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topic: scoring (59 articles)

Leading Points »

Mon, Aug 8 2022, 6:53:39 pm GMT

And a bit of cloud flying

CIVL|cloud flying|competition|FAI|FS|GAP|Joerg Ewald|Paragliding|politics|PWCA|scoring|software|Sté|Stéphane Malbos|Worlds 2022|Pre-Worlds 2022|European PG Championships 2022

From the European Paragliding Championships.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/britishteampara/posts/5550191491710292/?comment_id=5552368234825951

Report by Thomas Milko, from Brazil.

Today there was great confusion early on at the meeting of the heads of delegations. They announced that the scoring system developed by the CIVL, Airscore, had a totally unacceptable failure, providing leading points much higher than the correct values for the pilots who didn't reach goal. They pointed out that the French, who caught this mistake because they were running the SVL scoring system in parallel in the championship,which is not the official scoring program.

The meet organizers didn't want to use fs comp as the GAP 2021 formula used in addition contains known bugs. So we don't have final results on either of the first two tasks. It's been passed on to the jury to decide what will be done. Tomorrow we'll know what the decision is, which is sure to be tricky.

Also heard again a huge discussion about cloud flying as many pilots fly next to the clouds very high. Seriously effects event fair play. The 2022 CIVL rule cannot be operational, besides not having the support of a large part of the most competitive pilots.

It is pretty hard to believe the reports about the rules and scoring coming from the Europeans. A CAT 1 event is only supposed to use tried and tested systems and rules. Airscore, the CIVL's new scoring system, has been in development for 3 years now, but has been almost completely ignored by the paragliding community. So it was quite a surprise that CIVL elected to use it. My quote to Stan just before the event started was "Airscore is the new FAI software, based online, to replace the old FS software. Nobody has any experience with it yet. Expect it to have bugs.". Well, the prediction seems to have been correct.

What can they do about task 1 though. That was marked as Final. We await the jury decision.

As to the cloud flying rule! Well, CIVL did try to use a variation of it in the pre-worlds, but the problems were so great it prompted a meeting chaired by Stéphane Malbos half way through the competition to discuss the failures. It was agreed it would probably not be used in the Worlds this year, and that other methods should be explored in CAT2's first. So it was a surprise to hear that, without trial, they had tried for more cloud flying rule changes at this CAT 1 event.

Lets hope that the event can move past the politics soon, and get back to competition flying at the elite level a CAT1 represents.

I asked Joerg Ewald <joerg.ewald@volirium.com> what he thought about this leading points issue:

Confusion over a mistake in the PWCA scoring specifications that I unfortunately copy-pasted when CIVL adopted the same leading points calculation for paragliding.

Once the dust settled, it was clear that all known programs calculate those weighted leading points correctly. Well, more or less, there are still discrepancies because the PWCA rules leave a lot of room for interpretation.

Discuss "Leading Points" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Goal Line Finishes

Wed, Jan 26 2022, 6:51:18 am MST

Contradictions in the 2021 CIVL Sporting Code, section 7A and 7F

CIVL|CIVL Sporting Code|FAI|scoring|XC

https://www.fai.org/civl-documents

Sporting Code 7A - Cross Country:

https://www.fai.org/sites/default/files/civl/documents/sporting_code_s7_a_-_cross_country_2021.pdf

5.2.2 Task types
5.2.2.1 Race task

A task is concluded by crossing the goal line in the direction from the last cylinder before goal with a different centre point than goal towards goal.

Sporting Code 7F - Scoring:

https://www.fai.org/sites/default/files/civl/documents/sporting_code_s7_f_-_xc_scoring_2021.pdf

2018

In hang-gliding, the goal line is now also replaced by a semi-circle facing away from the previous turnpoint.

6.2.2.1 Goal line

The goal line control zone consists of the semi-circle with radius l/2 behind the goal line, when coming from the last turn point that is different from the goal line centre. Entering that zone without prior crossing of the goal line is equivalent to crossing the goal line.

8.3.2 Goal line

To reach goal in the case of a goal line, the goal line must be crossed in flight. This is achieved when a line drawn between two adjacent points in the pilot’s tracklog crosses the goal line in the correct direction.

Marked specific to paragliders:

Entering the goal control zone (semi-circle behind the goal line, see 6.2.2.1) from any direction without prior crossing of the goal line is equivalent to crossing the goal line. To determine whether the goal control zone was reached, the same tolerance calculations apply as for full cylinders (see 8.1).

Discuss "Goal Line Finishes" at the Oz Report forum   link»

2021 Barraba Big Toe Hang Gliding Competition

Thu, Nov 18 2021, 9:05:04 pm MST

They stopped to help

Barraba Big Toe 2021|Peter Burkitt|scoring|Scott Barrett|Troy Horton|William "Billo" Olive

Regarding the zeros on the second task, Billo writes:

I'll have to average those pilots (Scott, Pete and Troy) for round two after the final round. So, not fixed until then. Assisted a pilot after deployment. The pilot who deployed is OK, but won't be flying further this comp.

Discuss "2021 Barraba Big Toe Hang Gliding Competition" at the Oz Report forum   link»   »

BGD and MRT

January 17, 2020, 10:35:11 pm EST

BGD and MRT

Weightless in Roldanillo

Facebook|MRT|scoring|video

https://www.facebook.com/bruce.goldsmith.79/posts/10215799608923799

Don't Use Airtribune Tracks for Scoring Purposes

September 30, 2019, 8:58:56 MDT

Don't Use Airtribune Tracks for Scoring Purposes

Brett Janaway has made this pretty clear previously

Airtribune|Brett Janaway|scoring

Brett is the owner of Airtribune. He has told scorekeepers and meet directors to not use the tracklogs found on Airtribune for scoring purposes. When we use Flymaster trackers for Live Tracking and scoring we need to get the track logs from the Flymaster Live Tracking web site. Meet directors and scorekeepers need to learn and understand how to set up their competition and scoring so that they display Live Tracking and can download scores from the Flymaster web site.

The Santa Cruz Flats was scored off Airtribune. Backups were required frequently. The track logs used for the SCFR were not as valid as they should have been.

Pilots mentioned that the tracklogs didn't seem to accurately track their goal finish times. Perhaps we now know why.

Discuss "Don't Use Airtribune Tracks for Scoring Purposes" at the Oz Report forum   link»

New version of the CIVL scoring program - FS 2019 R1.2

September 3, 2019, 8:52:08 MDT

New version of the CIVL scoring program - FS 2019 R1.2

Bug fixes

CIVL|FS|scoring|software

http://fs.fai.org/trac/wiki/FS2019R1.2

Changes since FS 2019 R1.1:

- Default leading weight factor 1 for all comps except FAI Category 1
- Correct grandfathering-in of comps with older GAP or PWC formulas
- Fix problem with pilots manually set to DF
- Correct FTV validity for PWC formulas
- Correct bug where results were lost when importing task from second FSDB
- Update GpsDump to version 5.34

Flare-timing scored comps on the web

January 15, 2019, 8:36:02 EST

Flare-timing scored comps on the web

Looking at the data

GAP|Phil de Joux|scoring

Phil de Joux <<philderbeast>> writes:

Flare-timing, the GAP scoring project, is a suite of command line apps. In the past month I've started to show some of the inputs, workings and result in a web app. I had intended to do something like this eventually if it could give pilots some visualization of how a task was scored. In the meantime I found that it was easier for me to check the results seeing them presented on a web page than picking through text files, line by line. That is good for the fine detailed checking but I needed at this stage to see the obvious errors.

Today I've deployed a new version, the 7th so far, and it is hosted at https://flaretiming.com. There are release notes:

https://github.com/BlockScope/flare-timing/releases/tag/app-view-0.7

One of the big items for this release was sorting out how to parse the various ABS, DNF and DF pilots from the *.fsdb file. I have written up notes on this:

https://flare-timing.readthedocs.io/en/latest/extract-input.html#pilot-group

Each competition is getting its own sub domain and is hosted as a static website. I develop this locally as a dynamic website and switch to picking up the data from relative *.json files at deployment.

Another thing I've added with the latest release is a **Geo** tab. Have a look task 4 for the following comp, the longest ever task set:

http://2018-forbes.flaretiming.com

More on weight and performance

Fri, Dec 21 2018, 12:19:23 pm GMT

Big guys rule

ballast|Bruce Goldsmith|competition|FAI|PWC|scoring

Bruce Goldsmith «Bruce Goldsmith» writes:

The weightless project is a kind of live experiment using this competition as a guinea pig. We have had the first event and this worked well but we learnt some important lessons.

The first event had 3 weight classes The weight is total flying weight including glider:

Up to 80Kg
80-100kg
over 100kg

The first comp went generally well, but there were some issues. We had a couple of PWC pilots who tried the standard competition tricks of flying ballasted up to improve performance. They were carrying ballast to be loaded right at the limit of their weight category. We had lightweight pilots (67kg) ballasting up to be right at the 100kg limit. This is exactly the type of thing we are trying to stop with the weightless concept.

The idea is to remove the weight advantage so people don't have to fly with ballast at all. So I analyzed the results from the first weightless comp, to try to work out how weight effects the results. The data from one comp is not a huge database for such an analysis, but at least its a start.

I found the most dominant influence on comp results was experience. So I had to compensate first for the effect of experience before being able to see the effect of weight.

Here is the graph that resulted. There is a trend but also a high scatter, so results are not super clear cut.

Weight Vs. Experience:

PTV = Poids (weight) total volant = all up flying weight

From this I plan to test a new handicap system for Weightless 2019. We will remove the weight categories and have a handicap system instead. The handicap will be based on 0.25% score adjustment (score of each pilot per task) for every 1Kg in weight. This is the conclusion drawn from the analysis of the first weightless comp. Fine details of how this handicap will be applied are not yet decided. Anyway its an ongoing experiment, so we will try it next year and see how it works.

As the BGD weightless scoring is experimental and the scoring system is 'in development' we will be using this prototype handicap scoring system only for the event itself. The results submitted to FAI will be the standard results without any weight adjustment. So effectively there will be 2 different scores for the event. The Weight adjusted scores and the standard FAI scores.

Prizes at the event will follow weight adjusted scores. FAI ranking will follow FAI scores.

Discuss "More on weight and performance" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Handicapping by weight

December 21, 2018, 7:18:54 EST

Handicapping by weight

Handicapping is discouraged in international competitions

Bruce Goldsmith|CIVL|PG|scoring

We've handicapped or sport class competitions for years based on hang glider type, which very much affects performance. CIVL doesn't approve of this in Category 1 competitions. In fact, they are horrified by it.

Bruce Goldsmith really likes the idea and applies it to his competition using weight as the main determination of performance and handicapping.

http://www.bgd-weightless.org/

Notice the great photo looking back from the flats at Chelan Butte, Washington, USA.

BGD is pleased to announce a brand new annual event based on weight classes. Up to now flying heavy has always been an advantage. This has resulted in heavy equipment and ballast for competitions. BGD would like to change all this and encourage people to fly with light equipment. Woman and men will also not be separated as these weight classes will even up the sexes.

The BGD Weightless is aimed at up and coming pilots looking to improve their XC, competition experience or just to enjoy a unique experience hanging out with some of the best pilots in the world. Hosted in a relaxed environment, the event will be in France in the fantastic St Jean Montclar venue from Sun 7th to Sat 13th July 2019. Leading the event will be Bruce Goldsmith and he will have a world class team behind him to present one of the most advanced events in the world, without spoiling the fun. The event is particularly suited to leisure pilots that have done some small XC’s (20km+) and have flown in one or two fun competitions, but it will not exclude more advanced pilots, who will also benefit from participation. CCC and 2-liners will not be allowed to participate and the focus will be on the B and C class, although A and D gliders are allowed. The event will be scored also by FAI rules and will be an CAT2 event. There will be prizes, lectures, coaching and fun throughout.

New for 2019. We will be applying a new parameter. A handicap on total weight. The lighter you are, the bigger the bonus. So leave the ballast at home, and fly your paraglider the way it was intended. The lightest aircraft in the world!

A handicap will be introduced on total take off weight, to remove some of the advantage of flying heavy There will be a limit on total equipment weight that the pilot may fly with. The current FAI limit of 33kg will be reduced to 20kg CCC and 2-liner gliders will be excluded. This will be a Serial class event only.

Error bands

July 18, 2018, 7:26:27 MDT

Error bands

Compare a 30 kilometer cylinder to a 400 meter cylinder

scoring

With a 30 kilometer radius turnpoint cylinder, if you add the half percent error band to the cylinder (150 meters) you gain twenty seconds by turning earlier assuming that you are flying at 33.55 mph, or 15 meters/second. With an error band of 0.05% you save two seconds.

With a 400 meter radius turnpoint cylinder, if you add the half percent error band to the cylinder (2 meters) you gain 2/15th of a second by turning earlier assuming that you are flying at 33.55 mph, or 15 meters/second. With an error band of 0.05% you save 2/150th of a second.

I just published an article which showed an error of up to 257 meters. How do these error band designations affect that level of error?

Distance validity and a stopped task

December 22, 2017, 7:58:21 EST

Distance validity and a stopped task

20% of the Nominal Distance

CIVL|scoring

Germany's reps propose:

The current rule of 1hour minimum flying time to validate a task falls short. This way the meet director will always check the time and may be compromised when deciding to stop a task, if the stop time falls around the 1h limit. This decision should be grounded solely on safety.

Also tasks which are not stopped but had a maximum flying time of less than 1h are valid with the current rule. With the current rule the same flying performance is regarded very differently. We propose to introduce a general validation distance for ALL tasks. If it has not been reached the task is invalid.

We believe that the average distance of all pilots as calculated by the scoring software should be a fixed percentage of the nominal distance (20%). This percentage may be selectable in the settings of the scoring formula or be predefined by the CIVL working group. With our proposal we can reduce the pressure weighing on the meet director when deciding about stopping a task, since the final value of the task will be unknown at this point. This will contribute positively to the safety of these problematic tasks.

http://www.fai.org/page/civl-meetings

Discuss "Distance validity and a stopped task" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Bonus percentage removed

Thu, May 12 2016, 10:48:46 am MDT

Based on Kelly's request and pilot testimony

scoring

Kelly came to the Oz Report World Headquarters and asked that his anti-handicap be removed retroactively. Sport and U2 pilots have told me that his Gecko has the same performance as the U2 and more than the Sport 2.

I would love to receive pilot testimony regarding the Orbiter.

Discuss "Bonus percentage removed" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Comparing scoring systems

Tue, Jun 23 2015, 7:46:39 am MDT

What difference does it make?

Krzysztof "Krys/Kris" Grzyb|Mitchell "Mitch" Shipley|scoring

I look at task four of the 2014 Big Spring Nationals. I pull out a few pilots that started before the last start time so to highlight the value of leading points (making the competition look like it has a race start, for the most part).

It's a 178 km task (least distance). You can find the original scoring here: http://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/big-spring-nationals-2014/results/open/task-4-on-2014-08-06/daily.

