Discussion Proposal of additional tasks for F3K, from Denmark

[Thermaln2]

Originally Posted by GaryO

Mattias (Quote)

"Another thing that will differentiate the scores more is to only use the throw out round up to 5 rounds. You brake an airplane or you have some missfortune once but not 3-4 times in a weekend."

I can't imagine a Formula I race where a team would whine about breaking a car or having a "misfortune", can you?

I'd think that, in general, when a pilot is an innocent victim of someone else, it would be appropriate to allow the pilot to refly in a later round. A situation that I can visualize that would require a "refly", not a throwout, would be if a plane is thrown through a glider on launch. In that situation allowing a refly would be more appropriate than a throwout, IMHO.

Gary

Gary, Mattias,

Your comments would make a very interesting thread on t its own. Personally, I would agree with you regarding throw-out rounds. In many other forms of competition where a competitor relies on a piece of hardware, no matter how complex, failure of the hardware does not justify a “do-over”, as a throw out round implies. It is the responsibility of the competitor, or the team manager/helper/mechanics, to know that the hardware had been thoroughly maintained for their use. I agree, Formula 1 racers would not complain, but one reason they do not is because by the time they get a new piece of hardware to repair what they had, all the other competitors have a sizable and un obtainable lead. I liken our F3K more to bicycle racing, i. e. the Tour De France. In that race, a competitor is not really out of the race, but they can continue to score time after replacing the flat tire or other damaged bicycle with a replacement. They have many replacements. It is then the job of the competitor to no repeat an issue which will cause of loss in points, but still perhaps try to overcome the losses by better cycling, endurance and strategy. I see a lot of parallels to our sport.

If a sufficient number of rounds are made, like 15, there is considerable time for the competitor to exhibit his skills to retake the lead. In short contests, like 4 rounds, a plot might not have sufficient time to overcome an issue. But if a pilot truly maintains his plane, plane issues should be minimized and then they should win. If a pilot can average good flying, consistent and solid flying, even it if is not the best in every round, the pilot should deserve to win because they made sure everything was prepared thoroughly.

Now as to innocent victims, there are none when planes are flying. I have previously asked what happens to the pilot or timer that is personally hit on launch, and here I would say yes, they could not get out of the way, and deserve a reflight in another group. However, if a pilot is flying over the launching area, they are taking their chances regarding being hit by a launching sailplane. In some sense, this is a safety issue, and I can see the launching pilot being assessed penalty points perhaps. We do the same thing when a pilot hits a car or another item in a no-fly zone. However, the flying pilot (the one hit) chose to fly over the launch area. Likewise, a flying pilot chooses to land where he lands, chooses to try to avoid hitting a pilot on landing, and chooses to avoid other issues when he flys into/over the flying area. If he feels it is too much of a risk, then he should land elsewhere. I think the pilot needs to know that they are taking risks. I do not think that we should coddle a competitor, as suggested. And I do not think a throw-out round should cancel the poor tactics or risk taking of a pilot.

As you can see, this is really an issue a new person or expert has to deal with in order to be successful.

Chris

[cptsnoopy]

Originally Posted by tom43004

Anything less than three minutes isn't a duration flight anymore to the top pilots anyhow.?

Hookay.... If you say so. I watched a heat at the 09 IHLGF with top pilots wishing they were gonna break one minute.

Some heats your statement might be correct. Some other heats, calling 2 minutes in a poker round will net zero flown by the top pilots. Fun to watch them scramble when the sink is heavy.

Charlie

[M Seid]

prelast....

that should be the new name for 2nd to last and last. Mattias G, you get the credit for that tagline. Im going to use from now on.

As the organizer and chairman of the ihlgf, I would like the bredth of tasks expanded, even if it is along variations current theme. I think our contest would be event better if the committee could choose from a menu of 15 tasks rather than from the current selection. Variety will help the contest feel, differentiate and tailor the tasks to field conditions and the selection of the task for the time of the day, and generally keep things very fresh, and the pilots mind active. I leave it up to those that are more passionate about the debate and challenge them to avoid the vortex of RCgroups and recognize that the contest organizers hands are pretty tied up with the current list and more tasks would improve contest quality. Sunday kind of feels like saturday. If you are a pilot in this discipline, you should already appreciate the intensity of a contest with great round variation. DLG tests a wide selection of skills. The number of tasks could be increased to test in even greater range of those skills. Many good suggestions have been put forth, keep them coming.

[M Seid]

My point is that we need more tasks.

[Richard S]

I don't have any issue with throwout rounds. They promote aggressive flying.

With or without throwouts, the same pilots will end up at the top. However it does mean if you have a couple of dodgy rounds at the beginning of a weekend event, you dont have to pack up and go home because your chances are ruined.

However if we do want to see greater separation in the scores at large events, allowing only one disguard would save having to start fiddling around with the task rules.

[oakman7004]

Tougher tasks...my vote for 3*5 min!

