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aeajr
477 Posts |
 Posted - 08/20/2010 : 7:07:41 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by rc4fun
The biggest motivation I know for flying everyone in a single seeded MOM is LSF points. We have been told by Mr.Deck that if there are 2 groups of seeded MOM they Must be counted as separate contests as far as LSF is concerned! You can not even consider raw scores even when everyone is flying the same task. Hey, I'm not sure I understand the logic of that either.
What it means is that if there are 19 experts and 9 sportsmen flying separate seeded MOM then the experts needing 20 competitors and the sportsmen needing 10 are all out of luck.
I am not sure if what will follow will be helpful to you or not.
When I started the LSF program I spent a lot of time trying to understand the program, especially in the context of ESL.
As I originally understood it, Sportsman and Expert would be like flying RES vs. Unlimited, two contests.
A win within sportsman would be a win. However Jim Deck corrected me on that point in this post as part of a long thread about the LSF program. This link goes to page 14 where Jim makes his clarifying post. There is a discussion that follows.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=909760&highlight=silent&page=14
Based on his guidance, it would seem that we would not use our score within sportsman to determine our finish in an ESL contest but our rank overall as posted on the ESL web site. And I would not use just sportsman's scores our pilot counts to calculate points.
I will provide an example using myself.
Let's look at the CRRC contest last weekend. On Sunday I took second place in sportsman, as shown in column 2.
http://www.flyesl.com/scores/scoreCon.asp?vnr=Saturday&vfn=13
I flew only against other sportsman so I would have taken this as a place. I never flew against experts so I would not have counted them in my assessment of points or placement.
Jim corected me on this saying that LSF would not see this as a 2nd place. I would have to take second place among all pilots.
OK, that doesn't make sense to me, but I didn't write the program, so I tried to follow his guidance.
Based on his guidance, I would evaluate my position based on the column labeled Overall.
http://www.flyesl.com/scores/scoreCon.asp?vnr=Saturday&vfn=13
So this would not be a place but I would run the points based on all pilots at the contest, even though I did not fly against them.
Based on that, I finished 6th overall. So my points would be run based on finishing 6th out of 27 pilots.
So you don't have to have mixed seeding in order to use ESL contests for your LSF tasks.
As you will read in the discussion thread, this is Jim Decks instructions and he was quite clear. I am just reporting what Jim said. You can read it for yourself. And if you don't agree, you can post your comments there.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=909760&highlight=silent&page=14
Edit: Decided to bring Jim's post here, so you can read it here or there. Note that Jim posted this as a single block of text. I have broken it into paragraphs to make it easier to read, and I have bolded what I believe to be the key point in his post.
What constitutes a "place" for the LSF Soaring Accomplishments Program
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I'm sorry that I'm only joining this discussion now but I've been at the Masters.*
First, a well done to Ed for his placement in the "Sportsman" class - he's on his way.* However, for the place to count as a "win" for LSF purposes it must be NOT be based on experience based classes like "Sportsman" or "Expert", or even the "Gray Cup" class(for geezers like myself).*
In competitions with classifications based on sailplane size or type (say 2 meter,* DLG, RES, or NOS) a win in a particular classification CAN count as a win with two provisions.* First, the classifications must have been announced prior to the contest and second, there must have been the minimum number or greater of entrants in that class for the particular LSF Level that one is striving for.*
Oh, and by the way, suppose you placed first overall with an RES sailplane and also were flying in a competition that had a speparate class for RES ships and that there were enough RES entrants to satisfy the requirements for the LSF Level you were working on.* You could compute your points two ways, one for the overall or for just the RES class but - it would only count as a single win.*
Here's what's important to remember about placements in contests for LSF Level purposes.* First, the only Level that REQUIRES a win is Level V.* Second, all levels require participation in a minimum number of six contests even if you met the required number of points with less than six contests.* The advantage of placements is that one could conceivably participate in six contests and, with placements, have less than the minimum points required for that LSF Level. The emphasis in* LSF Levels I through IV is on participation and one could indeed accumulate enough competition points in each of thse Levels by flying in more than six contests until the required number of points is accumulated.* It's been my observation that many do just that.*
Experienced based classes like "Sportsman" are used by clubs and regions to encourage participation in their events but for LSF purposes, those competitions can be used as long the LSF competition points are calculated on the pilot's overall ranking NOT the ranking in the experienced based class.*
This discussion has gotten a bit out of hand.* A contest does NOT, that's NOT require an AMA sanction to count towards competition points.* OK, as LSF Secretary, on Level II through IV, I do look closely at the arithmetic in the contest point calculation and do ensure that the pilot has participated in at least six contests.* Obviously I cannot check on whether it was a "real" contest - remember the program does depend to a great extent on the honor system - that would be your honor. Oh, and a completed Level V voucher gets very severe scrutiny - that why no one's officially a Level V until the LSF Secretary declares it.* *
Lastly, just a few more words about the LSF program.* Ask any Level V,* and they'll tell you it was all about the journey not about how many other pilots they bested along the way.I hope this clarifies this discussion and, as your current LSF Secretary, I'll continue to hopefully be a source of clarification on LSF issues.** Respectfully submitted,*** Jim Deck** LSF Secretary
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Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 08/22/2010 8:07:30 PM |
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rc4fun
7 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2010 : 11:54:53 AM
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Ed, It looks like Mr. Deck has given confusing advice.
