2010 pre-Worlds at Montecucco

An overview (Sigillo, Italy)

The pre-Worlds is, as far as CIVL is concerned, a test competition to determine if the organization and the site are ready for the Worlds the following year.  It is basically a shakedown curse for the organization, as far as CIVL is concerned.  At the end of the competition the CIVL steward hands in a report to the CIVL Bureau with recommendations for the following year.  This is my report from the perspective of an ordinary pilot attending the competition.

For pilots this was a major competition with a high level of competitiveness.  It is the real deal.  Really, as always, what CIVL thinks and does is of little concern to them.

Overall the 2010 pre-Worlds was a very well run competition with a large, competent staff and plenty of pilot services and support.  Flavio Tebaldi's crew created a great web site, lots of beautifully printed materials including huge maps (and maps for the drivers), held numerous events, setup a well run registration system, included very fast and knowledgeable scorekeepers, ran a safe and efficient launch system, had excellent task calling, calm and focused leadership, and plenty of weather information.  Given the challenge of running a large and complex competition they were very efficient.

On the other hand, there were a few very minor problems that did blossom into some difficulties.

The first issue was initially poor communications due to the fact that they attempted to address the pilots in a gymnasium.  The acoustics were horrible and no one could understand what was being said.  This problem apparently arose out of a lack of direction about whether the organization should be talking to all the pilots or to the "team leaders." A much smaller room with better acoustics would have accommodated the "team leaders" allowing the soft spoken meet director, Franco Rinaldi, to communicate much more effectively.

Unfortunately the communication problem was not fixed for a number of days until the organization did decide to hold team leader/representative briefings in the registration area instead of in the whole gymnasium.

This initial lack of clear communications lead to the next problem which occurred when the CIVL meet steward, who speaks English as a first language and can make herself heard somewhat better than the meet organizers, took over much of the communications duties.  She is a an experienced and forceful meet director and it appears as though taking charge comes naturally to her.  Unfortunately, this led to later problems, as she was now taking on the role of defacto meet director, and not appearing to operate as the meet steward.

Airspace concerns were a big issue and it was not made clear to pilots long before hand that there would be drastic height restrictions near the launch.  In addition, no one has tested a competition with the new CIVL altitude rules with such a likelihood that pilots would be inadvertently entering airspace.  The outcome of this volatile mixture was hard feelings for a number of pilots.

I don't need to go into all the airspace issues here.  Some airspace issues are found here: http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20999

Altitude definition issues are found here: http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21016

The apparent fact that the Open Air formatted file for the pre-Worlds airspace definition was not created correctly (see what this means below) by the scorekeepers and that this incorrectly formatted file then lead to at least one pilot (if not others) being penalized for entering airspace when their flight instruments with the wrong information from the meet organizers told them that they were not in airspace certainly raises a number of issues about how to deal with airspace.

I trust that CIVL will identify and clarify each air space issue that I and others have raised so that we can have these issues dealt with by the time of the Worlds.

The inappropriate interactions between the CIVL steward (including with me), the meet personnel and the protest committee was a screw up.  The Protest Committee needed to operate independently of the meet organizers and the CIVL Steward, otherwise it lacked any credibility with the pilots.  The Protest Committee should have physically separated themselves from the CIVL Steward and the meet officials starting with their very first meeting.  I deal with these issues here: http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20992.

One day the task committee called a turnpoint that was situated over recognizably unlandable areas.  No turnpoint should require pilots to fly over unlandable areas unless it is completely clear the conditions show that they will have no chance of landing in these areas.  Given the air space height restrictions and the generally poor conditions during the competition when it came to obtaining comfortable heights, this point should never have been chosen without a much larger radius (to keep pilots close to landable areas).

Thirty pilots stated that the task was unsafe.  When the use of this waypoint was brought up again for the last task, Franco, the meet director, wisely said that given the negative safety reports the turnpoint could not be used.

Cloud flying was apparently an issue, although I watched pilots very closely and did not see any in clouds.  Pilots are still not willing to call out their fellow pilots for cheating.

Pilots were never given the correct information about setting their Compeo+'s or Flytec 6030's at launch.  It is my understanding that the scorekeepers are using the barometric pressure altitude recorded by these instruments when checking for airspace violations.  (I won't go into the whole convoluted process.)

The barometric pressure altitude recorded by these instruments assumes a mean seal level pressure of 1013.25 mb, standard atmospheric pressure.  Any reference on launch to a different pressure at mean sea level is irrelevant and confusing if the scorekeepers aren't making any further adjustments to the recorded barometric pressure altitude.

I repeatedly told pilots to just set their standard altitude display to the current height for the day (well at the time of launch) by setting it using the standard sea level barometric pressure.  They do this by pressing the left soft button on their display Compeo+ and 6030).  For example, on the last day, the barometric pressure altitude on launch was 3720' (on my 6030, as I recall).  The GPS altitude was 3940'.  I had pilots set their altitude to whatever their instrument actually read on launch, if they wanted to use their display to help them stay out of airspace.

Of course, there never was a statement from the meet organizers that the 6000' level, actually meant flight level, or 6,000' pressure altitude in a standard atmosphere.  It was never clear exactly what it did mean and how pilots were supposed to stay out of it.

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