Here are the top fifteen results using the GAP 2014 formulas in FS:

# Name SS ES Time Dist.
Points
Lead.
Points
Time
Points
Arr.
Pos.
Points
Total
1 Hamilton 14:50:00 18:35:04 03:45:04 550.4 72.1 314.7 56.2 993
2 Straub 14:50:00 18:43:04 03:53:04 550.4 78.7 261.8 42.5 933
3 Majors 14:50:00 18:48:16 03:58:16 550.4 70.7 240.9 31.9 894
4 Barmakian 14:50:00 18:56:27 04:06:27 550.4 62.9 212.9 18.6 845
5 Opsanger 14:50:00 18:56:06 04:06:06 550.4 54.0 214.0 24.1 843
6 Bunner 14:50:00 18:57:41 04:07:41 550.4 64.1 209.0 14.9 838
7 Shipley 14:50:00 19:00:29 04:10:29 550.4 60.9 200.5 12.8 825
8 Turner 14:50:00 19:02:17 04:12:17 550.4 52.6 195.1 11.7 810
9 Barker 14:50:00 549.8 75.0 625
9 Bilyk 14:50:00 549.7 75.1 625
11 Zimmerman 14:50:00 536.1 62.7 599
12 Dutt 14:50:00 503.0 45.2 548
13 Olsen 14:50:00 499.4 30.6 530
14 Salamone 14:10:00 489.3 38.4 528
15 Stone 14:50:00 483.6 27.2 511

Available Leading points were 78.7. Barker and Bilyk, both of whom got very close to goal as they raced themselves into the ground, got 75 and 75.1 leading points respectively. Notice that the leading points did not make up for the speed and arrival position points between first and second. There was only a less than twenty leading point spread among all those who made it to goal.

GAP 2015:

# Name SS ES Time Dist.
Points
Lead.
Points
Time
Points
Arr.
Pos.
Points
Total
1 Hamilton 14:50:00 18:35:04 03:45:04 550.4 65.3 314.7 56.2 987
2 Straub 14:50:00 18:43:04 03:53:04 550.4 65.6 261.8 42.5 920
3 Majors 14:50:00 18:48:16 03:58:16 550.4 66.5 240.9 31.9 890
4 Barmakian 14:50:00 18:56:27 04:06:27 550.4 61.9 212.9 18.6 844
5 Opsanger 14:50:00 18:56:06 04:06:06 550.4 51.4 214.0 24.1 840
6 Bunner 14:50:00 18:57:41 04:07:41 550.4 57.1 209.0 14.9 831
7 Shipley 14:50:00 19:00:29 04:10:29 550.4 59.4 200.5 12.8 823
8 Turner 14:50:00 19:02:17 04:12:17 550.4 49.1 195.1 11.7 806
9 Bilyk 14:50:00 549.7 67.2 617
10 Barker 14:50:00 549.8 64.3 614
11 Zimmerman 14:50:00 536.1 64.6 601
12 Dutt 14:50:00 503.0 47.2 550
13 Salamone 14:10:00 489.3 49.0 538
14 Olsen 14:50:00 499.4 28.7 528
15 Stone 14:50:00 483.6 30.6 514

GAP 2015 actually reduces the available leading points. The leading points spread among those that made goal is sixteen points. Otherwise the differences aren't that great between GAP 2015 and GAP 2014.

OzGAP 2005:

# Name SS ES Time Dist.
Points
Time
Points
Arr.
Time
Points
Total
1 Hamilton 14:50:00 18:35:04 03:45:04 550.4 337.2 112.4 1000
2 Straub 14:50:00 18:43:04 03:53:04 550.4 280.5 85.0 916
3 Majors 14:50:00 18:48:16 03:58:16 550.4 258.1 69.8 878
4 Opsanger 14:50:00 18:56:06 04:06:06 550.4 229.3 50.6 830
5 Barmakian 14:50:00 18:56:27 04:06:27 550.4 228.1 49.8 828
6 Bunner 14:50:00 18:57:41 04:07:41 550.4 223.9 47.2 822
7 Shipley 14:50:00 19:00:29 04:10:29 550.4 214.8 41.5 807
8 Turner 14:50:00 19:02:17 04:12:17 550.4 209.1 38.2 798
9 Barker 14:50:00 549.8 550
9 Bilyk 14:50:00 549.7 550
11 Zimmerman 14:50:00 536.1 536
12 Dutt 14:50:00 503.0 503
13 Olsen 14:50:00 499.4 499
14 Grzyb 14:50:00 490.2 490
15 Salamone 14:10:00 489.3 489

OzGAP took the leading points away from those who didn't make goal. It's up to you to decide if this is right or fair or not. If we are talking about a race start (which we are - pretty much - in this case), arrival time points are just a version of speed (time) points.

Just distance and speed/time points:

# Name SS ES Time Dist.
Points
Time
Points
Total
1 Hamilton 14:50:00 18:35:04 03:45:04 550.4 449.6 1000
2 Straub 14:50:00 18:43:04 03:53:04 550.4 374.1 925
3 Majors 14:50:00 18:48:16 03:58:16 550.4 344.1 895
4 Opsanger 14:50:00 18:56:06 04:06:06 550.4 305.7 856
5 Barmakian 14:50:00 18:56:27 04:06:27 550.4 304.1 855
6 Bunner 14:50:00 18:57:41 04:07:41 550.4 298.6 849
7 Shipley 14:50:00 19:00:29 04:10:29 550.4 286.4 837
8 Turner 14:50:00 19:02:17 04:12:17 550.4 278.8 829
9 Barker 14:50:00 549.8 550
9 Bilyk 14:50:00 549.7 550
11 Zimmerman 14:50:00 536.1 536
12 Dutt 14:50:00 503.0 503
13 Olsen 14:50:00 499.4 499
14 Grzyb 14:50:00 490.2 490
15 Salamone 14:10:00 489.3 489

To me the only real difference between these scoring systems is whether you want to give the guys that just miss goal their leading points or not. It can be argued either way.

Leading from the front

June 19, 2015, 8:29:25 MDT

Leading from the front

What are leading points worth?

scoring

I present an idealized case that strips the question and answer to the barest of essentials:

Both pilots start at the same time. The task is 100 km long. They average 50 km/h and arrive at the goal at the same time. The "first" pilot leads the "second" pilot the whole way. He is 1.67 km ahead (2 minutes) of the "second" pilot when he reaches the half way point.

The leading points are determined by the area under each of the flight paths. The first pilot's area is slightly smaller than the second pilot's area.

Using the GAP 2014 scoring formulas (GAP 2002):

First pilot: Distance point: 361, Time points: 447.3, Arrival Position points: 79.98, Leading points: 111.83, Total = 1000.

Second pilot: Distance point: 361, Time points: 447.3, Arrival Position points: 79.98, Leading points: 102.70, Total = 990.87.

The pilot who followed the leading pilot received a 9 point penalty.

When the lead pilot is five minutes (4.17 km) ahead at the half way point the second point is penalized 17 points and when he is ahead by ten minutes (8.33 km) at the half way point the second pilot is penalized 27 points.

Looks like squared leading points aren't enough

Fri, Jun 12 2015, 7:13:43 am MDT

Arrival position points are needed also

Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|scoring|Zac Majors

https://OzReport.com/19.116#2

GAP 2015 with only leading points (squared) no arrival position points:

# Name SS ES Time Dist.
Points
Lead.
Points
Time
Points
Total
1 Jonny Durand 14:20:00 15:40:29 01:20:29 365.9 40.5 508.4 915
2 Zac Majors 14:20:00 15:41:06 01:21:06 365.9 26.9 486.6 879
3 Rob Burgis 14:00:00 15:32:19 01:32:19 365.9 107.8 352.2 826

http://stayoff.homenet.org:8100/gap/2015woarrival.html

Unlike the default GAP 2015 with both leading and arrival position points, Rob doesn't pass Zac and take 2nd place. Not only are the arrival position points transferred to the speed points, but the speed points are more valuable. Jonny gets 915 instead of 894.

Rob clearly led all the way and got to goal almost nine minutes ahead of Zac and Jonny. But leading points needed arrival position points to put him into second place.

Of course, as I wrote previously, why exactly should Rob be rewarded so handsomely for taking the early clock? Zippy flew much faster than he. Was Rob somehow disadvantaged and Zippy and Jonny advantaged because Rob took an earlier clock?

Discuss "Looks like squared leading points aren't enough" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

End of Conical end of speed section

October 28, 2014, 8:52:44 PDT

End of Conical end of speed section

Didn't work out so well

Agust Gudmundsson|PG|scoring

Agust Gudmundsson <<ag>> writes:

Conical End of Speed Section

The late paragliding European championship was the first Category 1 event where the Conical End of Speed Section (CESS) was tested. The least that can be said is that it was not a success: imprecision of instruments, fairness issue, debatable flight strategy and more. If CESS is to remain an option, more work has to be done. Consequently, the Bureau has decided to suspend the implementation of CESS in Category 1 event until further notice.

The Paragliding Committee has been consulted on this issue and agrees with the Bureau decisions. The next Category 1 Paragliding XC competitions this decision affects is Pan Americans Paragliding in Argentina in November 2014 and then Paragliding Worlds in Colombia in January 2015.

Jump the Gun

Thu, Aug 29 2013, 6:31:51 am MDT

The seconds are divided, not multiplied, by the Jump the Gun factor

CIVL|scoring

X = Jump the Gun factor

We've always heard that the factor is a multiplier not a divisor.

http://www.fai.org/component/phocadownload/category/?download=7122:2012-civl-scoring-system

Discuss "Jump the Gun" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Eighteen points

February 25, 2013, 8:17:25 EST

Eighteen points

Where did they come from?

scoring

If your competition is scored with departure and arrival position points or with just arrival time points and no one makes goal, then only a total of 900 points are available. You can configure FS to allow for 1000 points if no one makes goal, but that is not the default configuration.

If you use 'leading' points you'll not only have 900 points available to give to the pilot who flew the furthest, but also 17.5 leading points (rounded to eighteen).

Since 'leading' points are given whether you get to goal or not it was decided to give them out while they weren't available when they were described as departure points. Seems a bit arbitrary to me.

The points available for 'leading' in the case of no one making goal are (1000 - (1 - 0.9)) * 0.125 * 1.4, which is equal to 17.5 points.

Seems to me that there is no good reason why 'leading' points shouldn't be worth 100 points in the case of no one making goal. After all as we've seen in previous articles someone was 'leading' and even those following get 'leading' points.

You can find the graph and equations above here.

Comparing arrival time and leading points

February 21, 2013, 7:50:44 CST

Comparing arrival time and leading points

OzGAP 2005 VS GAP 2002

GAP 2002|OzGAP 2005|scoring

I compare the use of Arrival time points Vs the use of "Leading" point and Arrival position points for the six idealized cases:

The number 1 case refers to the flights illustrated in Case 1b in an earlier issue of the Oz Report. I score the flights using leading points and arrival position points and then arrival time points (OzGAP 2005). The left most column (red) is the first pilot. The second column (green) is the second pilot starting twenty minutes later and flying as fast. The third column (purple) is the same first pilot scored with arrival time points (still 1000 points) and the fourth column (blue) is the second pilot who flies as fast but starts twenty minutes later and is scored with arrival time points. The second pilot gets a few more points when arrival time points were used than when leading plus time position points are used.

Case 2 (both pilots start at the same time but the first pilot is faster than the second) produces a similar situation in which the second pilot receives more points when arrival time points are used.

Case 3 (both pilots start off at the same time, but the first pilot is faster and gets to goal and the second pilot lands before goal) produces a different result between scoring using leading and arrival position points and arrival time points. The second pilot gets some leading points when the scoring system makes them available but doesn't get any arrival time points as he doesn't make goal. He only gets distance points using the OzGAP 2005 scoring system.

Case 4b (the first pilot starts twenty minutes before the second one but takes forty minutes longer to fly the course). The fastest (second) pilot gets the full 1000 points as he gets all the distance, speed, arrival position and leading points. The first (slower) pilot gets distance, slower speed, all the leading points and reduced arrival position points. When scored with arrival time points, the fastest pilot who starts second gets the full one thousand points. The slower first pilot gets fewer speed points and less arrival time points.

Case 5b (the first pilot is caught by the faster second pilot at the midway point and they fly together to goal). The faster (second) pilot doesn't get all the leading points as he starts behind the first pilot and then stays with him to goal. He also doesn't get all the departure points as he starts second. When arrival time points are used, the faster (second) pilot receives all 1000 points, and the first (slower) pilot gets fewer points because of his slower speed.

Case 6 (the first pilot starts twenty minutes before the second one - one start time interval - and they both arrive at goal at the same time). The second (faster) pilot loses some leading points but gets the rest of them. The first (slower) pilot gets all the leading points, but loses speed points. When scored with arrival time points, the second (faster) pilot receives 1000 points. The first (slower) pilot gets fewer speed points but all the arrival time points.

I'll look at whether any of this makes much difference or not in a real competition.

Discuss "Comparing arrival time and leading points" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Comparing leading and departure points

February 19, 2013, 7:39:47 MST

Comparing leading and departure points

GAP 2000 VS GAP 2002

GAP 2000|GAP 2002|scoring

Isn't that war over? I mean didn't we all think that GAP 2002 was a big improvement over GAP 2000? I use my cases to examine if much changed when we went from departure to leading points. Let's start off with a chart and then I'll explain it:

Now, obviously there is not enough information about this chart to understand it at first, so let me fill you in. The number 1 case refers to the flights illustrated in Case 1b in the last issue of the Oz Report. I score the flights using leading points and then departure points. The left most column (red) is the first pilot. The second column (green) is the second pilot starting twenty minutes later and flying as fast. The third column (purple) is the same first pilot scored with departure points (still 1000 points) and the fourth column (blue) is the second pilot who flies as fast but starts twenty minutes later and is scored with departure points and arrival position points. The basic idea is that it hardly matters which of these two scoring systems you use as they produce about the same result in this case.

Case 2 (both pilots start at the same time but the first pilot is faster than the second) produces the same scores under both scoring systems.

Case 3 (both pilots start off at the same time, but the first pilot is faster and gets to goal and the second pilot lands before goal) produces a different result between scoring using leading points and departure points that is totally attributable to "leading" points. The second pilot gets some leading points but doesn't get any departure points as he doesn't make goal as departure points are a multiple of speed points which he also doesn't get as again he doesn't make goal.

Case 4b (the first pilot starts twenty minutes before the second one but takes forty minutes longer to fly the course). The fastest (second) pilot gets the full 1000 points as he gets all the distance, speed, arrival position and leading points. The first (slower) pilot gets distance, slower speed, all the leading points and reduced arrival position points. When scored with departure and arrival position points, the fastest pilot who starts second gets a lot less departure points than he would leading points. The slower first pilot scores the same with either leading or departure points.

Case 5b (the first pilot is caught by the faster second pilot at the midway point and they fly together to goal). The faster (second) pilot doesn't get all the leading points as he starts behind the first pilot and then stays with him to goal. He also doesn't get all the departure as he starts second. The slower pilot gets the same score using either set of scoring equations.

