2008 Proposed US Competition Rules Changes

Rules issues aside, Parowan is not a good site or contest for someone
who does not have a lot of mountain cross country experience. There
will be a full grid of hard-charging national-level pilots, high
altitude downwind takeoffs, big tasks over spikey terrain. I would not
advise this as a first contest for someone with a fresh silver badge.
It will either be scary or discouraging.

Region 9 should hold a regional at a local, familiar site, just like
the other regions. If noone else does it, the pilots should organize
one! If no true "regional" happens, new pilots from Region 9 should
travel to nearby regions. The Hobbs regional, the air sailing sports
contest, or the region 12 contest at Warner springs are all great
places to go for a first contest.

If region 9 isn't producing a true regional, I'm not sure adding a
layer of hoops for the Parowan organizers to go through will help.

Note the super-regional can reserve 0-50% slots for in region, it can
do this differently for different classes, and it can use some inverse
seeding in sports. From the explanation on the SSA webpage: "We want
to give organizers latitude to create the most successful contest."
So the contest organizers can think about all these issues and create
the structure that works the best for their particular site and
region.

John Cochrane

BB wrote:
Rules issues aside, Parowan is not a good site or contest for someone
who does not have a lot of mountain cross country experience. There
will be a full grid of hard-charging national-level pilots, high
altitude downwind takeoffs, big tasks over spikey terrain. I would not
advise this as a first contest for someone with a fresh silver badge.
It will either be scary or discouraging.

When I was a newbie cross-country pilot, I'd go to Parowan every summer
because it was a *safer* place to fly cross country than the places I
normally flew. If you look at a map of the region, you'll note that
pretty much all of the soaring sites out here are near mountains, so
even pilots with fresh silver badges learn to deal with them. Perhaps
the hard-charging national-level pilots should consider going to, say, a
Nationals, if all those silver-level pilots are getting in their way...

Marc

On Dec 30, 5:26*pm, Marc Ramsey wrote:
If you look at a map of the region, you'll note that pretty much all
of the soaring sites out here are near mountains, so even pilots with
fresh silver badges learn to deal with them. *

Marc,
Good point. I fly out of Black Forest with a field elevation of
7,000 feet and was foolish enough to earn my Silver Badge by setting
Pike's Peak (elev 14.110) as my goal to attain the 50KM distance. Some
may feel I made it too hard on myself but it has paid huge dividends
on growing my sailplane experience.
Of course, a career as a fighter pilot helped a lot as well. I
turned to soaring after retirement because the cross country tasks
give me about the same level of intensity for risk assessment and
decision making.
Finally, my club has a wealth of very helpful world class
sailplane pilots. They become especially helpful when I bring in beer
before asking them about techniques and strategies ;-0.
All this has helped me advance very quickly, but I also know not
every glider guider has this full house of advantages. Hopefully there
is a way to balance the challenge of starting new folks in racing with
the desire to keep it interesting for the old heads, regardless of the
site.

Good Soaring and Happy New Year,

Horst
L33

BB wrote:
Rules issues aside, Parowan is not a good site or contest for someone
who does not have a lot of mountain cross country experience. There
will be a full grid of hard-charging national-level pilots, high
altitude downwind takeoffs, big tasks over spikey terrain. I would not
advise this as a first contest for someone with a fresh silver badge.
It will either be scary or discouraging.

Region 9 should hold a regional at a local, familiar site, just like
the other regions. If noone else does it, the pilots should organize
one! If no true "regional" happens, new pilots from Region 9 should
travel to nearby regions. The Hobbs regional, the air sailing sports
contest, or the region 12 contest at Warner springs are all great
places to go for a first contest.

If region 9 isn't producing a true regional, I'm not sure adding a
layer of hoops for the Parowan organizers to go through will help.

Note the super-regional can reserve 0-50% slots for in region, it can
do this differently for different classes, and it can use some inverse
seeding in sports. From the explanation on the SSA webpage: "We want
to give organizers latitude to create the most successful contest."
So the contest organizers can think about all these issues and create
the structure that works the best for their particular site and
region.

John Cochrane

I don't particularly like the new super regional rule. May be OK when
there are other nearby regionals, but that almost never happens out here
in Region 9. From Denver, Parowan is 500 miles and the next closest
regional contest is often 1000 road miles. It is our local contest.

The die hard, experienced Region 9 contest pilots will still likely get
in if its a super regional. The real newbies may also get in if any
slots are available for reverse seeding. But that will leave a bunch of
pilots that have tried racing and liked it, but did not score very well,
with no place to go race within a days drive. Does not seem like the
best interest of the sport to allow experienced out of region pilots to
bump local want to be's from their only available venue. That goes
against the point of the regional contest system in the first place.

But then even if the new proposed rule is approved, it is still up to
the organizers whether they want their contest to be a super regional or
not. Its an option, not a requirement. We'll have to wait and see, but
I'm sure they will get pressure from both sides, which will make the job
a whole lot less fun.

So, if Parowan does go "Super", is there any interest out there in
organizing or flying in a "reliever" regional on the eastern edge of the
Rockies?

Its good to live in Region 9, where everyone wants to take their soaring
vacation

-Dave Leonard