2) My wife is my biggest supporter and loves to see me fly. Contests are boring for her, and the contest locations are typically lackluster. She does not see a soaring contest as a vacation thus she does not want to go with me. Additionally she understandably does not want me to spend my vacation days on a soaring contest only.

So for me, the decision to not compete is limited by time and location primarily. I want to compete, but the feasibility is non-existent, thus I will probably be an OLC warrior for a few years. I like the encouragement to increase participation, however I tend to understand why the racing demographics tend to involve more people who are senior in their careers and less between 20 and 40 years old. Quite possibly why junior member participation levels are quite low too.

In my perfect world, there would be two nationals each year for each class. (West and East) the Nationals would be 6 days long (Monday to Saturday) with room to travel on a weekend on each end. Locations would be selected based on optimal positioning for 1 day travel to and from each venue. This would be more feasible for attracting larger crowds to the National Contests, but I fear it looks too much like a regional. Maybe regionals should be 3 days long, over a weekend?

7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

keskiviikko 8. maaliskuuta 2017 12.45.07 UTC+2 Dave Walsh kirjoitti:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

And I'm thinking my annual 5 weeks holiday is not enough for serious flying...

On Tuesday, March 7, 2017 at 8:43:08 PM UTC-5, Kevin Brooker wrote:

Sailplane racing and recreational flying is dying as we know it.

Get the log out of your own eye.

-Evan Ludeman

Way back, last time I was active glider pilot, we had Region 12 contest spread over two weekends. When I returned to flying I was looking forward to competing close to home and with little time off from work to fly this contest one would think this would be well attended. Instead, if I am right, the last time there was a region 12 contest was 2009. When was the last time there was a contest in AZ (region 9?). If you want to make racing popular again you must have a strong regional showing or at least have regional contests available.

And yes, Dave, Americans typically only have one or two weeks off a year. Very rare to see anyone have three weeks a year off. We also have many full time jobs that do not pay a living wage. My sister just returned from living in Australia for 5 years where every job has a living wage, big difference in cultures when if comes to workers between America and other 1st world nations.

Back when I had my law office and support staff, if I was not in the office the work did not get done so I was limited to the occasional three day weekend and odd days off when the weather was booming.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 2:45:07 AM UTC-8, Dave Walsh wrote:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 9:58:17 AM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Way back, last time I was active glider pilot, we had Region 12 contest spread over two weekends. When I returned to flying I was looking forward to competing close to home and with little time off from work to fly this contest one would think this would be well attended. Instead, if I am right, the last time there was a region 12 contest was 2009. When was the last time there was a contest in AZ (region 9?). If you want to make racing popular again you must have a strong regional showing or at least have regional contests available.

And yes, Dave, Americans typically only have one or two weeks off a year. Very rare to see anyone have three weeks a year off. We also have many full time jobs that do not pay a living wage. My sister just returned from living in Australia for 5 years where every job has a living wage, big difference in cultures when if comes to workers between America and other 1st world nations.

Back when I had my law office and support staff, if I was not in the office the work did not get done so I was limited to the occasional three day weekend and odd days off when the weather was booming.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 2:45:07 AM UTC-8, Dave Walsh wrote:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

Split contests over 2 weekends have some real benefits, and some trade offs..
Benefits
Pilots can participate using little vacation time.
Can encourage the local population to give it a try.
Possibly incrased activity for local operation.
Trade offs
Hurts participation of pilots further away due to affect of double travel.
Ties up 2 weekends of supporting operation.
Getting enough days means some vacation use and \may limit local practice time for some pilots.
We have done it both in R2N at Wurtsboro. I expect we will go the split weekend route next time.
FWIW
UH

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 7:23:48 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 9:58:17 AM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Way back, last time I was active glider pilot, we had Region 12 contest spread over two weekends. When I returned to flying I was looking forward to competing close to home and with little time off from work to fly this contest one would think this would be well attended. Instead, if I am right, the last time there was a region 12 contest was 2009. When was the last time there was a contest in AZ (region 9?). If you want to make racing popular again you must have a strong regional showing or at least have regional contests available.

And yes, Dave, Americans typically only have one or two weeks off a year. Very rare to see anyone have three weeks a year off. We also have many full time jobs that do not pay a living wage. My sister just returned from living in Australia for 5 years where every job has a living wage, big difference in cultures when if comes to workers between America and other 1st world nations.

