A new form of racing

I was mulling over the problem that our sport has in getting acceptance from the public and the Olympic committee and I had the germ of an idea.

Has match racing been tried as a form of Soaring?

Launch both ships and open a start line at a given time like a dinghy race. First man home wins. Start and end heights should not differ by more than n feet - to prevent us 'going technological' ie - 120:1 ship costing n million.

Set a task limited to between 50 and 150 km depending on the weather, the idea being the event should complete in either 1 hour or perhaps even 30 minutes - a regular TV slot. Keeping it close in makes telemetry simpler. Perhaps tasks based on the ones that emerged( blazing cow tasks ) from the recent UK foot and mouth season might be a good idea. Actually they were quite fun, never more than 10 km from home, tight turns at the apexes, frequent rtb.

The elimination rounds could be a 3 day regular gliding competition with say the top 10 taking part in a round robin of match races. Round 1 ( 1 race against each entrant ) picks the top 3, round 2 ( 3 races each ) picks bronze and the last round ( best of 3 or 5 ) picks silver and gold.

Fitting the ships with leading edge telemetry would make it a lot easier to track and display spectator stuff in realtime.

It might have to be a one design race but I don't think so.

Any thoughts on this or has winter just been too long?

50 km is enough, if the finish actually higher, than start.

Pretty interesting. We're going to try it here in Estonia.

Regards, Kaido

Mmm...

Not stupid idea... There is an olympic glider already, relatively cheap to afford by many (this 'damned' PW-5). Every idea is good if it leads to promotion of our hobby.

Best regards,

You said it yourself

Get the mighty Ventus out of it's trailer, start soaring and clear your mind.

We discussed this here a couple of months ago. I raised the question of whether this should include the same agressive use of the right-of-way rules that you see in yacht racing. One person said 'hell yes!'. I noted that the gentleman concerned makes his living from repairing gliders
http://groups.google.com/groups? threadm=20020111200858.11221.00000787...

Yep we have tried it!

A few years ago when looking for 'challenges' with our new olympic glass (yep PW5s!).

We dual towed and started off tow. Great fun! If we couldn't dual tow then first tow went high and second tow was taken to where first glider was. Short straw for who went first!.

It really brought out the fact that racing pilots needed different skills! Ie no real choice about what part of the sky. No waiting for a 'good' time to start. No gaggling!!!(other than with the other guy...)

Excellent - would recommend it as something different requiring its own skilset.

talking about me while saying:

Except that in match racing the biggest advantage a boat can have over the opponent is to be just upwind of the competitor (in upwind legs like those from the start) and disrupt the air flow over the opponents sails. The key time to get this advantage is at the start ... I can't really see this kind of advantage working in gliding match racing. Especially as being ahead of the competitor means that they get advance warning of lift/sink

An alternative would be to make the match a two (plus) race series with a minimum 10 minutes between starts

You get collisions even in match racing. In fact, the whole *tactics* of match racing is to rely on the right of way rules

Ian,

I think this type of contest would be fun.

In the late 80's I tried to get support to try matchplay racing in our club in Scotland. It never got off the ground I am afraid but we got as far as getting 8 pilots to agree to an elimination competition similar to a squash or tennis club ladder. The first 4 pairs had until a certain date to fly a single matchplay race over a task of their mutual choice. They would formate and start together at the same height and the winner would be the first home according to handicapped time. The winner would go to the next round etc. For various reasons people just didn't get round to flying it (poor weather - better things to do on the good days - perceived difficulties of contests between gliders of different performances - pilots wanting to flying bigger tasks than others for the main club ladder contest and trophies) but I still think it would be worth trying.

Two comments.

Matchplay racing only really would work properly between gliders of the same performance/handicap - otherwise the tactics of using the handicap differential would become predominant. (The higher performance glider would have no choice but to lead for at least the latter part of the flight and the lower performance glider would inevetibly leech.)

Would it worthwhile having trials of matchplay flying as individual pairs or as small local contests (such as above) to see whether it is fun and competitive before going for a big contest of the type you describe?

How about 'Bow Tie' tasks with the competitors starting one left, one right?

At 11:18 13 March 2002, John Galloway wrote:

I just saw this kind of racing for hanggliders (on extreme TV). It seemed a bit hazardous, especially when one pilot hit the ground with the wingtip at about 100km/h... Apart form this safety issue it sounds good. Something like this already tried for the club contests (everyone had to start in the same time) as I remember. The contest what I saw was organized in the mountains and it made the whole race visible. On the flat areas this kind of race can not give you the same entertainment. Regards,