Case 6 (the first pilot starts twenty minutes before the second one - one start time interval - and they both arrive at goal at the same time). The second pilot loses some leading points but gets the rest of them. The first pilot gets all the leading points, but loses speed points. When scored with departure points, the second (faster)  pilot receives less departure than leading point, but gets the rest of them. The first (slower) pilot gets all the points except fewer speed point.

Well, enough of these leading points, next I'll turn to looking at Arrival time points, otherwise known as OzGAP 2005.

Discuss "Comparing leading and departure points" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Setting the nominal distance, part 3. »

February 15, 2013, 8:04:06 PST

Setting the nominal distance

Going big

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Attila Bertok|Christian Ciech|Filippo Oppici|Gary Wirdnam|Gordon Rigg|Jon "Jonny" Durand jnr|Jon Durand jnr|Manfred Ruhmer|Paris Williams|Primoz Gricar|Robin Hamilton|Rohan Holtkamp|Rohan Taylor|scoring|Scott Barrett

If you expect to set tasks at about 200 km, what should you set the Nominal Distance at?

Given the Dmax = 200 km, Dmin = 5 km, Gnom = 20 the line above gives the relationship between the meet director's choice of nominal distance and the average distance required for full validity.

Given the Dmax = 200 km, Dmin = 5 km, Dnom = 120 km, the chart below gives the relationship between the meet director's choice of percentage of pilots at goal and the required average distance flown for full validity:

Full Distance Validity also depends on what percentage of the pilots fly further than the minimum distance. Given the Dmax = 200 km, Dmin = 5 km, Dnom = 120 km, and Gnom = 20, we get the following relationship:

Looking at the 2013 Worlds:

If the nominal distance had instead of being set to 80 km had been set to 120 km, the Distance Validity would have still been at least equal to 1 each day, despite the fact that day five and six were stopped. So nether of us would have set the Nominal Distance long enough to differentiate between days where we went below average and those where we were above average.

If we had set the nominal distance to 180 km, we would have had an average flown distance of those flying further than the minimum distance of 130 km for the Distance validity to equal 1. We would have noted before the first task that we were probably setting the first task (and task 2, 3, and 5) at too short a distance. In addition, the second, third, fifth and sixth days would have been devalued. The fifth and sixth days because the task was stopped. The second and third because the tasks were called too short.

It was only after the fifth task that we started calling tasks long enough to get pilots to fly far enough to be completely valid assuming that pilots could in fact on average fly 180 km on an average day.

If we had set the nominal distance value equal to 180 km then these would be the Distance Validity values for each of the days:

The two days that were stopped are devalued the most, which is what we would hope for.

This would have been the results if we had chosen that 180 km as the Nominal Distance:

# Name
1 Manfred Ruhmer 8505
2 Alessandro Ploner 8389
3 Filippo Oppici 8090
4 Attila Bertok 8073
5 Primoz Gricar 7867
6 Grant Crossingham 7819
7 Pedro Luis Garcia Morelli 7785
8 Balazs Ujhelyi 7696
9 Scott Barrett 7694
10 Antoine Boisselier 7666
11 Jonny Durand 7615
12 Robin Hamilton 7604
13 Paris Williams 7515
14 Gerd Dönhuber 7456
15 Michael Friesenbichler 7440
16 Gordon Rigg 7402
17 Christian Ciech 7375
18 Gary Wirdnam 7306
19 Carl Wallbank 7172
20 Rohan Holtkamp 7169

You can find the actual results here or here.

More GAP, explained

January 28, 2013, 9:04:35 PST

GAP, explained

More formulas

GAP|scoring

Appendix C:

http://www.pwca.org/sites/default/files/Attachement-page/PWCA Competition Rules 2012 - Finalversion.pdf

More to come as I look more closely at scoring and scoring equations.

Lumby Air Races 2012

Mon, Apr 23 2012, 5:34:47 pm EDT

June 7th-10th 2012

beer|competition|fire|flight park|food|GPS|HPAC|insurance|music|news|PayPal|Randy Rauck|scoring|triangle

Online Registration Link here.

«Randy Rauck» writes:

The 7th Lumby Air Races June 7th-10th 2012 promises to be a fun and exciting event. Early Bird Discount before May 15.

The Lumby Air Force hopes you can make it. It's been expanded to four days. For accomplished flyers, this is your opportunity to support our flying event, get current on all the latest flying news and win some great cash prizes and trophies for your superior efforts. For newer flyers the education gathered in these social settings will be priceless.

You will need your HPAC number. You can find it here: http://hpac.ca/pub/?pid=145. If you are an international pilot, you will be able to get temporary membership online at www.hpac.ca or@the event.

The format will be closed circuit triangle racing around the town and area of Lumby BC Canada.

GPS will be used for scoring.

This is an International event and is open to Hang Glider and Paraglider Pilots. Registration 8 AM Thursday June 7th@the Raven Aviation hanger on the Freedom Flight Park. Pilots meetings daily@the hanger 9AM sharp.

Landings will be@the Freedom Flight Park, just 1 mile north of the village of Lumby BC on the Mabel Lake Road. Late starts for pilots who can't make it Thursday morning will be allowed on Friday only. Limit - first 75 paid up Pilots.

HPAC insurance mandatory and available@registration if necessary. Please do your best to renew yours or get it in advance at http://hpac.ca/pub/?pid=96. International pilots only require a $40.00 temp policy available@the same web address. Minimum experience - 20 hours logged airtime and 20 high foot launches.

Expect $2000.00 - $3000.00 in cash prize money and trophies and prizes. Plenty of Extraordinary food for Saturday Eve celebration

Big Fire of Life

Live dance music Saturday Eve after dinner for pilots and friends and support personal. Flyers Music Performances/Jam starting around 10pm Saturday Bring your instruments and rhythm makers Ongoing Lumby Days festivities including concerts, beer gardens, amusement park and fun and games for kids.

Competition, Dinner and Dance - $75.00 before May 1st. - $100.00 after.

Registration available online soon or send a cheque payable to: Lumby Air Force #754 Eastwood Road, Lumby BC Canada, V0E2G7, Send PayPal or interac fees to Oz Report forum   link»  

Dalby Competition

Tue, Apr 17 2012, 8:17:35 am EDT

FS scoring

competition|Curt Warren|Dalby Big Air 2012|Dave May|FS|Kathryn O'Riordan|scoring|William "Billo" Olive

http://www.warrenwindsports.com.au/blog/dave-may

http://www.warrenwindsports.com.au/blog/curt-warren

http://www.kathrynoriordan.com/2012/04/16/dalby-day-2-what-went-right/

http://www.williamolive.com/dalby/comp results.html

Day two results here.

Discuss "Dalby Competition" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Davis' Scoring Manual

December 15, 2009, 9:44:40 PST

Davis' scoring manual

I've updated the manual and I'm updating the program to more easily handle pure open distance

PG|scoring|USHPA

http://ozreport.com/Davis_Scoring_Manual.php

This free program is used for scoring all the USHPA sanctioned hang gliding competitions. It is also used for a couple of competitions in Australia and paragliding competitions in Slovenia. It works with SeeYou.

I'll keep you advised on updates. There is a link to the program in the manual and you can download it. It now comes with a lot of documentation of the GAP formulas.

Discuss "Davis' scoring manual" at the Oz Report forum   link»

NTSS ranking and meet validity, the example

November 12, 2008, 8:09:33 PST

NTSS ranking and meet validity, the example

How would the 2008 Big Spring Internationals have been valued under the proposed system?

NTSS ranking|scoring

Twenty seven hang glider pilots showed up 2008 Big Spring Internationals. Therefore for attendance under the proposed system it was worth 405 (15 points time 27 pilots) points. A number of quality pilots showed up. I calculate that they were worth an additional 316 NTSS points (I'd love to have that checked). So the total value of the meet (not taking into account the validity of the meet itself was 721 NTSS points out of 1000 possible.

The meet itself was fully valid as the winner had over 3600 scoring/GAP points, so the meet would be worth 721 NTSS points out of 1000 possible NTSS under the proposed system.

Under the existing system the meet was worth 462 NTSS points out of a possible 600 (660 for the winner). So under the existing system the Big Spring Internationals was worth to the pilots who attended 77% of what a fully valued meet would have been worth. Under the proposed system, the Big Spring Internationals would have been worth 72.1% of a fully valued meet.

What does this all mean? Got me.

Early starts

November 6, 2008, 7:30:44 PST

Early starts

I favor allowing pilots to start early, and not giving them much of a penalty

Beechmont|Canungra Classic 2008|competition|GAP 2000|OzGAP 2005|scoring

I think that it is a good idea to allow pilots to head out on course before the first start time. I figure that they are taking the chances, so let them go off by themselves. Also I know that conditions can change at launch and it is best to allow pilots to head out.

Also there is a lot of difference between the first launches and the later ones if there is a restricted launch and a lot of pilots. If you want pilots to launch in the first part of the launch window you've got to give them a reason to get off, and being allowed to start early is an incentive to launch early.

Yes, I realize that there is the argument that the pilots could be flying in different conditions, and I'm sure that this happens and happened at the 2008 Canungra Classic.

One way to get around this is to have an early start time at thirty minutes after the window opens to get those pilots who want to get going an opportunity to do so. But then pilots complain that it doesn't give everyone the opportunity to take the first start time. There is no perfect solution.

As a scorekeeper and scoring program writer (using the GAP 2000 and OzGAP 2005 algorithms) I allowed pilots to start before the first start time. But I move their start time to past the first start time. For example, if they start fourteen minutes before the first start time, I add two time fourteen minutes or twenty eight minutes to the start time and twenty eight minutes to their finish time. This works fine with OzGAP 2005 and GAP 2000, but not GAP 2002 (unless you changed all the times in the pilot's track log).

Now assuming that the start time intervals were fifteen minutes long, you would get the first start time, with a fourteen minute penalty. Of course, if you started fifteen minutes and one second early, you would get the second start time with only a one second penalty. But you would be penalized by having the second start time instead of the first.

Scoring, the easy way »

May 7, 2008, 11:08:57 EDT

Scoring

It doesn't take a genius or a geek (well, at least not a complete geek)

CIVL|David Glover|Jamie Shelden|Scoring

One of the big problems with competition is having someone to do the scoring. You need a geeky guy who knows how to use the GPS download and scoring programs. These skills are in relatively short supply, and certainly almost none of the pilots want to have these skills.

Also downloading GPSes is a big pain in the butt. You have to deal with these clueless hang glider pilots who are demanding of your time. It takes a few hours. You have to have a computer with a bunch of ports.

In the last year I've scored a number of hang glider contests while also flying in the contests. I've used my SeeYou based scoring program (using the OzGAP 2005 formulation) and I've used FS, the new scoring program from CIVL.

At the Santa Cruz Flats Race I had the meet director, Jamie Shelden, do the GPS downloads. I took about five minutes to teach her how to download the GPSes, two at a time (as there were only two ports on my five year old Dell Inspiron 8100) using GPSDump. I had configured two instances of GPSDump to download from two separate com ports. You can run as many instances of GPSDump as you have com ports and download as many GPSes at once as you have com ports.

That worked pretty well, even though Jamie only has a three minute attention span for my five minute lesson. I also had loaded G7ToWin, Maxpunkte and SeeYou on that download computer, to handle any cases that GPSDump couldn't handle. I gave her a bunch of cables and David Glover had a few more for her. I didn't have time (and she didn't have the attention) to teach her how to use the other download programs on the first day.

I had previously setup a folder on my computer to do the scoring after the flights had been downloaded. I had her save each tracklog as an IGC file using the last name of the pilot and a numeral for the day in the file name (i.e., Straub1.igc). The pilot's name wasn't included inside the IGC file.

This worked reasonably well the first day, but we had about ten percent of the tracklogs that we had to do again on the next morning., as there was some problem. But basically she only had to have a very superficial knowledge of GPSes and downloads to do almost everything right, and I could fix the problems later.

To increase her percentage, I showed her how to download with SeeYou on the second night. If there was a problem with GPSDump she now had another option. But basically GPSDump was working well. I was a mile away from here while she was doing the downloads, but if I had been closer I could have helped her with some issues. GPSDump is very good at putting pieces of tracklogs back together if pilots have battery problems, but I didn't have an opportunity to teach her that until later.

I didn't have the opportunity to teach her how to create tasks in SeeYou and didn't have time to do it in the morning after the task committee meeting. She knew nothing about creating tasks on the computer. I did teach her how to display the pilot's tracklog in SeeYou and after a few days she was doing that to check the tracklogs, but this was also a distraction as it slowed her down from downloading. Later she would probably be able to download two tracklogs at once and display a downloaded tracklog against a task definition, but this takes a bit of practice.

Pilots like to see their track logs right away after they are downloaded, but it does slow things down. It's a trade off. It does catch problems right away, especially if the task is displayed with the tracklog. I would suggest doing it, but the download person needs to manage their time.

She was able to download over sixty pilots in two hours, with only two com ports. If there are 100 or so pilots in the meet, I would suggest four to six com ports (and cables) with two download persons and two computers. Perhaps one just displaying flights against tasks.

After two hours Jamie gave me the memory stick with the flights. I was able to quickly associate each flight with each pilot for that day's task. It took about ten minutes and the SeeYou program scored them as I did the association. If I had been on a local area network I would have been able to be in another room doing the scoring as the downloading proceeding. I think that it is a great idea to separate scoring from downloading. The skills (minimal) needed for downloading are not those needed for scoring.

Jamie sometimes got the wrong tracklog associated with the wrong pilot. This was because I created a manual method for doing this, and handling a number of downloads at once can cause this to happen. We were always able to quickly find the problem and solve it the next morning. Still it is possible to automate this pilot tracking system if you use the FS scoring system (or at least part of it).  With FS and GPSDump, the pilot number gets stored with the waypoints in the pilot's GPS when you download them the first time.

I used SeeYou, because it is easy to use, uses a powerful display program (SeeYou), because I wrote it, because I know that it gives the correct results, and because I can very quickly display the results on the internet by pushing one button in SeeYou. But it is a program that you do have to purchase. The instructions for setting up and using my program with SeeYou are easy to follow and allow anyone to score a competition.

FS is a great little free program that is backed by CIVL and integrated with GPSDump (which is also free). It has great online documentation, that will require somestudy on the part of the scorekeeper. In order to use the automated pilot numbering system most effectively, you need to have the scorekeeper spend more time setting up the original waypoint download system (I had Jamie download most of the waypoints at the Santa Cruz Flats Race). I suggest getting most of the pilot names a few days in advance of the competition.

You'll want to format the waypoints so that their ID is six letters or less and all capitalized. Then when you download the waypoints from GPSDump (you can do this from a CUP formatted file, if you like) be sure to download only the ID and long and lat to the Compeo, and Flytec's).