Lets start with your statement:
"So this would not be a place but I would run the points based on all pilots at the contest, even though I did not fly against them.
Based on that, I finished 6th overall. So my points would be run based on finishing 6th out of 27 pilots.
So you don't have to have mixed seeding in order to use ESL contests for your LSF tasks."
Jim Deck has stated numerous times that your statement is FALSE!
Here is a short exchange:
*> I asked if I could use combined standings based on raw score of Saturday's DBSF MOM contest.
> From: Jim Deck
> Subject: Re: Combining classes based on raw scores?
> Sorry, If the sportsman and experts had flown together, you could
> have used your overall standing, as it was you placed 3rd in event
> with an insufficient number of contestants for Level III. In order to
> get Level III points you may want to consider competing in the Expert
> Class to ensure the proper number of entrants for Level III.
> Jim Deck LSF Secretary
>
Which is the same thing he says in 2009 post #209 :
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=909760&highlight=silent&page=14
As far as Jim Deck's statement:
Experienced based classes like "Sportsman" are used by clubs and regions to encourage participation in their events but for LSF purposes, those competitions can be used as long the LSF competition points are calculated on the pilot's overall ranking NOT the ranking in the experienced based class.*
You notice that there is no mention of MOM with separate groups! And Jim has stated numerous times when flying MOM with experts & sportsmen flying in separate groups; using overall scores to determine points and number of contestants is a No No, even if they fly the same tasks. This separate group MOM makes no sense to me in that LSF allows you to count a win in RES to count toward an overall win if you beat everyone in the Open class. I wonder what he would say if they were flying MOM? Is he assuming that Open & RES fly in mixed groups?
Re post #196 in the above reference:
In competitions with classifications based on sailplane size or type (say 2 meter,* DLG, RES, or NOS) a win in a particular classification CAN count as a win with two provisions.* First, the classifications must have been announced prior to the contest and second, there must have been the minimum number or greater of entrants in that class for the particular LSF Level that one is striving for.* Oh, and by the way, suppose you placed first overall with an RES sailplane and also were flying in a competition that had a separate class for RES ships and that there were enough RES entrants to satisfy the requirements for the LSF Level you were working on.* You could compute your points two ways, one for the overall or for just the RES class but - it would only count as a single win.*
I wish I had a better understanding of the whole situation so I could at least ask Jim the correct question.
Why can you mix classes and not groups?
Kerry
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JimC
15 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2010 : 12:42:46 PM
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I just got logged into the forums for the first time. Thanks for getting me set up Jose and Doug.
This is an interesting discussion. I do not fly TD (yet) but do fly F3K. From that point of view I am confused as to why this is such a hard thing to see.
From the F3K perspective, there are no sportsman or expert pilots although there is a junior designation. This appears similar to LSF view where you must fly against all pilots for rank. So you go fly in random flight groups without any "seeding" and get what you get. For the purpose of comparing to your peers, it is easy. You look at the top placing sportsmen and they get placing in another recognition based on their peers. So if the top sportsman in the group was 5th out of twenty, the next sportsman was 7th and the next was 8th, those are the top three sportsmen today. You can still rank them against each other after the overall.
Advancement points in the league are what is supposed to prevent sandbagging, right? So if a sportsman pilot ranks very high in several contests, they earn more points. When they hit a total number of points in a year they MUST move up the next year. So they may go from being the top sportsman to being a middle of the pack expert for a while and the next peak becomes the goal. It seems pretty simple how it can work. If you are still learning as a sportsman, you get to stay there and work in the group until you float (pun intended) up the ranks.
This is what happened with me this past Saturday at an event. I flew against all pilots. I ranked about middle of the pack. When my total normalized score was compared against the other sportsmen, I came in third. I won a mug but did not earn any F3K team points. That is how it is, and it makes sense to me. Recognition of my flying that day as viewed with my peers as well as knowing I have work to run with the big dogs. But I can tell you this. As a sportsman, taking a 1000 in a round when you know there were experts on the field is a good feeling. It is like that great hole you just played on the golf coarse. You may have shot a 92 but you really remember that birdie or eagle. It really makes you want to go on.
