4.2) Task Type - Cats Cradle
(aka Turnpoint Accumulation) Made popular by the Chelan Classic and Tiger-Tag, this task gives all pilots the chance to fly their own route (even while in the air), choosing turnpoints from a set provided for the site. All points can be used in any order. You are scored on total distance flown.
This type of task...
- keeps pilots close to launch and designated landing for safety and convenience.
- is great for spectators (the few we may have).
- help teach new competitors how to race as they may fly more (get lapped) by experienced pilots.
In this type of task:
- a weather briefing and picking a launch are required.
- there are no launch times or landing times - competitors may fly when they want.
- relaunches are OK (we don't want to restrict someone's airtime and want to encourage early starts to the day).
- you can launch, get turnpoint #1, land, go back to launch and continue your flight by going straight to turnpoint #2 (and continue on course) - we want to encourage early starts and a never-give-up attitude
** still need to confirm what SeeYou can handle with regards to restricting the use of back-to-back turnpoints
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Made popular by the Chelan
Made popular by the Chelan Classic and Tiger-Tag, this task gives all pilots the chance to fly their own route, choosing turnpoints from a set provided for the site. All points can be used in any order. You are scored on total distance flown.
This task...
- keeps pilots close to launch and designated landing for safety and convenience.
- is great for spectators (the few we may have).
In this type of task:
- A weather briefing and picking a launch are required.
- There are no launch times or landing times - competitors may fly when they want.
- Relaunches are OK (we don't want to restrict someone's airtime and want to encourage early starts to the day).
Turnpoint Accumulation has a
Turnpoint Accumulation has a bad connotation. When we (WCSC) looked at TA a few years ago there were a few additional rules attached, such as not hitting the same point twice, which made navigating the course a bit tricky since pilots were busiy trying to not only hit various points but avoid others to maximize distance. To top that off, a couple of poorly placed points made it even trickier.
If you want to do this, KISS. Less than 10 turnpoints and probably closer to 6 would be suffiecient with the option of using them twice or more.
Once again, I'm not a fan of re-launches.
I'm less enamoured of this
I'm less enamoured of this type too, but we feel it will allow some sites to be used that might not be possible otherwise.
We're open to using a point more than once. However, we want to encourage some risk taking and in-flight decision-making. At Golden for example, I'd hate to see someone who spends the day going back and forth between TP's at launch and Mt 7 be rewarded over someone who ventures out to further points like the gravel pit or Pagliaro that we used last year in the Nats.
We need to figure out simple rules that gently push people to test their skills.
TP selection will be key and
TP selection will be key and a big challenge ahead. Limit the # of turnpoints to avoid overcrowding and to further challenge people.
We don't want them so close together JUST so they can be used on marginal days. If the day doesn't allow for some real XC exploring (site-specific), then it isn't worth while scoring.
best routes
I think you need tasks that inspire people and cats cradles not so much and laps even less so. Open distance is good but doesn't work everywhere, like in Pemby it will take you places you may never come back from. I'm suggesting accumulating a list of classic xc routes and picking one for the task. Go to this link http://www.nevhgc.net/ and hit "best routes" to see what I mean. You can compile a list of these routes all over the country and practice them even free flying for something to do.
Routes
We already have a few routes out for sites as shown on the BC XC League web page. I think that for a lot of sites there are well known routes. Pemberton has the Hurley and back route, Bridal has the 40 km run the ridge loop, and Golden has the launch to Spilly route.
I think that doing TA at Bridal for example could work if you acknowledge that on a worthwhile XC day it should be possible to do a run of the ridge and still have enough gas left to go another 20 km. Given that you need to get a minimum distance for a valid task there's not much benefit in having a mess of TPs right next to launch.
Another way to go would be to restrict the number of TPs used per km flown. If someone does laps between a pair of points 20 km apart they obviously are putting it more on the line than a person doing laps between points 1 km apart. The problem with this of course is that you need to be able to deal with it in the scoring software. Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to not allow legs shorter than 5 km (or some other number), except for the first and last legs.