In conclusion, I very much suggest dividing the scorekeeping task into two parts: downloading and scoring. Train a person to do the downloads and then do the scoring later. The latest software is much easier to use compared to CompeGPS and Race. It takes a while to learn it as the scorekeeper, but you can shift much of the grunt work to others.

http://harrymartincartoons.com/

Discuss Scoring at the Oz Report forum   link»

Eating your own Dog Food

March 5, 2008, 10:09:29 +1100

Eating our Dog Food

A real world test for my SeeYou program and FS.

CIVL|FS|scoring|SeeYou

This last week I had the opportunity to compete, put out the Oz Report, assist with the scoring (after setting up the scoring system and computer), and test my scoring system against the FS scoring system that is being supported by CIVL. This was as much a real world test for my program (it has been used in about half a dozen competitions, and of course, tested there) as it was for the FS program (which has been beta tested in France in 2007). Of course, I was eager to run them side by side to see if there were any differences. And doing this in real time while pilots wanted their scores, and wanted them correct was quite a challenge for me and for Stein-Tore, the FS author who is in Norway (or Sweden).

Stein-Tore and I had many email conversations as we ran into discrepancies and I learned how to run his program. Having two programs looking at the same data (and it was a chore just getting the data (track logs) to match) and comparing them with RACE (another hurtle) was the kind of process you need to stamp out those nasty subtle bugs.

You can find the FS program here: http://ozreport.com/12.033#0

You can find the latest version of my program here: http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51049#51049

We found a bug in my program which became evident on an unusual day when many pilots who made goal didn't get any speed points. This hasn't seemed to have had much effect on previous competitions scored with my program. We also found a bug in FS that incorrectly allocated the distance points if you didn't make goal, giving you too few. Those bugs have been corrected now and both programs should give almost the same results. I say almost because there are still very subtle differences (like, I think difference earth models). The differences are too minor to worry about now.

FS is an excellent free program (mine is free also, but you need to purchase SeeYou) and very well written. It is fun to use. Check it out.

My SeeYou program is also a hoot and scorekeepers love using it. Both programs require that you have your Garmin USB drivers and USB/serial port drivers up to date.

Competition scoring software from CIVL?

October 31, 2007, 5:47:30 pm PDT

Scoring software

Only about a year late, maybe more

CIVL|scoring

http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/node/1059

Agust also announced significant progress in the FS flight scoring system, with a beta version soon available. Organisers will be encouraged to download the software, try it out and feed back comments. Meanwhile, the last planned version (6.2) of Race will be available early in 2009. More information will be published soon.

I wonder what FS means? Flight Scoring?

Discuss Scoring software at the Oz Report forum     Digg This  Reddit  DelIcioUsdel.icio.us

Scoring meets, part 4

February 3, 2007, 8:40:59 AEDT

Scoring

Giving the pilots points for their flights

record|scoring

Your fourth task as scorekeeper in a competition is to compare and contrast how pilots did against each other using one of the scoring systems found in the RACE program. The scoring programs take as input the pilot's start time, finish time (if at goal) or distance along the course line if not at goal and determine the relative value of each flight based on how all the other pilots did.

One scoring system, GAP 2002, goes further and using each pilot's track log (not just the two pieces of information above) and scores pilots also based on whether or not they were "leading" other pilots throughout the task. The version of the scoring system, requires the use of the CompeGPS software. No other software can be used to score a competition if GAP 2002 is the scoring system used.

OzGAP 2005 is comparable to GAP 2002, but doesn't require the use of CompeGPS. Therefore it is possible to use other software if you are using OzGAP 2005 (http://www.hgfa.asn.au/Competition/gps/OzGap2005.htm).

Free:

Race 2003: http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/race/download.htm With OzGAP 2005: http://ozreport.com/11.011#3 and here: http://www.triptera.com.au/gps/  Race2007 with OzGAP 2005 integrated should be out soon.

You set up your competition in Race, define the tasks in Race (as you did earlier in step three), setup the pilots in Race, and enter the pilot's start time, finish time (if at goal), or distance along the course line if not at goal for each task for each pilot after determining this information from step three.

Often the pilot landing form is used in this manual process to record the values in step three and then the values are entered into Race in this step.

Commercial (scoring script is beta):

SeeYou 3.62: http://www.naviter.si/products/seeyou-competition.php. (129 EU) GAP 2000 has been implemented as a Pascal script in SeeYou here. It would be simple to add OzGAP 2005.

More on GAP 2002 here. Discussions of GAP parameters are found here.

Please provide any comments that you have on these programs or other possible programs that can be used for this function.

Scoring meets, part 3

February 2, 2007, 8:08:53 AEDT

Scoring

Creating tasks, comparing IGC track logs to tasks

scoring

Your third task as scorekeeper in a competition is to create tasks and compare IGC formatted tracklogs downloaded from the competitors' GPSes to determine how fast and how far the pilots flew.

Free:

RaceTracker: http://www.triptera.com.au/gps/. See here: http://ozreport.com/11.011#3.

The waypoint file and the task file must be in MacGPS format using UTM coordinates in Australian Geodetic 1966 datum. MacGPS is an old format predating all the other formats. If you have a Garmin GPS and have the task as the active route, then clicking "Garmin Task" will automatically creates a task file in the right format.

Doesn't work with entry start circles. Will validate track logs and give you distances flown on course and time.

Commercial:

SeeYou 3.62: http://www.naviter.si/products/seeyou-competition.php  (129 EU) Very easy and intuitive to create tasks. Evaluation is done automatically. No special validation displayed. Need to setup a script to get distances along the course line and times at goal to display.

CompeGPS 6.4 here. (90 EU) (License to use for one year only for more than 50 pilots - 300 EU) The competition version automatically evaluates how the pilots did with respect to the task. Highlights when pilot makes the turnpoints.

The output from this evaluation is the pilot's start time, their finish time (if at goal) or their distance along the course line if they didn't make goal. This output is used for the next phase of scorekeeping.

Please provide any comments that you have on these programs or other possible programs that can be used for this function.

Scoring meets, part 2

February 1, 2007, 0:42:34 AEDT

Scoring

Downloading flights to create IGC files.

scoring

Your second task as scorekeeper in a competition is download tracklogs from the competitors' GPSes to create IGC formatted tracklog files on your computer. What you would like the software to do is create the IGC file, in the correct folder for the correct day and automatically name it with the pilot's name or number reading a special pilot waypoint in the waypoint list or from the pilot name provided by the 5030, etc.

You would also like to be able to read instruments as fast as possible, so software that supports multiple serial ports and USB ports is good.

Free:

RaceTracker: http://www.triptera.com.au/gps/. See here: http://ozreport.com/11.011#3. Race Tracker will download your Garmin, MLR, Flytec, Brauninger data loggers. It will create IGC files with your name in the file name. It is written in Java, so it isn't as friendly on a Windows computer as it could be.

Maxpunkte 5.0: http://www.maxpunkte.de/. Creates IGC files, but doesn't read a pilot waypoint or create a unique IGC file name. It relies on the scorekeeper to do this.

GPSDump 3.77: http://www.multinett.no/%7Estein.sorensen/

Download track logs from many Garmin models, MLR, Log_It/MuzzyLoggeR/GPS Tracklogger, Top Navigator / XC Trainer, IQ-Compeo/Galileo/Competino, Flytec 5020/5030 and Digifly Graviter.

FlyChart 4.52 (free if you don't use the database feature): http://www.flytec.com/Products/Software/FlyChart_452.htm For the Brauniger Compeo, Flytec 5030, etc. flight computers.

Commercial:

SeeYou 3.62: http://www.naviter.si/products/seeyou-competition.php. (129 EU)  IGC files are stored by pilot name or number (or whatever code you want to use). Competition version is the same as the regular commercial version. No additional cost.

CompeGPS 6.4 here. (90 EU) (License to use for one year only for more than 50 pilots - 300 EU) A pilot name is read in the waypoints stored on the GPS. All waypoints are downloaded every time (a waste of time). Limited to five pilots per setup (you can do multiple setups), unless you are using the competition version.

Please provide any comments that you have on these programs or other possible programs that can be used for this function.

Scoring meets, part 1

January 31, 2007, 9:59:21 AEDT

Scoring

What software to use to score a hang gliding or paragliding competition?

PG|scoring

Your first task as scorekeeper in a competition is to download waypoints to the competitors' GPSes. There are a number of pieces of free or commercial software that will allow you to accomplish this task.

Free:

GPSDump 3.77: http://www.multinett.no/%7Estein.sorensen/

Up- and download waypoints from Garmin models, MLR, IQ-Compeo/Competino, Flytec 5020/5030 and Top Navigator / XC Trainer.

FlyChart 4.52 (free if you don't use the database feature): http://www.flytec.com/Products/Software/FlyChart_452.htm

For use with 4000 series, 5030 v2.16d or later, 5020 v1.12 or later and 6010

Commercial:

SeeYou 3.62: http://www.naviter.si/products/seeyou-competition.php. (129 EU)

Its functions before the flight allow you to plan tasks, manage waypoint lists... After the flight, it allows you to download flights from GPS devices, see your flight on maps, explore its details through Statistics and relive it in 3D view.

SeeYou presents several different types of waypoints, ranging from a turnpoint to mountain pass. Waypoints can be managed both graphically and alphabetically. Waypoints can be imported and exported to all file formats, known to us. If there is an unsupported file format, please let us know, and we will implement it as soon as possible.

CompeGPS 6.4 here. (90 EU) (License to use for one year only for more than 50 pilots - 300 EU)

Compatibility with most of the available GPSes to receive tracks, routes and waypoints.

You would also find useful a program that converts between the many different formats used for storing waypoints. You'll find a handy program, GPSBabel here: http://www.gpsbabel.org/. Also G7Towin here: http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/ can do many conversions and can also manage waypoints but doesn't connect to the MLR, Flytec, Brauniger, or Top Navigator.

Please provide any comments that you have on these programs or other possible programs that can be used for this function.

Alternative to Fixed Total Validity

Sun, Jan 28 2007, 9:40:29 pm AEDT

FTV

Godfrey's Departure and Leading points

Godfrey Wenness|scoring

Alternative to Fixed Total Validity

Godfrey Weness «SkyGodfrey»

The Departure and Leading Out points issue, while separate from FTV, still is along the lines of rewarding pilots for being out the front and compensating them for the risk (though FTV can do that for a series of events/tasks for a ladder). FTV suffers because pilots don't easily understand it and it doesn't give you a indication of the winner of a comp (or ladder series) until the end - as the relative dropped FTV scores can change after the last task.

I have mentioned a new addition to the task scoring system I came up with, to a few people recently, and have received full support in principle for it.

The best part is that its simple and clear.

It's for tasks, not whole events, and is combination of both departure and leading points, but using the software to make a logical calculation.

I am not a programming expert, we have plenty of excellent ones out here, this is what it should do:

- first, give/award a certain amount of points to leading pilots (nothing new there - could be 100 pts on a full validity day). In fact you could vary it depending on what type of race you want to run - more DLO pts for days/comps where you want pilots to race and move on and take risks, less for long tasks (eg cross country open)

- over a task calculate how long in distance or time terms the pilot(s) was/were "leading" (ie had their nose ahead on the task line). 1 pilot may be been ahead a few times - its the cumulative distance or time or % of the task that we are looking for.

- If it's a big gaggle out front then the impact of this is minimal - as it should be. The pilots typically swap the lead - the DLO points get diluted and that reflects the day.

- If its a few solo pilots out the front - they may also swap and change the lead (even if they are in different places/tracks - not together), they get more percentage of the points avail - it also reflects their effort - (more so than the part time gaggle leaders).

- and at the other end of the scale - if it's one pilot who led out from launch all the way to goal, he gets all the leading points, but if he say decks it 100m short of goal - at least he will get 99% of those points to make up for his effort.

The pilot with the fastest time always wins (in a race), the pilot who was on course and leading most of the time gets most of the avail DLO pts, but can never win the task - he may come in 2nd across the line but should never be able to win the day due to DLO pts. This is the crux of the main complaints against the current system who say that the first over the line should always be the winner of the day.

The DLO system works with Races or elapsed time - in the latter if you take an early time and lead you get the points advantage for taking the risk, so if the 2nd start gate time gaggle catches you and you make it in to goal with them you "may" actually win the day if your DLO pts are valued high enough.

Another version could be to have say the top 3 leaders get points split - maybe 70/20/10% of the 100%.

In a nutshell doing a simple calculation.

Let's say its a 100kms task taking 100mins, each km (or minute) is worth 1% of the 100% available DLO points - of which we have said there are 100 available on this day, which is fully valid (1000pts).

3 pilots have their nose in front at various stages over the course - A was there for 25kms total (15+10kms), B was only in front from launch for the first 10kms and C lead alone all the way into goal from the 35kms mark (thus 75kms in the lead)

The DLO points then go like this : A gets 25pts, B gets 10pts and C get 75pts.

It will need a horse race type calculation that runs on distance (or time) spent in front. Each time a pilot is in front it accumulates his kms (or time) there. A minimum distance time factor in the lead should be applied so as to avoid the split second jumble of gaggles…perhaps say 1km or 1% of the time. Thus unless you had your nose in front for 1km or 1 minute it doesn't accumulate - this will stop gaggle flyers from running out collecting the pts and then waiting for the group to catch up to find another climb.

Over to the programming experts and everyone else for comment.

Sounds a lot like GAP 2002 to me.

Another meaningless spat

Sun, Apr 9 2006, 1:14:42 pm EDT

Spat

Start before the first start time and your flight duration gets shifted to the first start time

GAP 2003|scoring

As we have done in numerous US meets and again recently at the Bogong Cup, we allowed pilots to cross the start circle line first without additional penalty other than the shift of their flight forward to the first start time. We feel that this is penalty enough.

Sometimes this is hard to do, especially with GAP 2003 as this requires manual work on the part of the scorekeeper. One way we've gotten around this is to have the start window open a half hour after the launch window, but with no fifteen or twenty minute time intervals imposed until one hour after the first launch time.

Everyone is aware that going in the open start interval is a disadvantage, as pilots can use you to mark the thermals with no penalty to themselves. The point of doing this is to encourage pilots not to wait at launch on windy days (yesterday they still did for twenty minutes) and to let less experienced pilots go through the start circle without additional penalty if they just can't stay up in it.

One pilot seems to have found this rule particularly offensive and in conflict with his principals of fair play. He wants an additional penalty to further encourage ("force") all start at or before the first start time (of course the top pilots most often wait for the last start time). He doesn't want someone sneaking way out in front of everyone. He also feels that everyone should have the same opportunity to get every start time.

Well, we aren't flying today, so we might as well make each other miserable.

Discuss "Another meaningless spat" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Handicapping the Sport Class

Thu, Dec 22 2005, 9:33:26 am PST

Handicap

competition|Exxtacy|scoring|Single Surface|Sport 2|Sport Class

All types of class 1 and 5 hang gliders can compete in the Sport Class. To make things as fair as possible a handicapping system is required to level the playing field, so that we are testing pilots against each other not gliders.

