Discipline
Paragliding XC
What do we want ?
I'm thinking... how to "force" pilots to fly more carefully and not just blindly pushing full bar in turbulent conditions or in general fly in turbulent conditions (rather to avoid it, or be more careful), which would in general increase safety in flying?
More careful flying and not juts the fastest flying (les safe), would be rewarded. E.g. fast/dangerous flying would be risky and penalized if got in to a trouble. (like car/bike racing. Getting off the road ("exit sand zone"), doesn't immediately mean you will crash or end up, but it will slow you down. Or fully stop, if severe).
This would put pilots more into the safe mode flying, rather than dangerous flying.
This would be possible only if the trackers and GPS instruments are good enough? As I believe, we have possibilities to have (much) more than 4 points/s in tracklog resolution in mostly all newer instruments. Therefore, this should be possible.
More careful flying and not juts the fastest flying (les safe), would be rewarded. E.g. fast/dangerous flying would be risky and penalized if got in to a trouble. (like car/bike racing. Getting off the road ("exit sand zone"), doesn't immediately mean you will crash or end up, but it will slow you down. Or fully stop, if severe).
This would put pilots more into the safe mode flying, rather than dangerous flying.
This would be possible only if the trackers and GPS instruments are good enough? As I believe, we have possibilities to have (much) more than 4 points/s in tracklog resolution in mostly all newer instruments. Therefore, this should be possible.
How do we achieve that ?
To achieve that, we could implement a safety feature - sudden loss of altitude -> penalization.
Also, the scoring software must be able to recognize that sudden height loss without "much" horizontal speed .. (just an example: e.g. .. V =-5m/s & H<10km/h).
That would mean that you had a major collapse and you are recovering the glider. On top of that. If the time of descent would be grater than "e.g. .. 10s", you have 0 points. Not only to force pilots to fly safer (and prevent collapse/penalization), this would force pilots to throw the reserve earlier.
Also, the scoring software must be able to recognize that sudden height loss without "much" horizontal speed .. (just an example: e.g. .. V =-5m/s & H<10km/h).
That would mean that you had a major collapse and you are recovering the glider. On top of that. If the time of descent would be grater than "e.g. .. 10s", you have 0 points. Not only to force pilots to fly safer (and prevent collapse/penalization), this would force pilots to throw the reserve earlier.
Issue category :
Comments
I see the good intentions behind this idea, but I believe is trying to micromanage a situation that from its nature is the most chaotic in our sport, and some times not a pilot's fault at all....
At lot of collapse do not happen when going straight on speedbar, but when thermaling or prospecting. That would penalized those people even more, when they didn't even took a particular risk, but got a surprise collapse (and they are always a surprise, unwanted!). This would be unfair.
Pilots fly in their confidence zone. They don't want a collapse! When there is a collapse, it's unexpected and sudden.
We use speedbar and 99.9% of time everything's fine because we use it in our confidence zone.
If it's turbulent, we release speedbar and adapt. Because if we get a collapse, we'll loose altitude and take time to recover direction. In the meantime, other pilots will pass in front. So having a collapse is already a penalty in itself. Giving points penalty on top of that is not helpful.
Your idea of "careful flying" starts on the principle that pilots are "blindly pushing full bar". I think that they are not idiots, but are overall in there confidence zone... because usually no collapse. See: risk homeostasis theory.
So we won't fly slower because they might get a collapse in 0.01% probability.
Pushing your idea further would be to remove speedbars, but that would be way less fun. Also they could be helpful for security in case of wind increase so we need them.
You don't throw rescue because you risk 0 point, but because your life is in danger and you're not in control anymore.
You don't give 0 points because rescue took time to open. Pilots already have way less points than others anyway when task is not finished.
We should encourage people to fly well like the best pilots : without collapse and making use of speedbar appropriately. That will give you more points.
Not the fact of being afraid of losing points.
We should also train pilots how to react in case of collapse (SIV). And maybe that should be mandatory on some comps.