Traces from MATS Summer Soar

[cgroves]

Had a great event in Montreal on Saturday, managed through some luck to take first place in the event (unfortunately it was bad luck for a few fellow flyers). The weather was strange with very steep lapse rates but strong winds kept big bubbles from forming so it was a lot of flying "scraps". We had two damaging accidents involving Ken's Sapphire (which he assures me he is fixing) in a mid-air collision and a Bubble Dancer damaged on launch. Hope to see everyone out at the end of July for the Montreal two-day.
Here are the event traces:

[Tom Hastie]

Congrats on the first place! :)

How does the scoring work at these things? is it pure duration? or is there something else in the mix.

Tom

[cgroves]

Thanks, I was really happy with how things went. Could have used a few less accidents happening to Ken, etc but it was a good event overall.

As for the scoring it depends to a certain degree on the event but they all have a few common elements:

Precision duration - You aim for a target time for each flight set by the contest director. Longer times if the conditions look good and shorter for poor weather. People should need a really good flight to make the target time but on good days there are practical limits to the target times. The time is from when the glider comes off the winch line to when it touches the ground. You get one point per second up to the target and start losing one point per second after the target time. For example, with a 7 minute target time a 6:45 flight would net you 405 for 405 seconds, a 7 minute flight would net you 420 while a 7:05 flight would score 415. Common target times are 7 and 10 minutes.

Landing points - You find different sizes and shapes of targets but at ORCC the common one is a 25 meter tape secured at one end and marked in meter intervals. The distance between the secured end of the tape and the gliders nose is measured when it comes to a stop. 100 points for within one meter, 95 for within 2 meters, etc.

The two scores are then added to give your score for the round. The round scores are then either normalized to 1000 points for each group in the round (which I like) or simply added directly to your total event score (normal ORCC scoring). You usually fly 5 or 6 rounds and then the winner is determined by total score. ORCC runs two classes sportsman and expert.
Clear as mud?

F3B class competition is much more complicated involving a distance task, speed task, and duration task and is known as the Formula 1 of the glider world. Very little F3B in Eastern Canada due to cost and need for a lot of scoring staff. F3F and F3B planes are some of the fastest models around, including jets.