Something to do on a cold day: Send me your 2006 XC Flights

[lplehmann]

Pete Lehmann
5811 Elgin Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Tel 412-661-3474

lplehmann@msn.com

Request For 2006 XC Flight Information, (and the 2007 contest)


Pilots,

The Region Nine Yearlong XC Contest is at an end and I am requesting that those of you who have made cross-country flights this year please send me information about them. This appeal is directed to all pilots who have flown xc this year within Region Nine. You need not be a Region Nine resident. I am trying to gain an overview of all cross country flights made within the Region during 2006 irrespective of where the pilots actually live.

The information gathered will be used in the article I will write for the national magazine. In addition, the first three finishers in all classes (Open, Sixty, Rookie, Paraglider and Rigid Wing) will receive award certificates.

The flight information I desire is simple: Date, launch site, glider, and distance. Flexwing pilots, include your longest XC flight east of the Mississippi prior to this year for purposes of classifying you.

In addition, I would dearly love to hear any details about your flights that might be useful in writing the annual article on our flying activity. For those who have saved the .igc file tracklogs of their flights, please attach them to your emails. They provide wonderful detail of your flights, and I like looking at them. If any of you have decent pictures, send them too.

CHANGES FOR 2007

While on the subject of data-logged flight information, I will take this opportunity to mention that in 2007 I will be allowing use of flights scored by means of the HOLC on-line contest. That contest requires the use of a data-logging gps. The advantage of the HOLC contest is that it scores all manner of flights including out’n’backs, triangles, doglegs, etc. In addition, it allocates scoring multiples according to the flights’ difficulty. In other words, a short triangle can be worth more than a fairly long straight-line flight. However, as not all pilots possess the necessary equipment to enter flights in the HOLC contest, I will not require their use. But using such a gps will clearly be advantageous.

I am bringing up the subject of HOLC flight registration at this time because my own experience with it has shown it to be a massive pain in the ass to learn. I suspect that as the various softwares involved are refined this problem will diminish. In the meantime, I strongly urge all of you to start downloading even trivial flights and attempting to submit them to HOLC. Once one has the system figured out it is remarkably easy, but it may take some time to get to that point, so start now. I lost a lot of my early flights this year before figuring out the tricks.

The website is located at,

http://www2.onlinecontest.org/holc/2006 ... f364306b5b


And if you search Davis Straub’s OZ Report you will find helpful articles on the subject,

http://www.ozreport.com

Please this please pass this note on to any individuals and clubs of which you might be a member.

Thanks,

[Flying Lobster]

Pete Lehmann
5811 Elgin Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Tel 412-661-3474

lplehmann@msn.com

Request For 2006 XC Flight Information, (and the 2007 contest)


Pilots,

The Region Nine Yearlong XC Contest is at an end and I am requesting that those of you who have made cross-country flights this year please send me information about them. This appeal is directed to all pilots who have flown xc this year within Region Nine. You need not be a Region Nine resident. I am trying to gain an overview of all cross country flights made within the Region during 2006 irrespective of where the pilots actually live.

The information gathered will be used in the article I will write for the national magazine. In addition, the first three finishers in all classes (Open, Sixty, Rookie, Paraglider and Rigid Wing) will receive award certificates.

The flight information I desire is simple: Date, launch site, glider, and distance. Flexwing pilots, include your longest XC flight east of the Mississippi prior to this year for purposes of classifying you.

In addition, I would dearly love to hear any details about your flights that might be useful in writing the annual article on our flying activity. For those who have saved the .igc file tracklogs of their flights, please attach them to your emails. They provide wonderful detail of your flights, and I like looking at them. If any of you have decent pictures, send them too.

CHANGES FOR 2007

While on the subject of data-logged flight information, I will take this opportunity to mention that in 2007 I will be allowing use of flights scored by means of the HOLC on-line contest. That contest requires the use of a data-logging gps. The advantage of the HOLC contest is that it scores all manner of flights including out’n’backs, triangles, doglegs, etc. In addition, it allocates scoring multiples according to the flights’ difficulty. In other words, a short triangle can be worth more than a fairly long straight-line flight. However, as not all pilots possess the necessary equipment to enter flights in the HOLC contest, I will not require their use. But using such a gps will clearly be advantageous.

I am bringing up the subject of HOLC flight registration at this time because my own experience with it has shown it to be a massive pain in the ass to learn. I suspect that as the various softwares involved are refined this problem will diminish. In the meantime, I strongly urge all of you to start downloading even trivial flights and attempting to submit them to HOLC. Once one has the system figured out it is remarkably easy, but it may take some time to get to that point, so start now. I lost a lot of my early flights this year before figuring out the tricks.

The website is located at,

http://www2.onlinecontest.org/holc/2006 ... f364306b5b


And if you search Davis Straub’s OZ Report you will find helpful articles on the subject,

http://www.ozreport.com

Please this please pass this note on to any individuals and clubs of which you might be a member.

Thanks,

Great idea Pete--except that an HOLC flight is not a conventional flight in scoring--so you may want to reconsider the flight distance limitations. I can see a so-so moderate HOLC flight easily exceeding a greater point-to-point great distance flight. Also--see the latest on the OZ report about DHV splitting off from the HOLC support.

marc

[Flying Lobster]

Pete Lehmann
5811 Elgin Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15206
Tel 412-661-3474

lplehmann@msn.com

Request For 2006 XC Flight Information, (and the 2007 contest)


Pilots,

The Region Nine Yearlong XC Contest is at an end and I am requesting that those of you who have made cross-country flights this year please send me information about them. This appeal is directed to all pilots who have flown xc this year within Region Nine. You need not be a Region Nine resident. I am trying to gain an overview of all cross country flights made within the Region during 2006 irrespective of where the pilots actually live.