Jim |
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rc4fun
7 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2010 : 1:21:47 PM
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Jim,
TD'ers have egos! The theory is that if we do not make sportsmen fly against the experts more new guys will come out and fly. And right now ESL keeps the groups separate. Some of our MOM contests do seed among experts and sportsmen but no mixing of the two.
Flying MOM there is no sandbagging.
Kerry |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2010 : 1:55:34 PM
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| Who knows, if we run it seeded with mixed Sportsman and Expert in PA I may like it. I am willing to try anything once or twice. |
Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 08/24/2010 05:22:30 AM |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2010 : 08:02:46 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jimc
Snip ...
From the F3K perspective, there are no sportsman or expert pilots although there is a junior designation. This appears similar to LSF view where you must fly against all pilots for rank. So you go fly in random flight groups without any "seeding" and get what you get. For the purpose of comparing to your peers, it is easy. You look at the top placing sportsmen and they get placing in another recognition based on their peers. So if the top sportsman in the group was 5th out of twenty, the next sportsman was 7th and the next was 8th, those are the top three sportsmen today. You can still rank them against each other after the overall.
snip ...
Jim
Jim,
One difference between HL and TD has to do with the flight groups. If you have 15-20 pilots at the typical ESL HL contest you probably have two flight groups of 7-10 pilots each.
At the typical TD contest with 24-40 pilots, you have 6-10 flight groups of 4 pilots each.
In HL you step onto the field together and you step off the field together. During the round it can be quite difficult to take notice of how other pilots are doing. It isn't until you all trade scores or until the scores are posted do you see how you did against others.
In TD, with a 10 minute task, If the rest of the group is up for 10 minutes are you are down in 5 it is very very obvious you are being burried. And when they are hitting 90s on the scoring tape and you are landing 10 feet beyond the landing zone it is very obvious. For a new pilot that might be quite frustrating. Or maybe they won't care.
And, if you have an ego, seeing that you are in the last group, the bottom of the pile, just might be an uncomfortable feeling. Perhaps enough to make you not come back.
Ego? Perhaps you are right. And because people have egos I care.
But, perhaps I am overly concerned about how the new guys will feel. Perhaps the guys who are struggeling to keep the plane in the air won't care. Maybe they won't care at all. But anything that might turn away a new ESL pilot concerns me. |
Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2010 : 08:11:04 AM
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Ed, It looks like Mr. Deck has given confusing advice.
snip
Kerry
Kerry,
I agree with you. The instructions we are getting are confusing. As I said, I don't support it one way or another. I am just trying to follow instructions.
If you went to the thread link I posted you will see that I was VERY clear about the fact that Sportsman and Experts don't fly against each other. He didn't care.
Frankly either way works for me.
If Sportsman are separate, then my Sportsman win/place will count. That works for me.
If they are combined based on normalized ranking then I run the points against a much larger list of pilots based on my overall ranking. That also works for me.
Either way is fine with me but it has to be one or the other. It can't be that sportsman wins don't count AND you can't count all the pilots at the contest based on normalized ranking.
It has to be one way or the other, it can't be both. But I don't really think they care as long as you are consistent and honest about it. No one is auditing this stuff. To thy own self be true.
Personally I think the Sportsman wins should count, but Jim said no. |
Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 08/24/2010 08:12:25 AM |
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JimC
15 Posts |
Posted - 08/25/2010 : 11:34:47 PM
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Ed, I never used the word "ego" in my post.
I have flown HL in smaller flight groups. Happend last weekend. Only four on the field in one group.
During an AULD event it does not matter if there are four or fourteen on the field. If you are down at 1:30 and you look and see some gliders specked, you know you are getting buried.
The only way to accurately score against other classes is to fly against them. Having a Sportsman pilot with a top score when they may have never flown against Experts confuses me. Maybe that will keep me away from TD. :) |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2010 : 3:10:33 PM
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No you didn't. Kerry did. Crossed posters.
If you want to fly with the experts, no problem! At the begining of the season, just register for your first TD contest as expert. No one would want to hold you back.
No one is requried to fly Sportsman.
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Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 08/26/2010 3:15:33 PM |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 08/29/2010 : 9:37:55 PM
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What a fantastic weekend we had at the Daniel Boone Silent Flyers field. The weather was about as good as it gets. We had 32 pilots on Saturday. I am not sure how many on Sunday but it was a few less.
Since we have been discussing contest formats, I thought I would share my impressions of this weekend's contest format. In my time in the ESL I have seen a few different formats for our TD contests.
