What contest formats do you use?

[slozuke]

In my club we usually fly the same old formats (3, 5, 7, 10 min. tasks, etc) and throw in landing points. Gets kinda boring after a while.
I saw an interesting contest format in another thread and started wondering....I wonder what other creative formats does anyone use to make things a bit more interesting? I like the idea of longer flights too because part of what I miss with the whole contest idea is, flying.

It seems to me the term TD (thermal duration) is lost on a 3 minute flight. I mean, what kind of duration is that? Unless you're marrie....um...getting off topic. Okay, so what other kinds of contest formats do you guys use to keep things a bit more interesting?

Kinda sounds like a married persons bedroom conversation, doesn't it? There I go again....

[nuevo]

lots of ideas covered in this thread

R/C Soaring Tasks (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=810189)

[Robglover]

Our club has tried a bunch of different formats the last couple years. They are all fun, but some haven't been tried a second time. Nothing wrong with that, we still had fun and learned.

My favorite was a 5 round contest with 5 pilots and 5 different planes. Everybody flew each plane 1 round. The rounds were all 10 minute duration with spot landing. The owner of the plane could opt to time for the pilot if they were nervous. Fun was definitely had, no planes were destroyed.

[AcintSpec]

Try the 3 or 5 minute task(s) without the pilot looking at a clock or hearing from the timer (No Peek). Has to figure out on his own when it is time to land. Those old FF guys seem to have the best internal clocks for this. Timer assists as normal without calling out any times to the pilot during the flight.

r/gene

[tonyestep]

We once had an event that combined speed, distance and thermaling in one flight. You launched, and your working time started when you came off the line. You flew back behind the launch point, then upwind to a mark 200 meters away, then back; after you completed the 2 laps, your flight was timed. So many points for finishing the 1st half-lap, so many for the 2nd half-lap, then a point per second, plus a landing score. Had to land before working time ran out to get the landing.

A really GREAT event that tests the pilot in many ways, but the logistics killed it. You had to have a guy at the upwind marker, and you have to keep track of flight time and working time, so you need 2 watches on each flyer. We never did it again, but it was a noble experiment.

[IBWALT]

We have a contest that can be interesting at times. We do a 7,9,10,12 or you can use whatever progression you like. After you launch you have to declare within 60 sec. which task you will fly. If you do not declare which task you are going to fly your time counts toward the longest uncompleted task.

We have also done a variation of the task that Tony just wrote about. You launch and enter the distance course. You have X number of minutes to make the most laps possible. If you encounter lift on the course you can thermal to gain alt. to make more laps but when your time is up that is it. We don't fly it much anymore though. Takes to many people to work the pylons.

Walt

[Robglover]

There are a lot of really cool things you can try if you have a lot of help.

I've found that every helper you need may be one less flyer that is participating and having fun. My preferance is to keep the logistics to a minimum and flying to a max. We've got several good tasks that require only a pilot and a timer for each flight. I tend to use them mostly. It's fun to throw in something new every now and then, but simplicity is a key requirement.

[tonyestep]

Bubba is right. The king of glider contests is XC, and we'd all do it all the time if you could do it without actually traveling around with a pickup truck and three helpers and a half-dozen officials and a bunch of untraveled roads and a lot of safe out-landing places and so forth and so on. Tasks that involve speed and/or distance, or other twists on ordinary TD, are cool, but where do the helpers come from?

I flew F3B at its inception, but our club just didn't get into it. TD is too easy -- a watch and a landing tape is all you need.

The HL guys in our club have the ultimate simple contest: AULD. One guy goes 3-2-1-GO and they all throw. You can do it any time, no equipment needed. It's like landing for quarters; all you need is a hat (and a pocket full of quarters).

[OVSS Boss]

XC is really the King, too bad it is so much of a logisitics nightmare.

But Oh what fun!!!!

[aeajr]

We have has a ew that were fun.

First is the Big Sky Longest Duration Contest. Runs all year. The goal is to achieve the longest flight possible. We have 7 classes and we publish the standings ever week. The top 5 times are reported. Starts January 15 and ends December 15.

We have done things like 6, 8, 10. You fly them in any order you like. When you land, you decide to which task you will apply that time. A combination of soaring skill and strategy.

There is add-em-up

[dlgdude]

We run a task on occasion that's really a bunch of fun, especially for those new to contests. The task is 4 rounds and the object of the duration is to land on a whole minute between 3 and 12 minutes. The trick is that the scoring is dependent on the duration flown. A three minute flight is scored 700/300 (flight points/landing points) and the 12 minute is scored 990/10. (with various increments for every whole minutes between 3 and 10)

The idea is that the longer you fly, the less critical your landing is.
After flying this, we did implement a rule that you could not fly the same duration time twice. (just to spread out the scores some)

It makes for a nice, low-key club contest format...

-l