No score for unsave tasks | Free Flyers Union

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What do we want ?

For me the most critical about competitions is, that we always set a task whenever flying is possible. Often in conditions, nobody would go for free flying.

Why does this happen?
- there is pressure on the organisers to archiev score
- the task commitees consist of pilots who want to improve their score/result

On the other hand results in bad wheather conditions are often luck and do not really help to find the best pilot.

How do we achieve that ?

What we already have:
CAT1 events last for about 2 weeks - No need to take every shitty day.

What we need:
No score in bad, unsave days.

Possibilties (to bei discussed):
- Minimum cloudbase (at least 300m over Take Off)?
- Minimum tasklength of 100km (in CAT1)?
- No score if GPS track analyses detect more than 30km/h wind below 300m
over takeoff
- No score if 10% of pilots don't reach 2nd waypoint?
- ...

Comments

CIVL Delegate

By Julien Garcia on Tue, 21 Oct 2025 - 23:20

I like the idea of enforcing more standards to what should be a "racing" day. We can agree to distinct taskable from flyable but we never detailed actual criterias for that. Good catch.

PWCA Board

CIVL Delegate

By eduardosanchezgranel on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 04:46

It is a conflictive proposal in the sense that it implies we do not trust MD in stopping a task when it should be stopped.
We cannot create rules assuming someone is doing bad his job.

And if the task was OK safetywise for a couple of hours, but it was challenging sportivewise, so that many pilots are on the ground or way behind the leaders when the unsafe conditions arise, then it is not fair for the pilots that were doing good to get the task cancelled. If the task is stopped at the right moment, then the scoring of stopped tasks works OK.

By Martin Grössinger on Wed, 22 Oct 2025 - 06:57

The motivation for changing the scoring system is that the task commitees do not even set a task in doubtful conditions, because the chance of scoring is very low.
My experience is, that tasks are only stopped in thunderstroms, and not because of any other risks.

By Ceri Brown on Fri, 24 Oct 2025 - 21:30

The scoring formula already contains a measure of "validity" based on how "sporting" it is, using criteria like how many pilots took off, how long they flew for, how many made goal.

What it does not account for is how many decided not to continue with the task because they considered it unsafe.

If there is was a way for a pilot to declare a "withdrawal" from the task, then given enough pilots thinking the same way the task would be devalued.

One way of declaring a withdrawal might be through your instrument, like declaring a "level 3".

BUT, there are lots of flaws in this simplistic description, this comment is intended to generate discussion on what might work.

By Martin Grössinger on Mon, 27 Oct 2025 - 09:55

You are right. Poor flying days are already weighted less even today. I have wondered why Tasks are held under conditions where Most pilots would not fly freely. The reason is: organisers want a valid competition event. No one wants to be hated fir canceling a flyable days. It us always the same: If a day is canceled, some pilots fly free and tell in the evening that IT was super safe. If it is not canceled, an no accident happend, no one complains. But If an accident happens, huge discussions start, if task- and saftycommitee have failed.. If there were a set of Rules stating that points are only awarded on safe flying weather, it would lead to borderline days always canceled, and consequently, competiones would only BE Held in areas with high potential for Safe flying weather. (Thats why I would only start with CAT1 events, since those events have a good choice of flying sites)

By Markos Siotos on Mon, 27 Oct 2025 - 21:30

I agree. The dices are just loaded the wrong direction because the organizers are almost always expert local pilots who, very understandably, love their venue and want it to be successful, and adding to this the pressure from the crowd that "always wants to fly" - if they "err" it will probably be towards the "pushing it" side.

The system could take the weight off the 'no-fly- decision off their shoulders with some hard-coded criteria. One obvious one would be an absolute value for the max wind forecasted by reputable models within the time-frame and the space of the task. Because it is paragliding, I understand that this is not so easy to codify (a 30 km in a place could be ok where a 20km in another would not have been) but, I think we need to give them "weapons in their arsenal" to use for canceling a day without suffering all the nagging (by some) that it seems 'always' comes from such a decision