sport enhancement

As a fellow designer, I can only say that so far the evidence (experimental and theoretical) that I observed on my end converges with Luc's presentation, which I think is brilliant. The CESS seems to solve the challenge of opening up the CCC to higher collapse resistance without going back to open class madness at top speed. We also double checked the calculations with my team and we end up with the same results.
Tom

Hello Luc

I read about a lot of changeing the task and waypoint changes with imo wild ideas and ideas on how to make scoring even less understandeable for pilots.

But, I guess the CESS
- is understandeable for pilots
- our GPSs are accurate enough to measure
- the GPS can make the needed calculations (cones and circles are easier to calculate)
- the pilots has direct feedback crossing the line

With some other ideas, the pilots see only after scoring how much bonus, penalty they have, etc. More of this, i guess makes the sport less attractive to pilots.

Is FTV questionned for PG comps? (initially developed for League Cups) in HG, only a few pilots think about that.

Hello,

As a voice for the Air Design R&D department, we are facing the same issues that Luc mentioned, and we are in favor of an evolution in this direction — allowing more stable profiles to be classified under the CCC category.

We have already discussed this topic several times with other brands during the Coupe Icare (FLOW, Skywalk, Ozone, Niviuk, AirDesign), and there seemed to be a shared consensus in favor of this evolution, which — perhaps counterintuitively — would actually lead to increased safety.

Can't comment on the CCC wing design side of things, but regarding CESS, it's a very neat, elegant engineering solution, but it seems very difficult to calculate an optimal in real world conditions (at least for the less technically minded pilots).

Altitude bonus seems a better solution for all-round pilot use, still hard to optimise correctly, but I guess that is/would be part of the fun!

However... Is there a reason why you don't just set a "deck" (lower altitude limit) for the ESS cylinder? So in order to tag it you have to be above a certain altitude?

I guess that's essentially similar to the altitude bonus system, but it also means there's zero potential upside in arriving low, regardless the speed/time equation.

Perhaps you could go for altitude penalty for low arrival (as point percentage?), where the penalty effectively becomes 100% below some safe height limit, if you wanted to add a sliding scale...

Anyway, just thoughts, but for what it's worth (not much!) personally I would favour a modification of the ESS cylinder scoring/arrival height rules over the CESS concept - however, very much in favour of updating the ESS approach to add altitude margins in some way, shape or form...

Could this concept of CESS be extended to the turnpoints of the tasks? I mean, replace TP cylinders by inverted cones with a slope to discuss.

Pros:
- To cover less distance pilots might fly higher, which is generally good for safety.
- By being incentivized to fly higher, pilots might fly slowlier, which is generally good for safety.
Cons:
- A compromize in between height and speed that is difficult to assess while flying.
- ?

Again, I think you need to keep it simple.

Altitude points at waypoints (climbs?) as an addition to lead out points might be interesting??

Worth mentioning that even amongst very experienced comp pilots, already the scoring systems of LOP & FTV cause the most confusion.

We've got to keep any system simple - ideally even simpler than those that already exist!

Great material, Luc - thanks for sharing the data!
Nevertheless, I believe the conclusions and proposals drawn from it are unfortunately not quite right.

1. The MacCready theory is relative to the conditions the pilot is currently experiencing (as Baptiste explains here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKis-uXcUUQ&t=305s
).
Even though 6 m/s climbs are rare, 2–3 m/s sink or 20 km/h headwinds are quite common during competitions.
In those situations, pilots will use maximum speed, which in the proposed approach would be just as unstable — and even more unstable.
2. Another example is ridge soaring or flying along a convergence line - pilots will use the full range of available speed.

The proposed solutions, such as the Conical End of Speed Section or ESS with altitude bonus, may indeed help reduce the use of full speed at the end of the task, but they don’t address the above issues during the task itself - and may even amplify them. Please correct me if I’m wrong!

By the way, why are the CCC certification tests actually performed with a shortened limiter of 100–105mm instead of full speed, given that full speed is available to pilots and can be the most unstable configuration?
Wouldn’t introducing some form of stability verification at the full available production speed (or even at an extended speed, e.g. 18 cm) be desirable?

I'm also surprised by how much trimming the lines and micro-tuning affect speed and stability. At the same time, I feel that detecting this during testing is almost impossible. Or is it?

