Missing a Turnpoint
In my first contest, the scorer didn't want to deal with developing film, so he loaned me a Garmin GPS to record my flight. I safely stored it and flew the contest turnpoints as if I were taking pictures of each one. This resulted in missing each turnpoint and accumulating enough turnpoint penalties to get a negative score for the day.
Most of the missed turnpoints today are from pilots being a little too aggressive and trying to make the turn at 0.49km on 0.5km circles.
At the Grand Prix, I watched HA make his turn at the center of the turnpoint. I thought he was making a tactical turn by letting the mass of the gliders get a little ahead of him because the next time I saw him it was the belly of his glider. It turned out the flight computer he was using was very slow on counting distance and he had just been waiting to get into the turn.
Too many people try and cut it too close for no real advantage. The penalty outweighs any gain. I am not saying I want to go to the center of the turn but being at 0.3 or 0.4 on a 0.5km circle is good. I missed my 1000km flight by 270m...Sometimes a few extra seconds would be nice.
The Cambridge 302's have an event button. So as you got close you could push that and it would change the logger rate to 1 second for 15 seconds. Many of the loggers now have more memory than the old Volksloggers and 302's, so having a 1 second all the time is not really an issue, it just results in larger file sizes. A slower logger rate could be more beneficial on a potential airspace violation though.
If I am turning using a 500m turnpoint, I don't start my sharp turn until I have .5km. You could start pulling up and roll at 0.7km, 0.6km start pulling, hope it beeps and turns at 0.49km (and get 1 fix inside the area). But if you turn at 0.51km you are going to either go back or take the penalty.
US Rules: penalty =25 + 100 x (missed distance). That should be some pretty good incentive to not miss it. It is also a 1mile radius and you get scored from where you turn, reducing all incentive to cut it so close.
Garret Willat holds a flight instructor rating with over 8000 hours in sailplanes. His parents have owned Sky Sailing Inc. since 1979. He started instructing the day after his 18th birthday. Since then, Garret has represented the US Junior team in 2003 and 2005. He graduated from Embry-Riddle with a bachelor's degree in Professional Aeronautics. Garret represented the US Open Class team in 2008 and 2010 and the Club Class team in 2014. Garret has won 3 US National Championships.