Back when I had my law office and support staff, if I was not in the office the work did not get done so I was limited to the occasional three day weekend and odd days off when the weather was booming.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 2:45:07 AM UTC-8, Dave Walsh wrote:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

Split contests over 2 weekends have some real benefits, and some trade offs.
Benefits
Pilots can participate using little vacation time.
Can encourage the local population to give it a try.
Possibly incrased activity for local operation.
Trade offs
Hurts participation of pilots further away due to affect of double travel..
Ties up 2 weekends of supporting operation.
Getting enough days means some vacation use and \may limit local practice time for some pilots.
We have done it both in R2N at Wurtsboro. I expect we will go the split weekend route next time.
FWIW
UH

Agree with Hank on this issue. You really need an active racing community within a few hours drive to support split weekend contests. For instance, it makes no sense to have sites like Nephi or Uvalde running a weekend format.. Also, if you have local critical mass you may be able to support a summer racing series. These tend to be lower key events with less infrastructure and support needed. I've most often seen them run by commercial operations, but probably not impossible for clubs to do.

One attractive feature is these contests tend to be scored on a best N/2 basis for each pilot (where N is the total number of days flown). This means individual pilots have considerable flexibility on schedule. Thinking out loud, I wonder whether we should give more recognition and support to these types of events.

On spectators. It would be nice if we could all bask in the glory of having a dozen or two spectators watching us race in real time online (IIRC the last US GP contest had live streaming of the event - how many real-time spectators were there? I heard a number, but it was second-hand info).

I do wonder if the biggest challenge is making glider racing more logistically and financially accessible to pilots rather than attracting spectators. I'm also in favor of the simplest rules possible, but here too, most of the complaints you hear are about fairness and ability to compete on a level playing field. The fairness comments fade a lot every time you get specific..

Nevertheless, we keep soliciting feedback from pilots on simplification of rules - some of it pretty radical. For example, no devaluation, which is the biggest source of complexity and confusion in rules and scoring. I personally proposed this at the rules meeting at last year's Std/15M/Open Nationals. The feedback was significant opposition, so it's an uphill journey - even with top-ranked pilots. I proposed elimination MAT tasks. Also strong negative feedback. I don't mind an uphill battle, but success isn't walking over the opposition, you need to bring people with you. In a sport where you struggle for participation, authoritarian approaches based on minority viewpoints probably won't have the desired outcome - assuming the desired outcome is building participation.

Despite all that, there is a proposal on the table right now to get rid of pretty much all of devaluation formulas in the rules at the WGC level. It would have helped out at least one of the US pilots at the WGC in Benalla quite a bit - also the Jonkers brothers who had one terrible day in an otherwise impressive contest performance. I'd personally favor this change, but to be clear, doing that will make at best a tiny difference in terms of overall racing participation. Rules complexity is way down the list in terms of what any thoughtful, fact-based assessment reveals about why there are fewer glider pilots and fewer glider racers (many of those reasons have been well-described here). Task format is also relatively low among all the features that pilots point to in terms of what makes the rules hard to understand. In fact there is generally broad support for formats that increase flexibility in tasking rather than restrict it, particularly at the Regional level but at the National level too. Of course there are one or two (depending on how you count screen names) notable exceptions to that support.

If we are talking about taking action to improve participation and enjoyment of glider racing, the most important consideration is the Pareto principle. Without that we will spin our wheels on hobby horse theories and personal assertions that will consume energy and have little - or even negative - impact. This is a hard enough problem to address as it is, focusing on the important things is important.

Andy Blackburn
9B

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 5:45:07 AM UTC-5, Dave Walsh wrote:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

No it is not.

Really a week or two? Everyone I know has a few weeks of vacation per year. I am not sure where you get the information from, or maybe your statement applies to 20% of US population.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 9:58:17 AM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Way back, last time I was active glider pilot, we had Region 12 contest spread over two weekends. When I returned to flying I was looking forward to competing close to home and with little time off from work to fly this contest one would think this would be well attended. Instead, if I am right, the last time there was a region 12 contest was 2009. When was the last time there was a contest in AZ (region 9?). If you want to make racing popular again you must have a strong regional showing or at least have regional contests available.

And yes, Dave, Americans typically only have one or two weeks off a year. Very rare to see anyone have three weeks a year off. We also have many full time jobs that do not pay a living wage. My sister just returned from living in Australia for 5 years where every job has a living wage, big difference in cultures when if comes to workers between America and other 1st world nations.

Back when I had my law office and support staff, if I was not in the office the work did not get done so I was limited to the occasional three day weekend and odd days off when the weather was booming.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 2:45:07 AM UTC-8, Dave Walsh wrote:
7 days annual holiday! That's appalling, you need to change
jobs or emigrate.
Is this normal for America?
Dave Walsh

Andy's well-written and thoughtful response is an example of what RAS is supposed to be. Unfortunately, input like this has become very rare- overtaken by rants and snide comments as the thread drifts into oblivion. Thanks, Andy!