I have made a proposal for handicapping hand gliders in Sport Class. You'll find it here. It provides for three levels of simplification and you can choose what level is appropriate for your competition. For example:

The Real Simple System:

Distance Time
Rigid Wing 99% 101%
Topless 111% 90%
King Posted 138% 73%
Single Surface 179% 56%

The not as simple but fairer system:

Distance Time
Atos Vx/vr/phantom 95% 106%
Atos, C, V 100% 100%
Exxtacy/ixbo/stalker 104% 96%
Topless 111% 90%
High End King Posted/old Topless 124% 81%
Intermediate 131% 76%
Low End Double Surface 150% 67%
Single Surface 179% 56%

Single Surface: Falcon, Target, Atlas, others,
Low end Double Surface: Eagle, Sport, Super Sport, UltraSport, others,
Intermediate: Sport 2, Discus, Laminar king posted,
High end king posted/old topless: U2, LiteSport, Fusion, others,
Topless: Combat L3, T2, LiteSpeed S, C4, Laminar Zero 7, Talon, Climax, Stealth, Cheetah, Litespeed, Combat

Other schemes are possible.

The handicaps are all based on polars for the gliders listed. You can see how each choice is justified in the spread sheet provided at the URL above.

I would appreciate receiving any considered feedback that help me improve these handicap values.

Discuss "Handicapping the Sport Class" at the Oz Report forum   link»  

Contest scorekeepers

Mon, Jun 27 2005, 1:00:02 pm EDT

Please don't use PDF for Race output

scoring

PDF is not a standard. It is a format owned by one company. All programs that try to convert from the PDF format are inadequate. This does not allow the information in PDF documents to be transferred with some of its formatting intact to another media (like the Oz Report). This means that your contest gets less exposure if you use the PDF format.

In addition, the Race PDF output is quite poor. It doesn't include the pilot's hang glider manufacturer and model, for example. Manufacturers really like to see this information as do other pilots.

Please, use the automatic HTML output that is built into Race. Even better use my Race HTML templates that make for even better output. Email me and I will send them to you.

Discuss PDF at the Oz Report forum

Flytec USA Cross Country Contest

Thu, May 5 2005, 7:00:01 pm GMT

$500 for first in flex and $250 for first in rigid wing in the US.

Flytec USA|Flytec USA XC Contest 2005|HOLC|scoring

https://OzReport.com/9.097#0

The US rigid wing pilot who flies the highest scoring total of three cross country flights in the US gets $250, and the US flex wing pilot who does the same gets $500. Flights are validated by the HOLC. See the instructions at the URL above. Write to me if you have any problem with submitting flights to the HOLC.

Canadian Nats

Sat, Jun 19 2004, 12:00:02 pm GMT

65 miles? Is that all?

Canadian Nationals 2004|Chelan XC Classic 2004|Dave Scott|GPS|history|Mark Dowsett|scoring|Tom Pierce

Mark Dowsett «mark» writes:

http://www.dowsett.ca/cdnnats

We have had four tasks out of five days at the Canadian HG Nationals. The last two have been very close to 1000 point days with strong climbs to over 12,000’. Thursday we had a 111 km task which I think is our longest task in Canadian history with six pilots making goal.

The American’s are doing great - Tom Pierce has won a couple days (but he is the only rigid wing) and Dave Scott is kicking ass too - this is his first racing competition (he has flown the Classic) and is loving the conditions up here. He says due to the great flying conditions and our focus on teaching pilots how to use their GPSs in competitions, there is nothing else like this event in the Pacific North West.

(editor's note: Perhaps they can help pilots with GPS scoring at the CXCC)

2003 Team Challenge »

Thu, Jul 17 2003, 3:00:02 pm EDT

aerotow|competition|David "Dave" Glover|David Glover|GPS|NTSS|scoring|sport|Sport Class|Tennessee Tree Toppers|towing|USHGA

Jeff Dodgen <windgypsy@bledsoe.net> writes:

Team Challenge 2003 is September 21-27. David Glover will be the meet Director and Tim Meany will be scorekeeper. David is applying for USHGA regular and Sport Class sanctioning. The field will be limited to 70 pilots so register early ($125 early registration).

The Team Challenge has historically been a fun meet with a competitive edge. It is an opportunity for experienced pilots to mentor new pilots and new pilots to learn cross country and competition skills. David is planning a meet that will allow nationally ranked pilots to earn NTSS points. These ranked pilots will be teamed up with less experienced pilots interested in learning cross country and competition flying skills.

Scoring will be designed such that the more pilots from the same team that make it to goal and the closer the entire team makes it to goal, the more team points will be awarded to that team. This will benefit all by encouraging the current nationally ranked pilots to mentor and coach their less experienced teammates.

Distance to goal and time to goal will all be considered. Foot launching is the priority with towing available based on conditions.

You must be Intermediate (Hang 3) for Whitwell launch and have an aerotow signoff to aerotow prior to the meet. You will need a GPS for national point scoring, but will not be necessary for team scores. This is a good time to get a GPS and learn how to use it!

The Tennessee Tree Toppers will host a party the night before the competition starts on Saturday September 20th. A $10.00 donation will be waived for registered competition pilots, but otherwise required as this party will be catered.

The Awards Pizza Dinner will be held on the last night of the event at the dome. If you have some great videos - bring 'em. If you have some vintage slides - we'd love to see those too!!

Discuss "2003 Team Challenge" at the Oz Report forum   link»

WA state record - 185 miles

Wed, Jul 16 2003, 6:00:03 pm EDT

GPS|landing|record|scoring

Aaron writes:

The reason I originally provided Larry’s flight as 185 miles was because of the discrepancy between where launch is and where the Butte turnpoint is located. It was typical that pilots would show a bit longer flight on their GPS than would be recorded in the score system for the Classic because the Butte Turnpoint, used for measuring flights for the contest, is located at the towers, which is east of launch. On a flight to the east, or anywhere east of a southerly direction, the distance indicated on the scoring system would be shorter than the actual flight.

For that reason, it is fair to say that Larry’s score for the Classic indicated points based on the Towers to landing, but his flight was actually longer, more like the 185 miles that I mentioned. Larry should be able to provide the exact GPS distances from launch to landing, which is the true measure of a State record, not an artificial distance measured from a turnpoint some distance from launch to landing. Larry deserves every tenth of a mile he worked for on that flight.

Discuss "WA state record - 185 miles" at the Oz Report forum   link»

USHGA – the competition budget »

Wed, Jul 16 2003, 6:00:02 pm EDT

CIVL|CompeGPS|competition|cost|Dennis Pagen|finance|GAP|insurance|Ivan Twose|NAA|sailplane|scoring|SeeYou|site|transportation|USHGA|Worlds

The actual statement was: “The USHGA, in fact, inhibits competitions in the US (as well as helps).”

I don’t think that Steve and I have any argument here. He mentions a number of ways that the USHGA inhibits competitions and then goes on to come up with even more ideas than I came up with how the USHGA could help to promote competition. I think we are just arguing about words.

Let’s look at it this way. The USHGA has a competition budget of about $12,000/year. It takes all this money and gives it to the NAA or to fund our CIVL representatives. No money goes to support any of the ideas that Steve proposes above. All of the money goes to support a system that allows the very top US pilots to fly in the Worlds or set World Records. None goes to benefit the 99.9% of the membership that might actually take part in a local, regional, or national competition.

Now if there weren’t any good ways to spend that money that would encourage more competitions, then, okay, let Dennis Pagen have his playground. And let us select few get our opportunities to fly in the Worlds and set World Records.

But think about it. The USHGA could fund a seminar where Tim Meaney could train people interested in being score keepers. It could pay Ivan Twose for a license for CompeGPS for all US competitions and specify the changes that are needed to get CompeGPS and Race to work well together.

The USHGA could finance the development (to be paid back from competitions) of a version of SeeYou (the program now used for almost all sailplane competitions) that would incorporate Race, GAP, and other hang gliding scoring systems.

As Steve says above it could finance the mentoring of potential meet directors, scorekeepers, meet organizers. It could send around a meet organizer consultant that would help potential meet organizers get started.

It could eliminate the sanction fee, the deposit (under certain guidelines), and the site insurance fee for meets. All these would reduce the costs to pilots for entering meets. It could encourage meet organizers, by providing a subsidy, to allow new competitors to come to a competition at a reduced fee.

I’ll bet the major inhibitors keeping pilots from attending competitions are the difficulty in getting the time off work to attend and the costs: cost of getting to and from the meet, cost of lodging during the meet, cost of retrieval, and entry fee. More regional meets would cut down on transportation costs. If the USHGA provided support to meet organizers so that they could coordinate getting lodging and retrieval support to competitors, that might encourage more to come to meets. Using virtual goals is one way to cut down the costs that impact the entry fee.

The USHGA might even do a survey among its members to find out if they want more competitions, and what it would take to make them more successful.

All these things are possible if all our competition money wasn’t going into one pocket.

Discuss "USHGA – the competition budget" at the Oz Report forum   link»

No CIVL sanctioning for the US Nationals

Sun, Jul 13 2003, 2:00:04 pm EDT

CIVL|Florida|scoring|US Nationals

So no sooner do I propose that we drop all CIVL sanctioning for US meets, and then I learn that the US Nationals are not CIVL sanctioned. No need to send that $300 to CIVL. Mid summer flat land competitions in mid Texas are not designed to attract European pilots, so there really is little benefit in providing CIVL sanctioning.

What do we lose? Well I and other rigid wing pilots lose out on the opportunity to get WPRS points. Flex wing pilots also lose that opportunity, but as their WPRS scoring is decidedly more Eurocentric than the rigid wings, they lose out on a less fair system.

The one point in favor of CIVL sanctioning is that it may attract foreign pilots to US meets. There are numerous benefits to having foreign pilots here for our meets, besides getting our butts kicked. Still it isn’t clear that WPRS points attract them.

I understand that Oleg comes for the money (that’s how he earns his living after all). Forty percent of the foreign pilots that go to the Florida meets are Brazilians, and they hate the WPRS as much as I do. I’d guess that Manfred comes for the money. Perhaps others also.

Discuss CIVL sanctioning at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "No CIVL sanctioning for the US Nationals" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Competition Formats / Start times

Thu, Jul 3 2003, 3:00:03 pm EDT

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Angelo Crapanzano|cloud|collision|competition|Europe|FAI|gaggle|game|GAP|GAP 2002|Gerolf Heinrichs|GPS|Ivan Twose|midair collision|power|Richard Walbec|scoring|Thomas "Tom/Tomas" Weissenberger|weather

Angelo Crapanzano <angelo@metamorfosi.com> writes:

The pre Europeans is over and it was a good competition. The weather was varying but good overall and Richard Walbec was a very good meet director plus all the crew was friendly and willing to help (thanks a lot to everybody!) Unfortunately we lost what we discovered had been the best day ever in Millau: in this day a local pilot got up to 4700 m (15500 ft) while most of the competitors were blocked on takeoff by an unpredicted strong side wind.

This day Federico Bausone waited, ready for takeoff, for over one hour and fifteen minutes (with nobody pushing, of course), then the task was cancelled because there was not enough time for all the pilots to get the start gate. Fifteen minutes later the wind started changing and in half an hour it was perfectly straight but most pilots already packed the gliders :-(

As far as I know Millau was, both last year and this one, the only international competition using the GAP 2002 at "full power" (i.e. with the Leading bonus calculated from the actual tracklog of each pilot). Despite the scoring explanation was published besides the daily score, there were several questions on it; probably because pilots like to ask instead of reading and possibly because they know I like to answer.

I had the feeling pilots did like the idea of the Leading bonus when they exactly understood how it works (to know more have a look at my webpage www.metamorfosi.com and click on the GAP icon). On the first day Betiño did perfectly show how the leading bonus works: he started 15 minutes before the first gaggle, flew always on his own well in front of everybody but landed 4 km short of goal. Despite he was not in goal Betiño got the biggest leading bonus on that day to reward his early flying.

On another day Tom Weissenberger and Alex Ploner were for most of the task in front of the leading gaggle trying to escape but, just before goal, got stacked and the leading gaggle flew above them to goal. Alex and Tom got goal shortly afterwards with, of course, a worse time and less speed points but the leading bonus allowed them to reduce the loss of points as a reward for leading for most of the flight.

During the comp there was some discussion about start systems. Except on the last day, where it was set a pure race with single start for everybody, Richard always set a multiple start (mostly with 15 minutes interval but once 10 minutes and once 30 minutes). There was also a debate (mainly between Gerolf and me) about using a multiple start for everybody, except the first 20 in the general standing forced to get the central start.

This proposal come out because many top pilots prefers races but it was not felt safe to have 110 pilots taking the same start. Top pilots like races because it's more fun, they can fly in the same conditions, it's easier to know how one is doing compared to the others and it's also easy to control the opponents because everybody has to start at the same time.

I was strongly against this proposal because to set a different start system to some pilots compared the others is almost like to set a different task. All pilots in a competition are supposed to play the same game with the same rules but if we force the first 20 pilots in the total ranking to take a single start while the others can chose, we could end up with the same tracklog giving different points depending if the pilot was placed 20th or 21st.

To make it clear let's make an example with five starts every 15 minutes, from 14:00 to 15:00, but top 20 pilots have to start at 14:30. If a pilot placed in the first 20 is late and only manages to start at 14:45 he will be scored as he started at 14:30 while if he's not in the first 20 he will be scored as he started at 14:45. This means the same tracklog would bring to quite a different score and, in my opinion, this is not acceptable: all pilots are in the same competition and must play with the same rules.

Somebody says the priority on takeoff for the best scored pilots is already a different rule but I don't agree: it's just a "courtesy" - on the ground - to the pilots which are fighting for the top positions. Once in the air every pilot must follow the same rules!

Of course I do perfectly agree races are a lot of fun and easier to understand for everybody but, unfortunately, the risk of a midair collision gets quite high if there are too many pilots and there is an easy to get cloud base. The multiple start was invented after at the preworld in Ager '94 we ended up with 180 pilots waiting for the tarp in the same thermal for over half an hour: we were lucky enough not to have a midair collision but it was a nightmare!

Unfortunately it looks that pilots and organizers are too conservative and always want to do the same thing: in Brazil only races while in Europe only multiple starts but, in my opinion, in both cases it's not the best thing to do.

Let's analyze our possibilities: we can use three different start cylinders:

- start on Exit

- start on Enter without achieving the turn point inside

- start on Enter plus achieving the turn point inside

we can use four different in flight start time systems:

- Race start

- Free start

- Multiple start

- Open start. These, combined, give us 12 different options: some bad some better but, several, simply different.

Let's speak first about the start cylinder.

- Start on Exit Most pilots and organizers in hang gliding are used to the Start on Exit: normally it's a 5 km radius start cylinder centered on takeoff, where pilots have to be inside the radius just after start time. Pilot start time for scoring purpose is thus last exit from the cylinder (rounded to the previous start time interval which is usually 15 minutes). This system will somehow reduce the crowding only if the radius is quite big.