OPEN WINCH
I have flown the open winch format where the pilots were formed into flight groups. Each flight group had a launch window which I think was about 10 minutes. Pilots could launch when they were ready. There were 4 or 5 winches so you could hold back till late in the round. Many pilots would wait for someone else to mark the lift, then rush to the winches. Or they would watch for lift indicators, then launch. But the start of the round usually found few pilots walking to the winches. This was a fun format that favored those who launched later in the round. In the open winch format, as I recall, all pilots were scored against all pilots regardless of which flight group you were in. Experts and sportsman were mixed in the flight groups.
MAN ON MAN - RANDOMIZED
The ESL has moved more and more toward the man on man format for our TD contests. In this format pilots are randomized at the beginning of the contest and flight groups of up to 5 pilots are formed. The number is based on the number of winches.
Those pilots launch in rapid sequence and are scored against each other. The concept here is that they are all flying in the same air. In this way, even if you all launched into a sink cycle, you were all in it. You might only fly 5 minutes on a 10 minute task and still win the round for maximum score. Typically the sportsman are flown together and the experts are flown together. The groups are not mixed, though there is no rule against mixing the classes. In this format you can work out your timer arrangements at the start of the day. Typically experts time for sportsman and sportsman for experts.
SEEDED MOM - EXPERT AND SPORTSMAN MIXED
Saturday we flew a format that I had not tried before, seeded man on man with experts and sportsman mixed together. I have to say it worked well. I found myself, a sportsman, flying in groups of experts on several rounds. That was fun and challenging as I don't normally fly against these pilots. If there was a downside to this format it was that at the end of each round there was a time everyone had to wait while they put in the scores and publish the next round of flight groups. Then everyone had to try to work out timer arrangements.
The sequence was that the lowest scoring group flew first in each round. So, by mid day the first group of the next round did come up sooner as they felt that they could get that group up before the last group, the highest scoring group, had reported times. This was a good step and reduced the wait time significantly although I think it placed more work on the scoring team. Working out timers was still a bit tricky, however we made it work. Hopefully everyone had a good time. I know I did.
SEEDED MOM - FLOWN BY CLASS
Sunday we again flew a seeded MOM but the sportsman and experts were kept separated. From a contest flow point of view this ran more smoothly as they could seed the sportsman while the experts were flying and experts were seeded while sportsman were flying. And since sportsman would never be flying with experts it was easer to work out timer arrangements.
I enjoyed them both and would be happy to fly either format again.
A huge thank you goes to David Beach who wrote a new scoring program to accomodate these new formats. A big thanks also goes to Luis Bustamante for working with David to work out the details and to get the system working at the scoring table.
As I understand it, they want to make a few more tweaks, then will publish the new scoring program so everyone can use it.
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Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 08/30/2010 08:58:50 AM |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2010 : 09:26:15 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jimc
Ed, I never used the word "ego" in my post.
I have flown HL in smaller flight groups. Happend last weekend. Only four on the field in one group.
During an AULD event it does not matter if there are four or fourteen on the field. If you are down at 1:30 and you look and see some gliders specked, you know you are getting buried.
The only way to accurately score against other classes is to fly against them. Having a Sportsman pilot with a top score when they may have never flown against Experts confuses me. Maybe that will keep me away from TD. :)
As I said earlier, just register as expert and you will fly against the experts. No problem.
As to scoring, what is done at the end of the contest, as I understand it (Luis or Anker jump in here please) is that the Sportsman are ranked within sportsman for sportsman standing. Then sportsman are ranked against all pilots for overall standing.
So if you look at the ESL web site and look at the TD standings, again using myself as the example you see that two sets of scores.
Ranked against other Sportsman my scores show as
96.64 94.47 87.99 87.81 366.92
But if you look at overall, I am normalized against all pilots, not just sportsman:
84.49 82.97 78.42 75.76 321.64
The first set would determine my sportsman ranking. But LSF does not recognize these, so I use the normalized against all pilots, the second set, for my LSF points calculations. I believe these are based on raw scores, as if we were all flying together. At least that is how I understand it.
This is as close as I can get to Jim's instructions.
The interesting point is, now that I have flown in a seeded MOM contest, I note that I did not fly against all the pilots in the contest. I only flew against other pilots flying at my level that day.
This means I could fly 8 rounds and be flying with some subset of pilots of the 32 pilots at the contest. In a seeded format, I have to earn the right to fly against the other pilots based on my scores.
In fact I think that is about how it worked out both Saturday and Sunday in the seeded formats. I flew against a smaller spread of pilots than normal. In a randomized contest I believe I would actually fly against a larger set of pilots.
From a fun and challenge point of view, all the formats work. As long as the rules are stated in the begining of the contest it doesn't matter, in my opinion. But your smileage may vary.
