General Rules Gridding & Launching Starting the task
All competitors must officially register
and sign the provided waiver forms.
All competitors will be required to have a GPS receiver and logger that will be used exclusively for flight evaluation. You must also have a working aviation radio and be wearing a parachute with up-to-date packing certification.
We will be using slightly modified Task Distance Task (TDT) rules. All scoring is based on distance achieved during the alloted task time. All distance counts. A typical task will be three hours in duration with some mandatory turn points and then pilot choice of turn points until time is up. When in the pilot's choice phase, at least 2 turn points are required before returning to a turn point (minimum triangles), except when finishing. An out and return from Pendleton to one turn point will be counted for distance when it is the last turn point before finishing. Partial distance achieved towards a last turn point when finishing will be counted, if declared by the pilot on his landing card. On a land-out the distance achieved towards the last intended turn point, using the GPS land-out coordinates, will count. (Don't worry this will all be explained in the morning briefings with pictures.)
These rules may change during the contest at the discretion of the contest director, otherwise known
as "Le Gros Fromage".
All competitors will be handicapped according to experience level and by sailplane type. The most recently published SAC handicap list will be used
for sailplane handicaps. For experience handicaps, experience hours refer to P1 pilot
time, excluding time spent instructing. A handicap will apply to calculated score as follows: 0 to 200 hours -- 90%,
201 to 500 hours -- 80%, 501 to 1000 hours -- 60%, over 1000 hours -- 50%.
Water ballast will not be permitted.
The initial pilots’ briefing will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, at the Pendleton Clubhouse and will include brief lectures on flying safety (thermalling, gaggling, lookouts) and off-airport landings in the local area. Subsequent pilots briefings will be held at 10:00 a.m. in the clubhouse.
To identify cars for retrieve purposes all competitors should tape their call signs on the rear or side window of their retrieve cars with white tape.
Within 5 km of the Pendleton airfield all circling must be to the left.
The initial launch position will be determined by lot.There will be a rotation of
positions after day 1.
We will announce a Marshalling time and a Grid time at the briefing.The Marshalling time is the time by which we expect all gliders to be assembled along each side of the grid. The Grid time is when we want all gliders to be actually staged on the grid on the runway.
Gliders which arrive at the start point after the announced marshalling time will be put at
the back of the grid.
All gliders will be launched to 2,000’, generally upwind of the airport.The tow pilots will attempt to find thermals for competitors, but not go out of their way to do so.Pilots can release from tow at any time.Relights will be moved to the back of the grid and get new tows in the order of their landing.
A pilot may start the task at any time after the start gate has been declared open by the start gate official on radio frequency 123.3. The start will be opened 15 minutes after the last competitor (not relights) has been launched.The start gate official will give warnings at appropriate intervals before the start is opened.
For scoring, a pilot's task starts when his GNSS logger shows the last time he crosses an 8K radius centered on the Plantagenet turn point.
The task may be started at any height above Pendleton.
The pilot must radio back his approximate start time to Pendleton Ground within 10 minutes of starting.