/J

[Peter Aanen]

I also like the idea of 15 minutes working time and tougher flyingtasks. During contests quite a lot of flyingtime is lost due to changing groups.

It would however be nice if all rounds would last 15 minutes then. This would need a change of all the tasks however...

The 3x5 and the 5x3 would also be tactically interesting!

[jcats]

Fly more rounds during the day but you want longer rounds???

15 mins is too long.
5 minute flights are boring. (depending on time and conditions)
I got into DLG contest because of the busy activity during the contest. It was interesting to see the strategies.
Is the evolution leaning towards longer flights-- like TD?
Are we gonna have precision landing soon? Although that may not be a bad idea.

In my humble opinion.
Jun

[Alex Hoekstra]

I think 10 minutes working time is enough also. Beside that after 10 minutes of timing often 10 minutse of flying follows directly. You can only keep your concentration for so long.
I think there are enough task to think of that can be flown in 10 minutes.
for example
2x a.u.l.d 5 min max
Last 2 flights 5 min max
last flight 10 min max
last 3 flights 3 min max
2 flights max. 1 x 6 min max. + 1 x 4 min max.
2 flights max. 1 x 7 min max. + 1 x 3 min max.
Last flight 7 min max.
first and last flight counts 10 min max.
first and last flight counts 5 min max.
I think those task will give separation enough

What i would like to see excluded are task were you are penalized with lots of points were you only miss a few seconds of flying time like increasing and poker.
These task can be fun to fly in a local contest but shouldn't be flown in European or worldchampionsships and qualifing contest.

[Richard S]

Hi Alex,

Your suggestions sound reasonable. I too agree that 10 minutes should be a fixed slot time for all rounds (maybe the flyoff an exception)

I would support them all as an addition to the current rules, but not as a replacement.

[gjensen]

Okay, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and I may have missed something here, but what's wrong with the current point separation? Should Olympic sports like track & field and swimming be redesigned because there are only hundredths of a second between first and fifth? I gotta tell you, I feel better about losing by 10 points than I feel about losing by 500. Either way I lose, so what's the big deal?

Just wondering.

Cheers,

Gary

[Oystmyr]

One issue with small separation is that it will be more critical with judgement of your flight. As some of our tasks have limited times there will be alot of 1000 points. Then we have the turnaround tasks for instance 5x2min. The catch and launch should be judged by some official and we can see a difference of maybe 5sec due to the full second counts. 5s in a task like that is 8,4 points. That can make a podium spot or not just by the measuring error.

Another personal thing is that I don't like sports where I can only loose points. Look at F3J where at launch line I'm expected to fly at least 9.55 and land 100p to still have the chance of a final. If I'm not reaching full time I can only rely on the throw out round, no chance to recover my lost seconds.

In F3K we haven't come there yet. There are few comps where the winner have filled the times in all rounds but in two years there will be more pilots meeting the maximum times and less separation.

Regards
Mattias

[GaryO]

Richard,

You said: "I don't have any issue with throwout rounds. They promote aggressive flying."

In my view, they promote reckless flying, in that the flyer has no penalty for the risk he takes.

Go a little farther downwind, fly a little closer to the trees, no worry, if it doesn't work out, I'll use a throwout. In my view, if you can't get back, or hit the trees, it's pilot error, pure and simple. Poor judgement should not be rewarded.

Gary

[tom43004]

Originally Posted by GaryO

Richard,

You said: "I don't have any issue with throwout rounds. They promote aggressive flying."

In my view, they promote reckless flying, in that the flyer has no penalty for the risk he takes.

Go a little farther downwind, fly a little closer to the trees, no worry, if it doesn't work out, I'll use a throwout. In my view, if you can't get back, or hit the trees, it's pilot error, pure and simple. Poor judgement should not be rewarded.

Gary

Amen again.

[Fly2High]

Mattias,

I couldn't agree with you more.

I feel that there is so much talk about how critical it is for a timer to be right on the ball. Any error on thier part be it a slow reaction time, jumps the gun a bit, etc. can take a guy out of or into the winner's circle.

Phil's test of showing how multiple timers all got different results for a given flight suggests that if we do not make it more challenging, a contest will eventually be won or lost or a person's placement decided by how their timer behaves with the stopwatch. Granted, it wasn't much difference but if skills continue to improve, it will become more and more of a factor. Your placement should be based on your flying skills not how they were measured.

The deviation of the accuracy of the timer should be much smaller than the deviation one gets from flying a task. So if a top flyer can score a 595 +/- 2 out of 600 points for a 5 x 2min but the timer can vary by one second per throw * 5 throws, then the task is too easy. The timer can vary more than the pilot for timing the task.

In order to take out error by the timer, less flights per round need to be done or more challenging flights need to be done. this way, the role of the timer (and their error) will be removed or made smaller than the deviation in completing the task.

Having 'official timers' still doesn't guarantee that all timers will result in the same timing for a given flight. The tasks need to be chosen so that there is natural separation and the deviation caused by timer error falls off into the noise.