It is only from an LSF point of view where things get confusing. To the best of my understanding you would use the overall ranking to compute LSF points. That would mean that you would count all the pilots in the contest and you would use your percentage based on your ranking against all the pilots, not just sportsman.
That is what I do.
BTW, HL is done the same way as I understand it. Look at the HL standings and you will see the same thing.
These are my HL scores against the other sportsman:
90.91 65.43
And these are my HL scores against all pilots
87.28 60.67
If you would like more details, Luis can provide more detail or you can read the details here:
http://www.flyesl.com/scores/sca.asp
Or you can post in Anker's thread here:
http://forums.flyesl.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=343
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Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 08/30/2010 4:30:14 PM |
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JimC
15 Posts |
Posted - 09/10/2010 : 8:44:19 PM
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| I have a question about pilot rankings in ESL. Is any weight given to the number of pilots a person places ahead of in a contest, or just the 100 point scale? Should a pilot that places high against a larger group of pilots get a bonus for that? I see the "points" (1-10) and wonder what they are used for. |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2010 : 11:27:36 AM
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There is no scoring consideration given to the number of pilots at the contest or where you place as far as your ESL scores are concerned.
The 1-10 points are awarded to the top 10 pilots at each contest. They carry no weight for the experts other than to show who is winning vs. who is just scoring well.
But for the Sportsman, the points are the basis for being forced to move up to expert. Once you hit 20 points, you automatically get moved up. If you hit 20 points, then you are now too good to be considered a sportsman anymore.
Of course, at the start of any season a sportsman can decide to register as expert and therefore promote himself. However, once you have declaired expert you can't go back to sportsman for that season. And the ONLY way you can go back to sportsman in the futre is thorugh a special appeal process. The return to sportsman is not likely to be granted.
I hope that helps. |
Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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josh_glaab
50 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2010 : 9:31:43 PM
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Good evening all!
Here are a few thought regarding Where to Take the ESL.
1) The number of winches is a limiting facator regarding the size of the flight groups. I think that 4 is a good number for ESL contests. 3 is also Ok. Keep in mind that at the NATS, they have all the winches just stored there and they can bring them all out pretty easily. This would not work for us as we move from location to location. We would need much-more dedication to equipment transport (I am guilty here, but usually do not make consecutive contests). If you do look at the number of flyers who go from one contest to the next, then we may be able to move more winches and more folks should step-up. Other non-ESL winches would be Ok, but they need to be looked-at and verified that they are comparable to the ESL winches. That seemed to work very well at CASA this weekend. Another thing to consider is that there is a big drawback with larger groups, the time to launch everyone kind of limits the MOM part of it. A minute or two could mean the difference between finding lift or not. Again, I kind of think 4 is a reasonable number. Lastly, need to consider having enough people to launch/fly/time a large group.
2) Seeded vs random: Seeded MOM is hoot, no doubt about it for reasons I have posted before. It keeps everyone in the contest and kind of provides a bit of a handicapping system. However, I can see that flying against the same pilots all the time can become a little tedious. I don't think like that and flying every round against Mike, Reto, Neal, Luis, James, John H (all the top dogs) is REALLY a blast. It also provides me with some very good practice for Team Selections and other contests when we go-up against other top competition. However, I understand that it is different for others. Perhaps a format that does random in the morning and seeded in the afternoon could be a better compromise.
3) Landings: I think that all landings should be included in the normalization process. There is no good reason not to do it. If we acknowledge that we normalize the flight times to account for variations in thermal activity (atmospheric variability), we should also do it for landings. Conditions vary, sometimes quite a bit. We saw this at CASA, and I saw it LISF-1 big-time. In addition, at a location like CASA, there is a lot of boundary to work with and it is good to let the pilots decide to try to work lift and deliberately not try for the landing (but make the field) to try to max his score that way. For example, at CASA, with a 50 pt landing, you would only need about 30 more seconds of airtime (for a 6 minute-ish flight) to have a higher score. For contests with very restrictive boundaries, this is less of an issue (ie if you can make the field you can probably hit the spot).
4) It is up to the CD to determine the value of the landing and gradient. However, we need to try to look at the relationship between flight times and landing scores. At CASA, with the 7 minute task (needed to move the first 3 rounds along) and non-normalized landings, the landings were kind of secondary to flight times. 1 second error was worth 2 points of landing with the landing scores not normalized. With a 2 pts/ft tape (1 pt/6 inches), 1 second of airtime was worth 12 inches of landing precision if I got it right. If the landings were normalized, 1 second of airtime would be worth 6 inches of landing precision. With a 1 pt/inch tape, 1 second of flight time is only worth 2 inches. That is a big difference.