CESS has already been tested, but it was not so great. I was at many competitions, where we had it
It does sounds good and could improve safety, but "only" for ESS.
And the downside is, that it brings a lot of confision. Nobody knows who is the winner, or at which place.. until the "black box" spit out the numbers.
There is aslo another issue. The height accuracy. Which is NOT good enough!
It might be better to have certain-fixed height arrival over the ESS. Otherwise penalty.
Besides that. IF, would eventually go with CESS again. Then we should use it on all waypoints!!
And ONE MORE THOUGHT. Maybe to eliminate high/cloud flying problem at SSS. There could be "inverted" conical cylinder for SSS (exit example). The higher you are, the smaller is the cylinder. Therefore, you would not aim to be as high as possible.

And one more thought.
What if all cylinders had an option, to not actually tuch them. You could turn much earlier and you could still continue the race. But in that case, some "negative" points would be added. Or... you would just not gain all points... etc... but still be in goal. A careful and thoughtful calculation formula should be made...
This would help us, to avoid dangerous areas, that was not predicted, or conditions changed to dangerous for the certain TP....etc...
Maybe new pool should be done for this.

I believe it would be far better to mandate minimum frontal areas for competition harnesses (at each weight range/level), with the additional volume taken up with protection.

An "F1" style system whereby harness minima (protection levels and frontal areas for weight ranges) are set by a central technical safety committee (as part of CIVL, presumably?) would be a much better way of evening out performance, and also combats the issue of a race to reduce protection levels as they also have a tendency to reduce frontal drag area, and so risk homeostasis and natural competitive instinct combine to push designs ever more towards performance at the cost of lower safety.

This would allow for greater protection across all harnesses, and increasing protection volume with increase in weight, where total energy/momentum is also higher in the event of an incident.

I appreciate that this would make competition harness design slightly more complex, but in my opinion this type of aproach is necessary to avoid the trap of performance gains driving ever lower safety in design, something which has been seen in many other sports prior, and to which this solution is by far the most commonly successful approach.

It allows for innovation, but within a set of criteria guaranteeing better protection (and in this instance neatly also solving the performance vs weight issue that causes excessive ballast issues for smaller pilots).

If we choose equalizers, please consider harness size in the equations.
At least for the same "cigar" shaped harnesses, based on cross section / diameter.
Enzo M size I believe is flown with M to XL size harnesses, maybe even some S pilots ballast up to 110-115 kg.
It's unfair to have the same equalizer size when our harnesses are vastly different in cross-section/drag.

I already commented my idea under Bruce's post - i think instead of putting the foam around our lines it would be smarter to develop smart harness designs that allow adding protection and drag for bigger pilots. Here the same comment:

I’d like to return to a solution we had in the past — offering different harness sizes for pilots. There’s already a strong correlation between body weight and harness size, but we could take this further by developing harnesses that provide additional protection for heavier pilots.
Simply put: the heavier I am, the more protection I need installed under my seat plate. This approach would not only help balance the aerodynamic advantages of larger wings but also increase safety for heavier pilots, who experience higher impact forces due to greater energy in the system.
In the past, we had different harness sizes for bigger pilots, so this topic wasn’t much of an issue. However, since modern “submarine” harnesses have become similarly efficient across sizes, it has turned into a real concern.
From my point of view, the solution is straightforward: a smart harness design that allows adjustable protection — and possibly drag — depending on the pilot’s weight.

I totally agree with your point Jonas. The most stupid development is when we remove protector material from our harness to make less aero drag, and then add equalizer foams for more aero drag!

Why not just accept the bigger harness as part of the equalizer? Of course this needs some practical calculation, might only work for "cigar-shaped" harnesses, but at least it'd be better than what we have today.

Luc,

You think the "size equalizers" should be accompanied by rules limiting ballast, or you think that no pilot would want to fly a larger glider with a bigger size equalizer, so leave it to the "market" and it will avoid excess ballast without need of additional rules ?

And some female pilots do not have a good concept of CCC XXS gliders in terms of handling and behaviour, so they prefer to ballast up to XS or even S. Even a XXS glider implies +35 kg of equipment for very light pilots. Any ideas on this ?

Both the equalisers and the MRT of Bruce Goldsmith are attempting to address the same issue - and both great proposals.
The equalizers are based on wing size (Larger wings have advantages with aspect ratio and chord length) but don't address the larger form drag of larger pilot's upper torso, arms and head. So if you put a small guy on a large wing even with equalizers there will still be a pilot size advantage to the small pilot ballasted up? (Looking at the WPRS the highest placed pilots do seem to be small and ballasted up).
The MRT being weight based may solve this problem provided the weight is distributed proportionally - if the pilot is small with a big beer belly he would score better with equalizers.
I recommend using comp practice days to split the field in half with one half flying one of the systems and the other half without either system. Then the working group can build up some data about both systems and see which one is most accurately equalizing the field.

Rarely met anyone else flying an Enzo 3 XS in comps, so here’s my take after stepping down from the S (with ballast) following my crash in 2020.