Unfortunately there is always a single optimum point where all pilots are likely going to met. With the Start on Exit pilots have to make a GoTo to takeoff then, after start, make a GoTo to the next turnpoint or activate the route which, depending on the GPS used, may require to press several buttons.

- Start on Enter without turnpoint inside this is mostly used in paragliding: Start is usually the first turnpoint and the pilot has to be outside of the start cylinder just after start time, then goes in and can immediately go for the next turnpoint without going to the FAI 400 m cylinder at the centre. This is not much different from the Start on Exit because there is still an optimum point where to make the start. However there are some problems calculating the correct task distance (Takeoff-StartCircumference-TP1) which shall be used instead of the distance calculated by the GPS (Takeoff-StartCentre-TP1).

- Start on Enter plus turnpoint inside this is the system we mostly use in Italy since this season and was often used at the pre Europeans in Millau: usually the start is the first turnpoint, with a big enough radius to have the start at a reasonable distance from takeoff. The pilot has to be outside of the cylinder after start time then has to go to the FAI 400 m cylinder at the center.

With this kind of start the pilot has to remember the start radius (which would be different on each day) but will only have to make a GoTo to the first turnpoint or just set the route. In this case pilots can, theoretically, spread along the whole circumference because any point of the start circumference is at the same distance from the turnpoint at the centre. Of course there would be better places than others depending on ridges, thermals and wind, but is undoubtedly more likely to get the pilots spread than with the other systems.

Giving this analysis, except possibly on some quite particular cases, the Start on Enter plus turnpoint inside should always be the preferred start cylinder: has no disadvantages, it's safer, gives more flight options to the pilot and it's the easier to handle with the GPS.

Now let's go to the start time systems.

- Race start this is for sure the simplest one: there is one single start for everybody. It's a lot of fun, everybody knows if he's doing good or bad and it's easy to understand both for pilots and spectators (are there any?). Pilots will fly in the same conditions and the fastest one wins. The pure race reduces the chance of a lucky start time but also eliminates the possibility to choose a better one.

This system gives to a pilot who wants to recover no options except to try to escape from the first gaggle by flying very fast and gives the pilot which is leading the competition the possibility to better control his opponents. The race will put all pilots at the start cylinder at the same time. This could be extremely dangerous if there are too many pilots and especially if cloudbase is too easy to achieve.

Of course there are systems to reduce the crowding which, in a proper day, could allow to make a safe race even with lots of pilots: should be a good day with good thermals and ceiling to spread pilots vertically, but little no clouds, start cylinder should be on enter plus turnpoint inside and wind should be at an angle to the Takeoff-StartTP direction to help the spreading along the start circumference. Start should also be reasonably far from takeoff (about 15 to 20 km) to reduce the crowding because some pilot would already bomb out and others would be late or low. Taking these expedients it would be possible to make a Race even with lots of pilots.

- Free start looks very simple and easy to handle but is totally unused: with this system the pilot start time is the last time he crosses the start circumference. Top pilots would need to wait forever (and bottom pilots would wait for them to go) because the best tactic is to wait for your opponent to start, then follow him after a few minutes and catch him. Being the tactic the same for everybody, all pilots will wait until it's almost too late to complete the task. This system is unsafe because we'll end up with lots of pilots waiting for a long time. Moreover we'll also waste the first part of the day and everything will end up later.

- Multiple start it's right now the most used system in hang gliding. Normally start interval is 15 minutes and there are 3 to 5 starts (half an hour to one hour). Pilots crossing the start circumference are scored as they started at the previous start interval. It reduces the crowding by spreading the pilots into several starts. Multiple starts also allow good pilots to play different tactics from his direct opponents to recover some places: one could start earlier and fly on his own to get more leading points or one could start later and fly fast by using the pilots in front. This system proved to be well suited on most conditions but this doesn't mean it should be the only one to be used.

- Open start this used by sailplanes and is a good option in some cases. Let's say start is open from 14:00 to 14:30. Every pilot starting while the start is open will be scored according to the last time he crossed the start circumference, while pilots starting after 14:30 will be scored as they started at 14:00.

With this kind of start is likely that several pilots will start as soon as they get cloudbase but the top pilots cannot afford to have their opponent starting just after so would likely wait for the start closing (14:30 in the example). If a good pilot has to recover he could risk to start on his own at start opening (14:00 in the example) and go for the leading bonus. In my opinion the start should, almost always, be 30 minutes long: shorter it would be useless and longer would oblige the top pilots to wait too much.

This kind of start is very useful in case of too much crowding (low and easy to get cloudbase for example) because most pilots would go away as soon as they are high and only the top ones have a reason to wait (but they are the ones which could handle the situation better). The Open start gets, practically, the same results of "forcing" the top 20 pilots to make a race (but using the same rule for everybody) but still gives a top pilot which wants to recover the option to play a different tactic from the others.

Conclusions: analyzing start cylinders format we ended up with the start on enter plus turnpoint in centre to be clearly better than the other possibilities but, speaking of start times, there is not a better one. We have to exclude the Free start but Race, Multiple and Open start have advantages one over the other depending on clouds, ceiling, wind and flight area. In my opinion it's simply wrong to use always the same system: all of them should be used depending on which one is better in the given day. They also test different pilots abilities and that's why, possibly, all these start systems should be used within the same competition: as a minimum it's more fun than playing always the same game :-)

Speaking about testing different pilots abilities, I've designed a system to be able to score an X-MAX task, with GAP scoring, within a normal competition. This way we'll test new pilot's abilities: to be able to find the best route and to correctly judge the day and himself (please don't tell me it's a matter of luck because I bet would be always the same in front…). Ivan Twose had not yet enough time implementing this but I'm sure it would be tested in Italy before the end of the season and would be ready next year.

Discuss competition formats at OzReport.com/forum/phpBB2

Discuss "Competition Formats / Start times" at the Oz Report forum   link»

2003 King Mountain Meet

Mon, Jun 30 2003, 10:00:01 pm GMT

altitude|beer|Bill Soderquist|boating|Colin Rathbun|food|Glen Salmon|GPS|John Woiwode|landing|scoring|Shannon Allen|sport|Stephen Rudy|Steve Benn|Tim King|triangle|weather|XC

Jon Woiwode <Woiwodejon@cs.com> writes:

Yesterday's great flying got the buzz going, and we all hoped for another big day to finish the meet. We were not disappointed. Winds aloft were forecasted to be 190 through 9000', with 250 and more westerlies clocking around at the higher altitudes. Route 1 is in its prime element with stacked winds at 220 from surface to 18000'. That maximizes the lift component along the range, and provides a nice quartering tailwind. Also, at about the 45 mile mark en route, the winds aloft on Route 1 always shift about 20-30° more westerly, providing an even nicer tailwind component for the dogleg across the gaping canyons to Salmon, the lofty goal of 100 miles.

But 190 low with 250 aloft is a bit tricky. The lift component on the range would be minimal, and often it goes easterly, rotoring those on the range and sliding the pilots out into the valley. Something to watch for. And where is the shear, and how strong? It is what it is when we get there.

The task committee calls Route 1, the proper call, and everyone is excited. The winds are surprisingly strong on launch, and pretty much straight in. Two Falcons launch from upper at 1300, and boat up in the very buoyant air. There is a mad rush to get on course.

I get off at 1330 and after dodging boating launch traffic, I hook a snarly thermal on a rock point and take it straight up at 900 fpm. Montana pilot Will Lanier joins with me at altitude, and we take that to 13000'. Looking good. I note the strong and distinct shear from the south to the west at 11,500'; this would remain throughout the flight.

My flying partner Steve "Bigfoot" Rathbun got behind some pilots in the queue, and got off about 20 minutes behind me. Too bad, as we really wanted to fly this one together. We did stay in touch the whole flight, though, and compared conditions along the range continually.

Will and I shot across Rams Horn Canyon to Mr. Nasty, but he only offered turbulence, so we continued along Sunset Ridge at 10,500'. At the high point of the ridge I hook a broken core to 12,700'; Will caught a part of this, but I leave him behind there, telling my self to move as fast as possible.

I cross the broad area in front of Pass Creek at the 13 mile mark, note the strength of the venturi in the pass as significant, then drive into Red Rocks. No lift. Hmm. Now down to 8100' (valley floor at 5500' or so) I polish the rocks on the corner of the venturi, with limited effect. I've caught up to Frank Gillette in his Falcon, and he and I are trying to sort out the lift component on the range. Pilots are finding that the 190 offers no lift component on the range, and the valley is starting to litter with gliders. I hug the range, no easterlies yet, and pull a thermal off the rocks that is moving directly along, not uphill, on the range to 13,000'.

The shear is sharp and turbulent as I go through 11,500', and the westerly headwind component strong at altitude, so I plan my course along the range to stay within 10,500 and 11,500'. I am able to move fast, though am surprised at the infrequency of lift; each real thermal is a long ways from the last.

Lofty and big shouldered, Mt. McCaleb (11,330') at the 25 mile mark offered only rough turbulence, so I skate over to the Three Sisters (11, 720-11,989'), 10,500' at the 30 mile mark. Holy smokes there was something here, but violent. The conditions made my instruments make unnatural sounds, only to loft me weightless in an uncontrollable spiral. Where was it??

I would alternate between trying to find the thermal and trying to fly out, using faulty logic such as "if I can just find the core, I can get through this and everything would be ok." Finally I said forget this, radioed to Bigfoot the bad spot on the range, and pushed further along, past Leatherman Peak (12,228') at 9500', gunning for Corner Mountain, the 35 mile mark, with the south tailwind.

When crossing a few canyons relatively low, I was able to note easterlies sliding out with my GPS. I am sure this affected many pilots, as I was seeing more and more pilots on the ground in the valley. Almost to Corner, down to 9,000', I definitely was getting an east flow driving me away from the range. The turbulence was terrible, and I called for landing winds. I also said this is the place, if I can get up anywhere in these conditions, it would be at Corner.

I found a sharp thermal that drifted with the easterlies, but I was unquestionably right at the shear point of east, south and westerlies. It was gut wrenching to hold onto and track this rocket, but I held it and she paid off: once I got the Aeros wrapped on a wingtip, she took me through all shears; it is not often that one sees 2000 fpm on the averager, but there it was and I rode this Atlas Rocket straight up. She bent back nicely to the west over the peak. I pulled out at 14,500' with plenty of altitude for the next crossing.

The next move is to bypass Mt Borah (12, 662', highest point in Idaho) to the west and glide the 10 miles across the broad valley to intersect with the range again at Dickey Peak (11,141'). Dickey is always a great thermal source; I hit it at 10,500' and was astounded to not have a trace of lift on the peak. Part of the problem was the 190 below 11,500'; Dickey is best with more west, and was just not producing.

I slid out in front of the peak and about two miles in front, I centered on a nice thermal that pushed me NE toward Victory Ridge. I topped at 14,000' and headed north on this beautiful 12 mile long knife edge ridge. This is normally our "free ride", as it usually faces into dominant westerlies and one hardly has to turn to zip along this leg of the flight. But with the 190 there was no lift component on the ridge, it overcast and shadowed for 20 miles in front of me, and even from 14,000' I had a sick feeling that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I glided for the next 15 miles without a peep out of the instruments, and flared and landed five miles short of Challis, 64.1 miles. Nuts. Shannon Raby landed three miles past me for 67, a few others in the area.

In retrospect, maybe I was moving too fast, but the day was a series of windows that opened and closed, and I got stuck in a closed window. I radioed to Bigfoot, who then slowed his flying accordingly, and 25 minutes later he over flew me at 11,500', in clear sunshine. It’s kinda like that sometimes.

Bigfoot played the cards perfectly for the next move: almost to Challis (70 mile mark), he hooked and drifted with a thermal over the piddly end of the Lost Rivers (here called the Pahsimerois). The drift had him right on course, making the dogleg in textbook style, climbing to over 17,000' drifting above Ellis. Perfect crossing.

He then glided along the deep and intimidating Salmon River canyon, holding altitude well, getting to the end of the canyon and looking at Salmon with 12,000' and a thermal. I was all encouragement: "Take any drift and get over the Continental Divide into Montana. Go go go!"; it was still early (1800) and he had a shot at a really big flight. But a rain cell formed to the NW and then moved in front of him closing his route, so he circled down to land east of Salmon for 101 miles. Nice flight!!

We got back to the awards ceremony being held at Sally's Ramshorn Cafe and Bar in Darlington, 10 miles north of Moore, at 2300. Everybody was there, telling great stories of their flights over flowing beer and Mexican food.

Scott Huber flew the farthest in his tailed ATOS, the only one to cross the Divide for 138 miles. Four other pilots landed at Salmon, landing at the Salmon rodeo grounds (106 miles) for the bonus LZ points. Salt Lake pilot Jeff O’brien did that flight in a king posted Predator. Montana pilot Karl Hallerman logged his first 100 miler! Great flights by all, really well done!!

I don't have the final placings at this writing, though my impression from the scene at Sally's is that placements were not all that important. It was another great day of big air flying, and the stories abounded.

Many pilots opted to land at the bonus LZ of the May airport, 65 miles, in order to secure those points. The open distance format is really great in this day and age of triangle contests. If we could just get rid of those disincentives to flying real open distance, the "bonus LZs", the scoring would reflect more of the true XC efforts.

An example of hundreds I could draw from, Teammate Salt Lake pilot K.C. Benn got to May at 15,500' and said, oh what the heck, the bonus points are probably more than I can get by continuing on, then circled down 10,000' to land at the airport! The idea is open distance XC, and disincentives should not be placed en route to dissuade one from doing his or her best. KC' s best was less than 75 miles to this point; he surely would have exceeded it if given the nudge in the right direction.

It was a great gathering of pilots from all over the country, and everyone had a great time in the big air. No injuries that I heard of, just a fair rash of broken downtubes, all related to misreading of winds on landing. There were fourteen 100+ mile flights, all flown during the last two days, and many personal bests: three of the 100 milers were first timers. They'll be telling those stories for years to come, with wide eyed gesticulations, and somewhere in the mix of words, a phrase like "there I was, no shit, thought I was going to die…" will surface, appropriately.

Rudy.Stephen.R <Stephen.Rudy@IGT.com> writes:

I was happy to see Jon Woiwode send in a write up about the King Mtn. meet. It did seem a little too negative about the call to go upwind on Friday the 20th. I think part of the task committee's thinking is that there were a lot of pilots there that just don't have the XC experience to be comfortable going over the back at King.

More than half the competitors didn't go downwind on Thursday when the mostly downwind route was called, so calling a task to push into the headwind it least got some of the recreation class pilots some miles.

I also don't know why Jon ignored my flights - he mentions Bill Soderquist and Zach Majors on day 2 making the bonus LZ at 89.3 miles as the best flights of the day when I flew 104 miles. On day 3 he mentions Bill, Zach and Shannon Raby making the bonus LZ at May airport - I was also there for the longest flights of the day.

In any case, the weather was great, the scenery is magnificent, the organizers put a huge amount of effort into making it a fantastic meet and they do it purely for the love of the sport.

