Peter,
That is an interesting suggestion! I wonder if it could be practically (and
fairly), done?
Re "poor" task setting, I tend to think that your objection 'having to start
early/finish late" is actually as a general principle, just the opposite - at a
National level and probably a State level too, this is what good tasking should
be all about! In general, the task setting at most competitions, on most
reasonably soarable days, is far too conservative. {Everybody, please carefully
note those two provisos - "most" & "reasonably"!}
Having said that, I tend to agree with your last paragraph, which then gets
back to the question I raised in my first paragraph above.
The points noted by Matthew Scutter, in his email below, are all reasonable
too. Emilis Prelgauskas in a recent posting on this site, talked (amongst other
things), about some of the problems facing the gliding movement in this
country, including a gradual loss of knowledge held collectively by the
membership, and knowledge (mostly), lost to the current Board and those
administrating the GFA system. Once upon a time - I think it was just around
the time of the introduction of computers into gliding scoring - a guy called
Murray Evans (Murray-Evans?), came up with a system that related everybody's
performance back to their glider polar, and the results for the day were then
"corrected". The system was tried once, and promptly abandoned, as being
unworkable - which was fair enough at the time. The first and possibly major
problem then, was obtaining realistic polars, for the gliders competing. Number
crunching (laughable today), was also a problem, as I recall. In my view, it
might now prove profitable to revisit the principles of the ME concept, and
check their workability in the current hi-tek environment.
Ann Woolf - given the tremendous (mind boggling?) - work that you have done on
compiling the electronic AG data base - could I please call upon you to put the
article(s?), that appeared in Australian Gliding, on this web site, for the
perusal and comment of a latter generation of glider pilots?
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: aus-soaring
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 6:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Boring
How about letting the previous generation 20m gliders fly in 15m class where
the handicaps are much closer as compared to current generation open class.
The other factor that gives the higher performance gliders an advantage over
the previous generation gliders when there is a large handicap spread is poor
task setting.
This occurs when racing tasks are set that force the lower performance
gliders to fly in weaker conditions by having to start early or finish later.
Where there is a significant spread in handicaps then racing tasks should not
be set.
Regards
Peter
Sent from my HTC smartphone
----- Reply message -----
From: "Matthew Scutter" <[email protected]>
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia."
<[email protected]>
Subject: [Aus-soaring] Boring
Date: Thu, Mar 7, 2013 12:29
Ron,
Because the handicaps have practical limitations as gliders have
different performance characteristics in different weather, which
handicaps can't take into account.
The handicaps are probably fair for a Cirrus and an ASG29 on a 3kt
day, but they certainly aren't on a 12kt day.
This seems to be the general consensus - in normal weather, the
handicaps are close to the technical optimum, but in strong weather
the higher performance gliders have an advantage.
Technical ways to 'solve' this have been postulated for years,
different handicaps for different weather etc, all of which sounds to
me like too much work.
How we solve it now is grouping the gliders in relatively similar
performance classes.
If higher performance gliders have an advantage in stronger weather,
it makes sense they should not be able to come 'down' a class and fly
with lower performance gliders.
Whether it should work the other way depends on whether you believe
that lower performance gliders have an edge in weaker weather.
Personally I think the lower performance gliders do have an edge in
survival weather, but that is almost entirely negated because we get
less weak weather than strong, and we don't set tasks in survival
weather (how often is a day cancelled for being too strong? ;) )
I think the cause of this discussion is that while STD class is mostly
populated with top-of-the-line STD class ships, 15M class is largely
previous generation gliders - so many STD class pilots (particularly
those in previous generation STD class gliders, myself included), feel
we're flying closer to our 'effective' performance class in 15M.
tldr; The system is a 'good enough' compromise.
-matthew
On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Ron <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think you missed the point . If the handicaps are so good what does it
> matter whether the span in 100 metres or if it has flaps?
> Ron
>
>
>
> On 07/03/2013, at 6:48, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Ron,
> It is because they have flaps, of course!
> However if you invert the question, Standard Class gliders may fly in 15 m
> (Racing) Class.
> Gary
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ron Sanders
> To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 1:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Boring
>
> Dear Adam,
> i agree with you!!
> And i note that there was not one reply to your far more interesting posted
> question " if the handicaps are so good why aren't fifteen metre flapped
> gliders allowed in Standard class?"
>
> The priorities are not in the right order.
> RS
>
> On 5 March 2013 20:16, Adam Woolley <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> I went soaring today (well a circuit), it was awesome!
>>
>>
>> WPP
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