Flying an XS Enzo 3 is far more demanding than flying the S. Those who claim that smaller wings turn more easily and offer an advantage should think again — depending on the day and the airmass, flying a smaller wing can be absolutely exhausting.

The benefits of larger wings are undeniable and well-proven and even calculable. It’s simply unfair to compare them in competitions. We all know that formulas and rules can’t capture the realities of gaggle flying and tactical decisions — and if they try, they’ll change the game anyway.

At the same time, introducing “equalizers” doesn’t really make sense either — after all, we’re constantly striving for progress with more efficient gliders and harnesses. As someone pointed earlier: Why build sleek, fast submarines with minimal drag, and then go and add equalizers? Ironically, that logic fits.

For now, unless we agree on some fundamental changes, introducing different weight classes seems the most reasonable way forward — no ballast, fair and square.

@Luc, understanding human nature - the desire always to find a competitive edge - is it possible or likely that at least one harness designer's response to size (weight) riser-equalizers will simply be to reduce frontal area of their next gen comp harness to counteract the "imposed" equalizer? If so, we will end up chasing our tales again...

I don't know how much further that aspect of harness geometry could be pushed, nor how willing pilots will be to sacrifice comfort for better L/D, but give someone wiggle room, and they'll take it. Further, you said the drag equalization only deals with 70% of the large-size advantage, Reynolds etc. will still make a significant difference.

Having spent years engineering & building custom race yachts, humans seem to like an arms race: As a naval architect d'un certain age, you will recall the bad old days of IOR hull distortions; then, when the first public VPPs appeared in IMS, we quickly worked out that they overestimated drag on appendages, so we ended up with the (profitable) obscenity of building nice fast hulls and sails, then adding extra drag (foam padding) to keel bulbs and even masts to slow things down - but by less than the formulas calculated. IRC kept its VPP secret, and the problem was much reduced, but not without some expensive mistakes...

We are nearly 30 years on, CFD modelling of harnesses & wings is accessible, affordable and pretty accurate - isn't it? I understand almost every PG mnfr uses the same package. If that's the case, why not use it to create a standardized handicapping system, that takes into account the harness, wing and AUW? Make this available to comp organizers to plug in individual pilot's kit combinations, then the system only needs to put out a speed correction factor: x seconds per hour flying, as used in handicap dinghy racing.

Yes, you will definitely end up with the big boys winning "line honours", as with 100' super maxis vs. a 4ksb (4 knot shit-box), but the real prize, as in amateur fleet offshore racing, is for winning on handicap. Handicap systems are never going to be perfect across all conditions, but it'd probably be fairer than what we have today; pilots could choose to ballast up/down a little within a wing's weight range to suit the day's conditions; it would prevent the trend towards less and less harness protection; pilots could choose the wings they like the feel of over whatever is fastest or simply something that is more within their competence level and not be tempted out of their comfort zone.

- Does it concerns all gliders classes? or just CCC?

- The polar comparison shows that the performance equalizer eliminates differences in vertical speed, at same horizontal speed.
Ok but this is in calm air, away from terrain.
I know that an heavier pilot is less thrown left and right than a light pilot (not quite sure how much this impacts performance though).
Would that properly compensate, when we float above a ridge, so that pilots have same speed if accelerated similarly?
Otherwise pilots would still want to be heavier

- Are there other downside that you are aware of, like noise or potential consequences during a cascade or hard landing, line usure, ... ?

- Remark: If there are competitions where this is not mandatory, pilots will keep their heavy gear & ballast.

- Next battle: ok but then how do we compensate for stable days and light thermals were light pilots go up but not heavy pilots? (i'm 125kg and have experienced this several times)

I have a really hard time understanding why so many people are dubious about this solution or against it. It's one clear step forward and it doesn't have any drawbacks. It's already been tested and can easily been tested in a few competitions in the future.

Please at least allow this to be tested.

I weigh a bit under 70kg and just stepped up on an M. The difference with the S size is pretty big and pilots who have never flown a smaller size than an M simply can't grasp how much of a difference it is.

Will some pilots still fly the M or the L because it's easier to fly in turbulent conditions ? Yes. (I'll keep hitting the gym ;) )
Will the different pilot and harness sizes be a factor in the glide ratio between pilot A and pilot B and still raise fairness issues ? Yes
Will we still need to talk about and find other solutions ? Yes
Will it still be worse for pilots who can only fly an XXS or an XS ? Yes

But again, I see no reason why not to test this.

I would also like to find a way to make the voice of smaller pilots and women count more than the bigger guys because i can see a very obvious bias considering how many pilots weigh more than 70kg and voting for this change would clearly penalize them.