This past November, I was contest director for a monthly contest of the Soaring League of North Texas at which I tried out a new format for Man-on-Man competition. It was well received. The format addresses a few of my pet peeves about soaring contests. I offer this description in the hopes that readers of the exchange may be interested.
First, a few comments about my objectives: Fast paced contest. Scoring and judging must be easy and quick. Minimal luck factor. Everyone has a chance to succeed on each flight. A blown flight does not end your day. A blown landing does not end your day. No dropped rounds; all flights count. Emphasis on flying and consistency. A contest not won in the air, cannot be won in the landing circle. No sandbagging or air poaching. The format is seeded Man-on-Man, which addresses several of the objectives on its own. The task is duration; not precision. Scoring is based on points awarded for landing order, last down wins. Landing scores are for breaking ties only. Five winches were set up to launch flight groups of up to four flyers. The usual Man-on-Man procedures regarding pop-offs and line breaks are used. Winds were fifteen gusting to twenty-five MPH. The time target was set at nine minutes. Only one max flight was achieved. Lower winds would call for longer target times, but they need not be impossible, just challenging, for the format to be valid. Scoring is based on a ten (10) point scale. The last one down and everyone who achieves the target max gets first place in the flight group and scores ten (10) points. Second place gets nine (9) points, third place gets eight (8) points, and fourth place gets seven (7) points. If there are three making the max, the fourth flyer gets seven (7) points. If there are two making the max the other two get eight (8) and seven (7), respectively. In flight groups of three the lowest score is eight (8) and the lowest score in groups of two is nine (9) points. No groups of less than two are flown, except if someone scratches between rounds. A maximum of thirty seconds to land after the target is allowed or the flight is considered off field. Off field landings score last place points and all other flyers in the flight group move up a place if the off field flyer lands after them. You cannot beat anybody by landing off field no matter how long you flew. If two flyers get the same time, less than the target, they each get the points for the place they tied for. For example, if they tied for first, they get ten (10) points each, if for second, nine (9) points, etc. Landing points have no role in determining the outcome of individual rounds. Landing points are recorded and used to break ties in the final standings. If somebody does not score as well as you in the air, he cannot beat you with landing points. Landing points are also used to determine seeding and winch choice. The flyer with the higher landing points, if tied for last position in a flight group, gets the advantage of flying in the next lower scoring flight group. Winch choice, which is based on seeding, is resolved among tied contestants by landing scores. Coin flips and fist fights are secondary tie breakers in such cases, based on mutual agreement of the tied flyers. The pace of the contest is improved because once there is only one in the air, there is no value in continuing to fly so the winner lands and the next group can fly. No burying the group while everyone waits. Timers are required to communicate about the time to beat. Scoring is second grade arithmetic; could not be simpler or quicker. No waiting around to figure the seeding. Larger flight groups can be flown, but to keep everyone in the game, scores lower than seven (7) are not recommended. Small flight groups give more contestants a chance to succeed even if they do not win overall. This keeps interest and enjoyment up. This must be balanced against the time needed to fly a round. The more rounds the better. Tim Bennett LSF IV RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