5) I think it is best to fly Sportsflyers separate from Experts. I really helps to keep the seeded MOM going since we can compute the groups for Experts when the Sportsflyers are flying and vice versa. However, I did speak with Jim Deck at the NATS and he said it would be Ok to look at raw scores for LSF points. Perhaps we need to confirm this with him, but I think it is a good compromise. I addition, Preston appopriately pointed out that Sportsflyers could always declare themselves to be experts at any time.
6) Over my 32 years of ESL flying (I can't believe it has been that many), this is one of the best years I have ever seen. We have a great group of folks showing-up and participating. The seeded MOM has put a spark into the competitions and I am really glad to be able to be part of it. WAY TO GO ESL!!!
Thanks, Josh. |
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JimC
15 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2010 : 2:17:17 PM
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So does this mean that current sportsmen that have accumulated 20 points are no longer sportsmen? Are they to move up in the next contest they enter? How is this written in the bylaws?
And yes, the reply did help. Thanks
quote:
Originally posted by aeajr
But for the Sportsman, the points are the basis for being forced to move up to expert. Once you hit 20 points, you automatically get moved up. If you hit 20 points, then you are now too good to be considered a sportsman anymore.
I hope that helps.
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ljb0001
37 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2010 : 4:32:03 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by jimc
So does this mean that current sportsmen that have accumulated 20 points are no longer sportsmen? Are they to move up in the next contest they enter?
Jim,
The advancement rules are different for each of the ESL divisions but they do share one common point. Once a sportsman has met the advancement requirements he will be promoted to expert as of the first contest of the following year.
Now, as to the differences:
The HL division advances the top 3 Sportsman pilots as of the end of the year to Expert. If the 2010 season ended right now, David Ashinsky, Brian Padovini and Frank Nisita would be promoted to the Expert class.
The TD division advances any Sportsman who has accumulated 24 points over their career in ESL. As of right now there are no Sportsman TD pilots required to advance to the Expert class.
Luis Bustamante
ESL Scorekeeper |
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JimC
15 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2010 : 7:12:32 PM
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| Thanks Luis. I got it now. :) |
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 09/17/2010 : 08:34:15 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by josh_glaab
Good evening all!
Here are a few thought regarding Where to Take the ESL.
1) The number of winches is a limiting facator regarding the size of the flight groups. I think that 4 is a good number for ESL contests. 3 is also Ok. Keep in mind that at the NATS, they have all the winches just stored there and they can bring them all out pretty easily. This would not work for us as we move from location to location. We would need much-more dedication to equipment transport (I am guilty here, but usually do not make consecutive contests). If you do look at the number of flyers who go from one contest to the next, then we may be able to move more winches and more folks should step-up. Other non-ESL winches would be Ok, but they need to be looked-at and verified that they are comparable to the ESL winches. That seemed to work very well at CASA this weekend. Another thing to consider is that there is a big drawback with larger groups, the time to launch everyone kind of limits the MOM part of it. A minute or two could mean the difference between finding lift or not. Again, I kind of think 4 is a reasonable number. Lastly, need to consider having enough people to launch/fly/time a large group.
snip ...
3) Landings: I think that all landings should be included in the normalization process. There is no good reason not to do it. If we acknowledge that we normalize the flight times to account for variations in thermal activity (atmospheric variability), we should also do it for landings. Conditions vary, sometimes quite a bit. We saw this at CASA, and I saw it LISF-1 big-time. In addition, at a location like CASA, there is a lot of boundary to work with and it is good to let the pilots decide to try to work lift and deliberately not try for the landing (but make the field) to try to max his score that way. For example, at CASA, with a 50 pt landing, you would only need about 30 more seconds of airtime (for a 6 minute-ish flight) to have a higher score. For contests with very restrictive boundaries, this is less of an issue (ie if you can make the field you can probably hit the spot).
4) It is up to the CD to determine the value of the landing and gradient. However, we need to try to look at the relationship between flight times and landing scores. At CASA, with the 7 minute task (needed to move the first 3 rounds along) and non-normalized landings, the landings were kind of secondary to flight times. 1 second error was worth 2 points of landing with the landing scores not normalized. With a 2 pts/ft tape (1 pt/6 inches), 1 second of airtime was worth 12 inches of landing precision if I got it right. If the landings were normalized, 1 second of airtime would be worth 6 inches of landing precision. With a 1 pt/inch tape, 1 second of flight time is only worth 2 inches. That is a big difference..[/b]
Snip ...
Thanks, Josh.
Josh,
Some interesting points.
Ignoring ESL vs. non-ESL winches, I have suggested a few times that I would like to see us go to 5 pilots in a flight group. At most contests this would mean more rounds flown, something I would enjoy. However it has been suggested to me that this can lead to more mid-air colissions from having too many pilots working the same lift. If you get two flight groups in the air, that could be 10 gliders in one thermal. I can see the point.