The information gathered will be used in the article I will write for the national magazine. In addition, the first three finishers in all classes (Open, Sixty, Rookie, Paraglider and Rigid Wing) will receive award certificates.

The flight information I desire is simple: Date, launch site, glider, and distance. Flexwing pilots, include your longest XC flight east of the Mississippi prior to this year for purposes of classifying you.

In addition, I would dearly love to hear any details about your flights that might be useful in writing the annual article on our flying activity. For those who have saved the .igc file tracklogs of their flights, please attach them to your emails. They provide wonderful detail of your flights, and I like looking at them. If any of you have decent pictures, send them too.

CHANGES FOR 2007

While on the subject of data-logged flight information, I will take this opportunity to mention that in 2007 I will be allowing use of flights scored by means of the HOLC on-line contest. That contest requires the use of a data-logging gps. The advantage of the HOLC contest is that it scores all manner of flights including out’n’backs, triangles, doglegs, etc. In addition, it allocates scoring multiples according to the flights’ difficulty. In other words, a short triangle can be worth more than a fairly long straight-line flight. However, as not all pilots possess the necessary equipment to enter flights in the HOLC contest, I will not require their use. But using such a gps will clearly be advantageous.

I am bringing up the subject of HOLC flight registration at this time because my own experience with it has shown it to be a massive pain in the ass to learn. I suspect that as the various softwares involved are refined this problem will diminish. In the meantime, I strongly urge all of you to start downloading even trivial flights and attempting to submit them to HOLC. Once one has the system figured out it is remarkably easy, but it may take some time to get to that point, so start now. I lost a lot of my early flights this year before figuring out the tricks.

The website is located at,

http://www2.onlinecontest.org/holc/2006 ... f364306b5b


And if you search Davis Straub’s OZ Report you will find helpful articles on the subject,

http://www.ozreport.com

Please this please pass this note on to any individuals and clubs of which you might be a member.

Thanks,

Great idea Pete--except that an HOLC flight is not a conventional flight in scoring--so you may want to reconsider the flight distance limitations. I can see a so-so moderate HOLC flight easily exceeding a greater point-to-point great distance flight. Also--see the latest on the OZ report about DHV splitting off from the HOLC support.

marc

Also, Flychart can make the upload easily and fairly automatic once you get the configurations and registration done. SeeYou is a pain, admittedly.

marc

[lplehmann]

Hi Marc,

Yes, I realize that HOLC produces very different scores. That's why I said that it would be a great advantage to score one's flights that way. I will re-think classes/categories over the winter in light of the HOLC. I might continue to straight-line score the Rookie class.

But the interesting thing about the HOLC scoring format is that it does provide a simple way to get around the Regional limitations of straight-line flying. Blowing downwind is becoming ever harder due to airspace, and it has, in any event, always been a handicap for many of the Region's flying sites. That's been one of the many reasons that I instituted the sixty mile limit in the Regionals.

As to SeeYou being a pain in the ass, one can get around it by downloading the flight into Flychart, saving it as an igc file, and then using SeeYou to submit it.

[Flying Lobster]

Hi Marc,

Yes, I realize that HOLC produces very different scores. That's why I said that it would be a great advantage to score one's flights that way. I will re-think classes/categories over the winter in light of the HOLC. I might continue to straight-line score the Rookie class.

But the interesting thing about the HOLC scoring format is that it does provide a simple way to get around the Regional limitations of straight-line flying. Blowing downwind is becoming ever harder due to airspace, and it has, in any event, always been a handicap for many of the Region's flying sites. That's been one of the many reasons that I instituted the sixty mile limit in the Regionals.

As to SeeYou being a pain in the ass, one can get around it by downloading the flight into Flychart, saving it as an igc file, and then using SeeYou to submit it.

It looks like direct upload to the online site has been enabled, apparently both IGC and HOLC files will work. I think Davis will end up being involved with the US side of the comp. Uploads from CU and Flychart apparently are still being worked on. Maybe you could ask Davis if he can add a region 9 regionals data sort to the site to breakout from the US overall. This could in turn encourage other regions to integrate/promote similar comps in their area.

marc

[Flying Lobster]

I did a test upload of my flight at the Pulpit on Saturday, and there appear to be a few "teething problems" left to be resolved, but everything seems to be in place. In particular, Davis Straub will in fact be the US administrator for the OLC--so basically Pete can work through him to manage the regionals.

So why bother at all doing this?

Because the OLC provides a great way to score flights by getting points for flights other than straight-line great-circle distance. Your flights can also count for national and international OLC rankings. In essence, regardless of the glider type and nature of flight--you will be handicapped automatically to stack your flights up against the big boys flying the big toys.

Finally, the statistics can be graphically displayed both over a vector map as well as googlemapped. Although my Pulpit flight was just a local ridge boat, I came close to the minimum points required by simply boating up and down the ridge. Take a look at: http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0/p ... 1923085296 and then select the google file link to see the superimposed flight. I think that picture alone is worth going to the trouble of uploading!

Paul, Lauren and John Simon I believe are others with extensive experience with OLC flights.

marc