GPS could be used to do total energy, as it has both ground speed and
altitude. (I know wind contribution to airspeed is lost)
The real danger to this format is that any quest for maximum altitude
will result in pilots flying to altitudes that are unsafe.
Unsafe, because they are too far away.
Unsafe because you are high enough to interfere with regular full size air
traffic.
Unsafe because one would want to maximize the dive back down speed,
high speed missiles loosing their wings and impacting randomly around the
pits would be very bad.
With GPS one could add some additional tasks to make the event more
challenging.
Limit the boundary that you can fly in.
Make it altitude gain from the 1st minute of flight,
this would eliminate the whole zoom launch, gorilla tow motor problem.
Add some precision.....
Pilots put in bids, I can gain 5Kft in 10 minutes,
Hitting within 5% of your bid is worth something,
this would add the skill of predicting the performance given the conditions
before flying.
Lots of possibilities...
Paul
At 01:01 PM 8/12/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Interesting discussion. Although some type of electronic measurement of
>in flight performance might become a contest of the future I'm not so sure
>that problems with existing formats can or should be solved that way.
>
>If the tight scoring in F3J is a problems perhaps FAI should simply impose
>a wing span limit on the planes. I submit that this would be relatively
>simple to implement and leaves all the other elements of F3J intact. If
>the wing span were limited to, say, 2 meters the flying skill required to
>max the rounds would certainly be increased and spread the scores
>accordingly. A 2.5 meter limit would probably do as well.
>
>Just another thought.
>
>Rick
>
>
>At 09:40 AM 8/12/02 -0700, tony estep wrote:
>>--- "James V. Bacus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > Just a flying contest... I think about this quite a bit.>
>> > When electronic loggers and telemetry become readily affordable,
>> > (which we
>> > are on the threshold of now), maybe there could be a format that
>> > emphasized
>> > flying alone with each contestant having a logging device onboard.
>>
>>I'll bet that some form of Jim's idea becomes the contest of the
>>future. For the price of a winch/retriever, a club can buy a few ALTis
>>or LoLos. Maybe soon there'll be a micro-GPS unit (I have a Garmin
>>Vista, which is cool, but it's not practical for this use). That would
>>open up even more possibilities.
>>
>>Anyway, it's obvious that the present F3J format, for example, will
>>have to be changed. Planes are on the towline for 5 seconds, they max
>>whatever time is required, and then get 95 or 100 landing points. The
>>field is bunched so that the 5th place flyer has 99.7% of the winner's
>>score. The WC may well be decided by a slow or quick punch of a timer's
>>button.
>>
>>Fiddling with target times, relative importance of landings, and launch
>>mechanisms won't change the fundamental issue. Adding speed, as Daryl
>>slyly suggests, would turn F3J into F3B. Jim's suggestion is, in my
>>mind, the one that could promise to spread out the field, clearly
>>identifying superior flying.
>>
>>So what's the task? A pure calculation of cumulative altitude gained
>>creates a need for energy compensation, which complicates matters quite
>>a bit. How about this: a 10-minute task, with points for duration and
>>additional points for the maximum altitude gained during any 180
>>seconds during the flight.
>>
>>Altitude gained over any 3-minute window would be less subject to
>>fiddling. If you found strong lift, you could dive, zoom back up, then
>>circle and climb. Sure, an uncompensated vario would credit you with
>>the zoom. But only the first one would count, since your gain would be
>>from the bottom of that dive to the window's end 3 minutes later. And
>>there would be lots of tactical decision-making involved in such a
>>task. Think about the many dilemmas that would face the pilot -- it's
>>quite interesting!
>>
>>Anyway, we need good new ideas for a contest format. Cool techno
>>gimmicks are present everywhere in this sport -- why have our
>>championships determined by a thumb-operated stop watch, and a ruler?
>>
>>
>>
>>
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