Your thoughts?
Landing points - I REALLY like how you analyzed the value of landing points vs. air time. I have never seen this type of analysis done before and it does provide a new way of looking at landings vs. air time. I am going to have to ponder this.
Are you suggesting that ESL require landings to be included before normalization or just suggesting that ESL recommend this as the standard process?
ESL vs. non-ESL winches - You raise a good point about using local winches and providing a process to show that they are comparable to the ESL winches. How does that process work? How do you qualify or compare two winches in a quick and easy fashion?
I have been thinking about winches in the context of how TD differs from HL. There will be a proposal at the EOS business meeting to expand the HL geography. Since HL has little equipment involved in running a HL contest, HL is less constrained by equipment in terms of expanding the geography.
However TD does have the winches to move around. But even today, not all clubs use the ESL winches. And, as far as I know there is no qualification process to "ESL certify" club winches. What would you suggest? Do we have an "ESL certification" process today that I am not aware of?
Cleary if clubs have winches of their own and we are comfortable with them using those winches, winches could be an optional ESL resource and become less of a constraint on expanding the geography.
I am not proposing an expansion. I am just looking at what would constrain us from doing so if we wished to expand.
Anyone have thoughts on the matter? |
Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 09/17/2010 6:13:10 PM |
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josh_glaab
50 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2010 : 9:09:44 PM
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Hello to all!!!
In one of my other posts to this thread I actually figured out that I have been active in the ESL since its' inception in 1978, a mere 32 years ago. Ay Carumba! That revelation prompted me to take a trip back in time and it gave me a few thoughts to share with the current-day ESL. I want to take you all on a journey back in time, back before Seeded-Man-on-Man (S-MOM), before MOM, before Open Winches, even before 50 channels, when we had much more challenging (to run) R/C Soaring competitions. Waaay back then, in 1980s, we only had a few frequencies to work with. I think the CD's would limit the number of flyers/freq to something like 4 or 5 for the larger events. Even that was a challenge to do since radios did not have modules, you just had 1 frequency to work with unless you swapped-out the Tx and Rx.
Flight groups were created to evenly distribute the frequency spectrum and keep all flying in about the same time-frame. The pacing item was usually the frequency clip for the most popular frequency. You can imagine how long it would take to complete a round if 4 pilots had to fly consecutively. Sand-bagging would also bring a contest to its knees and there were some real sand-bagging pros.
Usually, a PA system was used to call up the flight groups, like we do now. The group would not be allowed to go to the winches until all the pilots were ready. Sometimes it would be agony watching great lift pass-by while someone was taking their time getting back with the frequency pin. Sometimes, desperate CD's would allow a flight group or two to go without the congested frequency. This would put the competitor with the congested frequency at a disadvantage since he could fly by himself at the end of the contest, sometimes more than once.
The flight groups would launch, somewhat more slowly than we do now, and try to make their flight times. We didn't even think about normalizing scores back then. Even so, the top pilots usually found their way to the top. Since everyone was flying the same task, scoring was pretty easy for LSF and ESL scores.
You might be wondering where I am going with this. What I am getting at is that the raw scores from a S-MOM event should be perfectly fine for LSF points, as well as ESL advancement points. By raw score I mean seconds of flight time plus landing score. I think the ESL advancement point strategy that we have now is a little shaky (if I understand it correctly, which I am not sure I do). It relies on the ratio of the top Expert and Sportsflyer to determine the scores for all the rest of the Sportsflyers. One scenario that would make the current scoring system fail would be a case where one (or two) Experts completely blew-away the rest of the contest. The ratio of the top Expert score to the top Sportsflyer score would not be a good indicator to work with, since not enough data was being used. It could be that several Sportsflyers were in the top-10 Experts (based on raw score), but would not earn any advancement points. Also, you have a situation where ESL contests can't count for LSF points usually since we don't have 20 flyers in all, or any, classes.
For LSF scores, the raw scores from a S-MOM contest would be as good as we had in the non-MOM contests, which were in place up until just a few years ago. I think that we need to get in touch with Jim Deck and clear this up. The LSF is a good organization which helps R/C Soaring a great deal and needs to be supported. I did have the opportunity to talk with Jim at the NATS this year. I explained the idea of using raw scores for LSF and he seemed to endorse it. I can take the action to confirm that.
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aeajr
477 Posts |
Posted - 10/05/2010 : 08:13:52 AM
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I made this post to a discussion thread that is running on RC Groups. Since it concerns a discussion of last year's minutes I thought I would post it here as well.
THE FUTURE OF HAND LAUNCHED GLIDERS IN THE ESL
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1289632&page=9#post16211130
EOS BUSINESS MEETING
The topic of the EOS business meeting has come up several times. But do you know what goes on at the EOS business meeting? The minutes are posted. Have you read them?