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2003 King Mountain Meet

Sun, Jun 29 2003, 5:00:01 pm EDT

altitude|Bill Soderquist|cloud|Colin Rathbun|Daniel "Dan" Gravage|harness|Idris Birch|John Woiwode|Kristian Hansen|landing|sailplane|scoring|Shannon Allen|space|Tim King|Trent Brown

Jon Woiwode <Woiwodejon@cs.com> writes:

The day dawned beautifully clear, clouds starting popping early, and it looked to be a great day. Winds aloft were forecasted to be 290, Route 3 all the way again. Revolt was rife at launch; to heck with points and scoring, we're here for flying big distances, as safely as possible. Fortunately the task committee called Route 3, that issue was defused, and everyone was happy. Maybe they caught the drift, or the grumble, or maybe they just learned that yesterday's call was terrible as well as dangerous, but they did right today, and everyone was jazzed for real open distance.

As a nice aside, yesterday the town of Moore put on a great breakfast for the pilots and crew, free. There is also a portable shower system in the town park, a very welcome addition to the meet infrastructure. Many pilots camp at the town park. All are provided free. Some of the many reasons why so many pilots show up here year after year. And of course to fly the big air.

The west winds played havoc on launch, and forced upper launch to use "backside" initially. Backside King is a mammoth welded metal ramp one could launch a battleship off that aims the glider into a terrorizingly deep chasm. First pilots off the top fought their way all the way to the ground, and the rest on upper decided to wait until it might cycle into the front.

The next two groups from lower launch slowly got away in slow climb, and were on course over the back by 1400 hours. The westerlies continued to make launches difficult, some pilots reported waiting 40 minutes in harness, sweating liters, and it would be quite a while before the rest of the gliders could get off either launch.

Steve "Bigfoot" Rathbun and I got off lower launch and pulled it up off the deck together. Cloudbase was low, 13,700', but the sky was magnificently studded, and we were off to the races, Zach Majors and Shannon Raby with us.

We took our time crossing the broad Howe Valley, and pressed into the Lemhi Mountains. The sailplane pilots have always said the Lemhis are poor lift producers, and that was the case. Even though they had clouds, they were mostly dead soldiers. Bigfoot got low and worked into the faces, eventually going over the back of the Lemhis through a gap in the range. I picked lift out in front of the range, took it to 12,700', and crossed the range low at 11,800'. Whew.

The next crossing was the Birch Creek Valley, and it was sleeting. I flew to clear air space to the north, picked up zero sink, and got to the Bitterroot spur of the next range 300' off the deck. The lift was there, building from zero to a steady 700 fpm, and I crossed the next range in fine form, cloudbase timing perfectly for the crossing. But I was now entering one of the tricky parts of Route 3, an area known for its giant blue hole, and I tip toed through the sinky area holding onto every shred of lift. Montana pilot Dan Gravage flew in with me, and we flew together for the next 35 miles. Bigfoot was about 8 miles behind and holding altitude ok.

I kept trying to get onto the Continental Divide to my north, which runs straight east-west here at the 50 mile mark, but the 290 drift kept me away from it, so Dan and I worked the flats. We split up somewhere around Kilgore, the 90 mile mark, where I headed out over rugged lava terrain, trying to stay high and find a way to get north against the quartering NW.

The only way to get to Henry's Lake airport would be to essentially get up and cross the Continental Divide and stay on the north side, then glide quartering NE into the airport. Joe Evans said it was "like connecting the dots", moving cloud to cloud, and this was mostly true for my line of flight as well. I brought my ship into a pretty landing at the last possible clear space, Dan Gravage and several other pilots nearby, for 103 miles.

I was sure we were the farthest, feeling it was just impossible to get over the vast forest and the Divide given the conditions. But no, Bill Soderquist did it. In some of the finest flying I can imagine, Bill got over Sawtell Peak in the lee of the Divide, and stretched his glide and ground skimmed 20' off a small ridge for ¾ of a mile before flaring into the airport with 100' to spare, 113 miles. What a fine flight, and a superb example of persistence and flying skills. Joe Evans landed a few miles short of the airport in his rigid for 110 miles. Eight 100 milers were flown.

Numerous personal bests were flown yesterday, and I apologize for not having all the details for all at this writing; congratulations to everybody with wide grins this morning. Trent Rigler from Salt Lake flew 38.5 miles, his farthest before was 21 miles. Kristian Merwin and Peter Swanson flew their first 100 milers. Kristian ran over to me after I landed, and said "John, Dude!! I just got my first 100 miler!!!" Way way cool. He was still regaling pilots at the headquarters with the details of his flight, cryogenically preserved smile pasted across his face, catatonic glaze to his eyes, at midnight when I hit the hay. That is what this place is all about. Great flying.

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Chelan Cross Country rules

Sun, Jun 15 2003, 2:03:02 pm EDT

Chelan Butte|CompeGPS|competition|FAI|landing|photo|scoring|SeeYou|triangle

6.1 The final score for each pilot will be determined by summing his/her best four days' scores. There are six schedule flying days. There will be no make up days.

6.2 All scoring flights will originate from Chelan Butte and end as soon as the pilot lands. Pilots may make more than one flight each day. Only one flight per pilot will be scored each day.

6.3 Pilots will be awarded 10 points for each mile they fly.

6.4 Pilots may fly open distance, out-and-return, or triangle tasks as the pilot chooses and as warranted by the conditions.

6.5 Mileage is computed based upon the straight line distance from launch to the landing, from launch to turn point, and from turn point to turn point. Distance on the last leg of a triangle or the return leg of an out-and-return, is the distance along the line between the last turn point and the goal (whichever of the two goals that gives the pilot the greatest points).

6.6 Approved turn-points are listed in this booklet. Triangle tasks must conform to the Approved Triangles (of which there are hundreds).

6.7 A multiplier of 1.33 will be awarded to out-and-return tasks, a multiplier of 1.5 will be awarded to triangle tasks.

6.8 Pilots flying out-and-return or triangle tasks must complete at least 50% of the final leg of their task in order to qualify for the multiplier. Incomplete out-and-return or triangle tasks will receive straight line credit along the route flown, including turn points.

6.9 Completed out-and-return and triangle tasks can only terminate at either the Junk Yard LZ or the Chelan Airport (see exception below - 6.11). Completion of the task and landing at goal earns a 100 point bonus after mileage and multiplier have been computed.

6.10 After completing a triangle or out-and-return a pilot may choose to extend his/her flight by flying a further straight line course. The pilot must photograph the west side of the towers on Chelan Butte (FAI turnpoint photo between last turn point and straight line course) to complete the triangle and may then proceed out on course. The pilot not landing at goal does not receive bonus points.

6.11 Pilots may elect to change their task any time before turning in their report.

Like the XMAX meet, the pilots get to choose their task. And they can do this while in the air, changing it while on course. Now, of course, with GPSes the use of specific turnpoints for triangular and out and return tasks is not really necessary. You could use SeeYou or CompeGPS to optimize your task for example and then put in multipliers.

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X-MAX 2003

Thu, Jun 5 2003, 2:03:04 pm EDT

accident|Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Angelo Crapanzano|Christian Ciech|CIVL|competition|FAI|Flavio Tebaldi|GPS|Icaro 2000|Ivan Twose|Manfred Ruhmer|Mino Bricoli|Olivier Burghelle|PWC|record|safety|scoring|site|space|triangle|Valerio Canestrelli|weather

Saskia at Icaro 2000 <staffbox@Icaro2000.com> sent me this reflection on the XMAX meet.

Icaro's yearly competition in Laveno (Italy) was a great success In 3 days the 26 Flex wings flew in the Alps 3.060 km and the 16 Paragliders km 738 !! The longest flight (km 178) has been made by Christian Ciech on Laminar MR

Flavio Tebaldi, director of the meeting (on the left) Manfred Ruhmer, winner of the flex wings Olivier Burguelle, the president of the CIVL (on the right) who was very thrilled by the X-MAX formula and promised its insertion in the international PWC competitions (Paragliding World Cup)

The X-Max is now a FAI recognized competition.

The 3rd edition of the X-MAX trophy has given the free flight fans three marvelous flying days. Amongst the flex wings there were all the best national pilots, and the World Champions Christian Ciech and Alex Ploner as well as the multi adorned Manfred Ruhmer, the winner of the last X-MAX edition.

Amongst the Paraglider pilots there were other prominent names like Patrucco, Bottegal, Berta and Dondi as well as other very good local pilots.

Sunday is definitively THE “X-MAX” day!

The sky is spangled with very nice streets of cumulus under which the thermals are very generous. In these conditions the pilots are able to show their flying skills.

The hang gliders fly in overall 3060 km, with an average of 110 km each! While the paragliders fly in overall 738 km, with an average of 57 km per pilot!

The new way of doing competitions.

Read the sky, choose the route, fly fast and go far.

(editor’s note: We’ve been doing this for years and years at the Chelan Cross Country Classic. Triangle and out and return routes are heavily promoted in the scoring system. You can even go out again to get more points.)

In any other competition the important thing is to fulfill the flight task, which is indicated by the competition director, in the shortest possible time.

To win the X-Max competition, you need much more!!Flight skill is important but you must use much more your brain:

Be able to interpret the evolution of the weather conditions, decide your take off window, choose how and where to fly, decide if it is more convenient to fly a free distance, a round trip, a triangle alone, or with other pilots

Angelo Crapanzano writes:

Finally we have a free distance competition without retrieval hassles. It's nice to see it's possible to fly, in competition, triangles from 100 to 170 km and get back to goal in normal days, instead of tasks of 80 km where the fast pilots get goal in just over two hours but many pilots land out and have to be retrieved.

With the X-MAX format, pilots are flying more against themselves than the opponents and some brain has to be used: one have to fly the longest distance, but needs to get back to score high points.

In this kind of competition it's useless to follow somebody else trying to beat him on the final glide; pilots do fly often alone and to choose the best route is as important of piloting skills.

During the X-MAX most pilots get back in goal and are often quite happy because they got the maximum they could achieve in that day (it's not by accident that both last year and this one, several pilots made their own personal record).

In case are not satisfied they can only blame themselves like I did in the last day where I was not confident going forward, and made a "V" shaped flight of 160 km (which has been scored like a 110 km triangle) instead of trying a true 170 km triangle :-(

You probably understood I like this competition format, mainly because some "new" flying skills (which are not so important in classic competitions), are required.

It's the pilot to choose when to takeoff… and he cannot blame conditions were not good enough

It's the pilot to choose his route and cannot blame the task setter if it was too difficult or too easy

It's the pilot to decide when to go back toward goal and cannot blame anybody if he lands short

Maybe some good pilots will find this difficult, after many years of flying controlling the opponents, but good pilots learn fast and the ranking proves the good ones are, more or less, still on top.

A competition like the X-MAX is also safe and very easy to organize:

Safe because any pilot can respect his own safety margins and is not pushed to fly a task above his skills

Easy because it's enough to have a good map on a wall (… which was missing at Laveno), plus a good weather forecast and a computer in the goal field. Pilots go on takeoff when they want and do whatever they want.

Having paragliders and hang gliders together was not at all a problem; it was even interesting to note the differences in performances and flying characteristics (just note Patrucco, the winning Paraglider, would have been 14th in the hang glider ranking). Even in takeoff, despite different needs and limited space, there were no problems staying together and everything went fine. In flight we had no crowding, even above takeoff.

The X-MAX format proved itself and Olivier Burguelle (CIVL President), who came to check it out, is now convinced to use it in the Paragliding World Cup too. He asked me to modify the formula (which have been designed specifically for Laveno) to adapt it formula to any flying site and to be able to have an "X-MAX" day within a classic competition format.

The second requirement is already made, while the first one will be very soon and Ivan Twose will implement it into the next version of Comp-GPS. We'll check everything on May 24th during the Valerio Albrizio Trophy (in Laveno again).

Just a quick note: Manfred won (like always) but the "old guys" (read Mino Bricoli and Angelo Crapanzano) proved the experience is not for nothing and did well against the youngs.

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The speed value in Race

Thu, May 22 2003, 2:00:07 pm EDT

GAP|GPS|landing|scoring|site

I asked Angelo Capanzano about this problem with the displayed speed in the Race scoring program output. He wrote:

If you use the last versions of RACE2003 (this is in beta and the Race web site says not to use it) and Compe-GPS the speed shown is the average speed over the Speed Section (from Start to Arrival). If you use old versions of Race you may get the average speed from takeoff or somehow wrong results (maybe different in Race and Compe).

In any case the speed score is calculated using the time from Start to Arrival and is always correct, so it's more a kind of "cosmetic" problem.

Start is last crossing of the Start circumference (when entering or when exiting, depending how the Start is defined) and is normally "rounded" to the previous imposed Start time (usually every 15 minutes). Arrival is when first crossing the goal line (virtual or physical) or the circumference of the Arrival cylinder (centred on a turnpoint or goal).

Older versions of RACE and Compe were using the correct Start and Arrival times but the wrong Speed Section distance (for example from takeoff to goal, forgetting the Start and eventual Arrival radius), thus leading to wrong average speed.

GAP scorings use the speed section times to calculate Speed Points thus results are always correct, regardless of the Race or Compe version used. GAP scorings use the total distance (from takeoff to landing or goal) to calculate distance points and results are always correct too.

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Canadian PG Nationals »

Thu, May 22 2003, 6:00:06 pm GMT

competition|Graeme Henderson|Morgan Hollingsworth|Nicole McLearn|PG|scoring|Thayer Hughes

http://www.dowsett.ca/cdnnats

Day three:

Place Name Glider Nation km/h Total
1 GADD, Will, 17 Gin Boomerang lll CAN 16.15 464
2 MACCULLOUGH, Keith Apco Simba C CAN 356
3 BANISTER, Kyndel, 22 Apco Keara USA 308
4 RAYMONT, Alex, 35 Windtech Serak CAN 285
5 HERRING, Graeme, 10 Nova Aeron CAN 284
5 HEMINGWAY, Greg UP Trango CAN 284
5 EWALD, Joerg, 14 Firebird Hornet SP CHE 284
5 HOLLINGSWORTH, Morgan Aerodyne Shaman m USA 284
9 HUGHES, Thayer, 1 APCO Bagheera USA 272
10 JOHNSTON, Mark Nova Aeron CAN 261

Will was the only pilot to make the 25 km task. The displayed task speeds have been very slow (10 mph). As I recall, the Race scoring program doesn’t correctly calculate (or is it display?) the task speed, but actually displays a higher speed, because it doesn’t subtract the radius of the start circle. So the actual average speeds over the tasks would be even worse (see article below).