This is the Agenda I used at last year's meeting:
ESL Meeting Agenda – October 2009
Open meeting
Greet ESL Members and Visitors
Presidents Opening Remarks -
Officers and Staff Reports
*Acceptance of last year's minutes which have been publicly posted for a year.
*Treasurer’s report -
*Scorekeepers Report -
*Quartermasters Report –
*Winchmaster Report -
*Webmaster Report –
*Contest Coordinator Report –
*HLG Director Report -
*Newsletter Editor Report -
*ESL Historian Report –
*Any other Staff Reports or comments
Open Discussion – Any topic
Some topics that might come up
*New initiatives
*Rules
*Scorekeeping
*Awards
*HLG Sound System
President’s closing remarks
Adjourn
The minutes of the meeting are posted on the ESL Web site and are there for everyone to read. You can find them here:
http://forums.flyesl.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=11
There are minutes and postings going back to 2004 which include the expansion of the HL area in 2005.
A few key items from last year's minutes that should be of interest here:
Welcome - Ed started by thanking everyone involved for a terrific 2009 season. Both the number of contests and the number of pilots attending have increased this season due to the volunteer efforts of a majority of league members.
A key item that occurs at the meeting is the discussion of and setting of the next season's contest calendar, or at least the attempt to do so. All desired contest dates should be submitted to the Contest Coordinator prior to the EOS meeting.
Contest coordinator’s report by Jose Bruzual – The proposed 2010 contest calendar is as follows:
Dates Contest
You can read those in the minutes. They changed several times after the meeting as new dates came in and conflicts were identified. If clubs do not submit their requested dates to the Contest Coordinator in advance of the meeting it makes it very hard for conflicts or issues to be resolved prior to the meeting.
HLG director’s report by Doug Harnish – Doug introduced himself and took the opportunity to thank everyone involved for a success 2009 season.
There was some discussion about Polecat and whether that contest should continue to be on the ESL calendar. Doug will raise this at the EOS hand launch contest, including a discussion about how registration and score reporting should be handled.
General recognition was given to the fact that the ESL is a league with two equally important divisions. Many of the pilots in attendance at the meeting fly in both divisions.
Doug reminded everyone that the EOS HLG contest would be held in two weeks in Hagerstown, MD. He was expecting a good turnout.
A significant amount of time was spent around the HL division.
Handlaunch Advancement – There was discussion regarding rules for handlaunch advancement. A motion was made and carried to have the rules discussed and defined at the handlaunch end of season meeting in two weeks.
Clear recognition that HL division needs to set its own rules and guidelines.
Combined Award – Ed Anderson suggested the league recognize the top flyer in combined TD and HLG contests. The notion of an ESL Soar-Meister award was approved, further details are pending. The motion included authorization for the officers to determine the qualifications for this award.
Public Address System – Discussion on the need for an ESL PA system took place. A motion was made to authorize a budget of up to $500. The motion carried.
The sound system was purchased and is available for use by the HL or TD contest directors.
As you will recall, the EOS HL contest was cancelled due to weather, so the EOS report that I had planned for that date was never given. I was there, but the weather cancelled the meeting. But the items were in the minutes and sent out in the Newsletter for all to see and discuss.
NET NET
If you read the entire content of the minutes you will see that there is no Them vs. Us nature to the meeting or the topics. Mostly it is about business reports, finances, work that needs to be done.
Many topics apply to both divisions and those that are division related are considered with the good of the division being discussed. That is how the position of HL Director was established in 2007 at the EOS meeting. Doug became HL Director in the 2008 season. There was a general recognition that ESL wanted more focus on growing the HL division.
The intention of having an EOS meeting at the HL EOS contest where HL specific things were to be discussed and decided upon was clearly noted in the minutes.
Note that an EOS League report would have been given at the EOS HL contest if it had not been rained out. Note also that several topics that are HL specific were slated to be discussed and decided at the HL EOS contest meeting. Since the meeting did not happen Doug and others have been carrying those items forward through discussions with members of the HL community. I am sure they will be brought to the EOS League business meeting this weekend.
As you can see, there is precedent for divisional meetings where each division discusses it's needs and concerns. In fact it would seem to me that the idea of EOS divisional meetings has already been established based on last year's minutes. One could say that we already have in place a process of a League Business meeting and two divisional meetings. But there is nothing formal in place stating that that is the case as far as I can see. If you feel there is a need to formalize this, then it can be raised at this year's League meeting. It would have my support.
Just to share information that some may not have seen. |
Best regards,
Ed Anderson
Long Island Silent Flyers
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Edited by - aeajr on 10/05/2010 08:28:13 AM |
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ESL - Where to take the league
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