After three days:

Place Name Glider Total
1 RAYMONT, Alex, 35 Windtech Serak 1630
2 MCLEARN, Nicole, 5 Advance Sigma 5 1516
3 GADD, Will, 17 Gin Boomerang III 1507
4 HERRING, Graeme, 10 Nova Aeron 1493
5 MACCULLOUGH, Keith Apco Simba C 1434

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XMAX »

Fri, May 9 2003, 2:00:02 pm EDT

Angelo Crapanzano|Christian Ciech|CIVL|competition|Cristian Deacu|Davide Guiducci|Flavio Tebaldi|Florida|GAP|Giovanni Vitola|Manfred Ruhmer|Mino Bricoli|Olivier Burghelle|scoring|triangle|Tullio Gervasoni|weather

Angelo Crapanzano <angelo@metamorfosi.com> writes:

The X-MAX ended a few days ago. Despite quite a bad meteorological forecast we flew three days out of four.

First day:

1) Davide Guiducci (Litespeed 4) 80 km closed triangle

2) Mino Bricoli (Topless 3) 87 km 4 km short of goal out and return

3) Giovanni Martinuzzi (Talon) 63 km closed out and return

Second day:

1) Manfred Ruhmer (Laminar MR14) 113 km closed out and return

2) Angelo Crapanzano (Litespeed 4) 87 km closed out and return

3) Flavio Tebaldi (Laminar MR 4.2) 75 km closed out and return

Third day:

1) Christian Ciech (Laminar MR14) 180 km closed triangle

2) Manfred Ruhmer (Laminar MR14) 170 km closed triangle

3) Tullio Gervasoni (Litespeed 4) 164 km closed triangle

Manfred didn't fly on the first day because of the jet-lag coming back from Florida (and Christian flew quite badly probably for the same reason), but it was enough for him to win the X-MAX trophy (which only considers the best two flights).

With some of our problems with the Italian AeroClub resolved, this year the competition was also valid as second category event (all days valid) and the final results are:

1) Davide Guiducci (Litespeed 4) 2432

2) Angelo Crapanzano (Litespeed 4) 2067

3) Maurizio Bignami (Laminar MR 4.2) 1941

4) Mino Bricoli (Topless 4) 1874

5) Cristian Ciech (Laminar MR14) 1788

The CIVL president, Olivier Burguelle, was at the competition… and did help as driver too :-) He was very interested in the X-MAX competition format and quite satisfied with the results (practically without any need of organization we got long distances for the weather, no gaggles, no pressure on takeoff, pilots pushed to use their heads, almost no retrievals and everybody happy) and would like to push the idea in the Paragliding World Cup too.

Because of this interest, I've found a way to score the X-MAX format with GAP (or any other classic scoring program) and, very soon, it would be possible to score an X-MAX task within a standard competition using an X-MAX slightly improved formula, to consider flying areas different from Laveno. We'll live test everything at the end of May in an Italian League competition (again in Laveno).

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Birchip Results

Thu, Apr 24 2003, 5:00:04 pm EDT

scoring|Wesley "Wes" Hill

Wesley Hill <wesleyianhill@yahoo.com.au> sends in the results of the Birchip Flatter Than The Flatlands:

1 BARRET, Scott, 34 262
2 HOLTKAMP, Rohan, 26 257
3 OSBOURNE, Tim, 423 237
4 TELFORD, Brent, 554 231
5 LOWREY, Tony, 29 229
6 RICKARD, Jeff, 64 224
7 LISSENBURG, Peter, 28 220
8 PREST, Sam, 115 219
9 REES, Ian, 676 213
10 RUNDELL, Paul, 589 210

Gap was not used - details of the scoring system can be found at: http://www.netspace.net.au/~weshill/4sdoc.html. Contact <wesleyianhill@yahoo.com.au> for the files to implement this in Race.

Full results will be available at http://www.ains.net.au/~warwickduncan

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FAI Sporting License »

Tue, Apr 22 2003, 4:00:06 pm EDT

CIVL|competition|FAI|FAI Sporting License|Lukas Etz|scoring

Lukas Etz <Lukas.Etz@gmx.de> writes:

Okay it’s easy for me to check the pilots for having an FAI licence. But I am absolutely sure, that not everybody will have one. So there are two possibilities:

1. I can tell these pilots, that they cannot join the comp. Then I will hurt my competition (German Open) dramatically. (So it looks like it’s not longer useful to get the FAI cat 2 sanctioning.)

2. I can tell these pilots, that they are allowed to compete, but they will not be listed in the FAI lists (especially WPRS). But this will hurt the WPRS.

The image of the HG-WPRS list is not very good in the moment. If some very good pilots can’t show me a valid FAI licence they (certainly) will fall down in the ranking. Other (maybe non experienced) pilots holding a valid licence will climb in the ranking. The result is the WPRS ranking becomes even worse.

This doesn’t tell me exactly, what I should do with unlicensed competitors. Should I send them home, or do they just lose their WPRS scoring? Both ways are not looking very helpfull.

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The 2003 Flytec Championship

Sun, Apr 13 2003, 7:00:02 pm GMT

Alessandro "Alex" Ploner|Alex Ploner|Betinho Schmitz|Bruce Barmakian|Christian Ciech|CompeGPS|David "Dave" Glover|David Chaumet|David Glover|Flytec Championships 2003|gaggle|harness|Jon Durand snr|Kraig Coomber|Manfred Ruhmer|Paris Williams|Richard Walbec|sailplane|scoring|Worlds

The scores when they are done will be at:

http://www.flytec.com/flytec_champ_03/scores.html

On the first day David Glover arrives on a camel:

With another blue day predicted, and with the one forecast for weak lift (we don’t get Gary’s forecast until after the task is called), we choose a 40 mile task, that gets the fast guys home in less than an hour and fifteen minutes. We’ll have to make that a bit longer tomorrow.

We keep pilots nearby, but screw up and put them back through the start circle which makes it hard for CompeGPS to know when they really started. Also the start circle gaggle and the gaggle from the guys coming back from the first turnpoint gets a little too crowded.

With a 2 PM start time we open the launch at noon and most people wait around till almost 1 PM to start launching. I’m off at 12:45 as the first rigid wing, and the lift is light to the visible inversion at 4,700’. We’ll all bob up and down for the next two and half hours hitting the top of the inversion and finding lots of light lift.

The first leg is a short one up to Gator field to the northeast. The flex wings and rigids are separated into their own start circles which cuts down on the mayhem a bit. Some pilots take the 2 PM start window, but many hold back for 2:15 for the fastest flex wings and 2:30 for the fastest rigid wing pilots. We actually are low at 2:15, so we have to wait until 2:30 to start.

The lift is much better out on the course than in the start circle and it is a quick flight to Gators and back to Quest with lots of thermal markers from the earlier time slots. We are headed for Bay Lake to the southwest by the Green Swamp and there seems to be a bit of a hold up there as a lot of pilots are milling about. We jump in and out and find strong lift just to the south to get us up and near Seminole Lake glider port.

A turning sailplane does us no good and we have to find lift at the south end of the grass strip to get high enough to get around the turnpoint at highway 474 and 33 and then to the northeast toward Lake Live Oak. A good thermal greets us on the way and a lot of folks bunch up getting high enough to make the last turnpoint and hopefully get to goal.

I’m registering 14 mph out of the northwest, so we proceed cautiously toward goal working a few bits until it looks good to go. The field is crowded with faster guys and pilots who started earlier.

With too short a task, the day is over too soon. All (27) the rigid pilots make goal.

Rigids:
Pilot Elapsed time
David Chaumet 1:14:28
Alex Ploner 1:14:52
Christian Ciech 1:16:07
Bruce Barmakian 1:35:50
Flexies:
Manfred Ruhmer 1:24:08
Kraig Coomber 1:26:19
Richard Walbec 1:26:53
Betinho 1:29:26
Jon Durand, Jr. 1:29:41

I have to type these in myself, so sorry about not putting in the glider make. It’s in the scoring.

David conquers again on his La Mouette Tsunami, but this time Alex with his old harness (his new one was stolen) is close (today his harness didn’t fail like it did yesterday). Apparently David was a mile behind Alex on the final glide and came over the top of his head. That glider has some glide.

The top three rigid pilots at the Worlds in Chelan last summer are the top three pilots today.

The top three flex wing pilot today were the top three yesterday, in the same order. Four Litespeeds after the Icaro 2000 Laminar MR. Paris on the Aeros was next. Oleg was 13th.

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Start time

Wed, Mar 5 2003, 10:00:03 pm GMT

scoring

A useful innovation was tried this year in the Australian competitions. Unfortunately, it wasn’t presented well, nor named correctly, nor explained well, nor implemented well, but after a while (by the time of the Australian Nationals), it was working well. This is how it works.

In competitions you have a launch time and a start time. Pilots are allowed to launch as soon as the launch time is reached. Pilots are allowed to start the task as soon as the start time is reached. For example, the launch time might be set for 12 o’clock and the task start time might be set for 1:30. This gives everyone an hour and a half within which to launch, circle up, get high, and get over to the start circle circumference in anticipation of the start time.

Of course, not every pilot gets an hour and a half as it takes time to launch everyone. Also, an hour and a half is way more time than is necessary to get up and get over to the edge of the start circle so most pilots will want to wait to launch until later. Also, the launch time may be set too early for the conditions, so that pilots will need to wait to launch thereby making it difficult to get launched in time to make the first start time.

Meet directors and task committees need to have comprehensive weather data that gives them the trigger temperature and trigger time for the appropriate altitudes, so that they can make a good estimate of launch time and start time.

The innovation is to allow pilots to start the task before the start time, but to shift their flights so that their start time is shifted to the first designated start time. For example, if they start 15 minutes before the first designated start time, their entire flight is shifted to fifteen minutes later for score keeping purposes.

What this does is not give the pilot who leaves before the first start time any extra early departure or arrival points beyond those that they would already get from taking the first start clock.

What’s the point of this innovation?

First, it encourages pilots to begin launching with the launch window opens. Pilots will naturally want to wait around until it is the optimal time for them to launch, but, of course, if everyone does that then there is no optimal time for all pilots. Pilots want to see other pilots in the air getting up, but if no one launches then there are no pilots for other pilots to see doing well in the air.

By allowing pilots to cross the start circle before the start time opens, this innovation lets the pilots know that if they launch early and either on purpose or inadvertently start the task, they won’t be penalized by the scoring system. This is particularly true in windy flat land situations where it is quite easy to get blown outside the start circle.

Second, this lets pilots who don’t wish to bother with waiting around for the start of the time intervals that begin with the start time to cross the start line when they are ready. We usually have fifteen minute start time intervals starting at the first start time. This is to prevent start clock games among the top competitors. But, start time intervals add to the burden of less experienced pilots.

Third, leaving before the first start clock is usually not a benefit to the top competitors because they are out on their own without help from their fellow competitors who are waiting for the first start clock time. Also, they leave themselves open to being caught by their competitors, who may be only five minutes behind them. This, of course, was the point of the start time intervals to begin with.

So, in a competition, you would have a launch window time, an early start window time, and a start window time (when the start time intervals would begin). For example, 12, 12:45 and 1:30. Competitors could start launching at noon, and start crossing the start circle at 12:45 PM. The start window with 15 minutes intervals would start at 1:30 PM. All flights with start times between 12:45 and 1:30 would be shifted to start at 1:30.

In tow meets this would significantly reduce the stress on resources that are required to get pilots in the air. In mountain side meets this would also greatly reduce the stress on the limited launch area and would get pilots into the air thereby encouraging others to launch.

I’m interested in promoting innovations that help pilots and encourage competitions to be fun and easy for new competitors, but are also valid for seasoned competitors. I think this Australian innovation, if handled correctly, will be a benefit to all competition pilots, new and not so new.

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Bugs fixed »

Sun, Apr 30 2000, 3:00:00 pm GMT

scoring|Mark Mocho|Achim Mueller

Many thanks to Mark Mocho, who did the scoring at the Wallaby Open, for finding a bug in the just released Race 2000 scoring program. We brought it to the attention of the developer. Achim Mueller, the software developer behind Race, has already released a service patch for it. You'll find SP1 (size: 1.8 MB) at http://www.fai.org/hang_gliding/race.

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UK Meets

Tue, Jan 26 1999, 6:00:06 pm EST

BHPA|competition|cost|holiday|John Aldridge|news|scoring|site|Trevor Birkbeck

Jim Bowyer sent me news of the upcoming UK hang gliding meets:

The second leg of the British HG Nationals will be held in Monte Cucco Italy, from the 3rd July to 9th July this is 2 weeks before the worlds and just before the pre-Europeans which are being held just across the Austrian border. Any pilots wishing to enter the British comp in Monte Cucco should contact the meet director «john» and/or visit the HG comps website at www.theleague.force9.co.uk for updated information.

Other comps taking place early in the year are:

The British Open

This very popular annual, 3-day open competition is scheduled to be run in South East Wales over the early May Bank Holiday. Entry will cost £35 and be limited to 20 League and 45 non-League pilots with the remaining places allocated to the Ladies. To be eligible pilots must be at least Pilot rated and be current BHPA members. Selection for the non-league places will be by a draw held on 28th February and the result will be posted on this site soon after that date. Entry forms can still be obtained from the BHPA Office («office»). Pilots are reminded that the highest placed non-League pilot in the Open gets the opportunity to fly in next year's National Championships.

Places are very limited for this comp and early entry is advised - pilots should not turn up on the day hoping to enter.

National Championships 1999, 1st leg - Mid-Wales

The first leg of the 1999 National Hang Gliding Championships is a 5 day event and will be run on the Mid Wales and Long Mynd Clubs' sites from Friday 28th May to Tuesday 1st June. The competition base and scoring room will be in the Lion Hotel at Llandinam and Trevor Birkbeck has volunteered to by the local organiser. There are still places available for suitably qualified pilots to fly as guests in this leg of the championships. The entry fee is £37.50 and more information and/or application forms may be obtained from «john». It is advisable for any pilot wishing to take part to read the championship rules which are available at www.theleague.force9.co.uk .

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The Competition Scene

Sun, Jan 3 1999, 6:00:01 pm EST

competition|G.W. Meadows|GPS|Quest Air|scoring|Tim Cummings|US Nationals

G.W. Meadows is here in Florida this week making arrangements for the combined US Nationals and Atlantic Coast Championships at QuestAir (http:/www.questairforce.com/). He is likely to be using Tim Cummings program for GPS coordinates and turn point verification (as reported in previous Oz Reports). G.W. is a Mac man, as is Tim.

Tim apparently is making the program freely available to G.W., and perhaps he will continue this for other meet organizers. G.W. was having a Windows version of the GPS programs developed, but that is on hold while he awaits Tom's program.

I've been in contact with Mark Mocho, who will be scoring the Wallaby Open. He also wants to use GPS co-ordinates for turnpoint verification. Unfortunately, he uses a Windows computer. The Ranch has a Mac, so maybe he can use Tim's program on the Mac. He is trying to work that out now. If this all works out, there will be no need for turnpoint photos for US competitions. Hurray!

I'm also encouraging Mark to get with G.W. and share turnpoints and turnpoint photos for the two meets. They do start 20 miles apart, but what the hay.

G.W. says that the Nationals will be a lot of fun (if the Wallaby Open is anything like last year, it will be great fun also). He expects to make a number of additions to the Quest Air setting to encourage a good time by all.

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