Cincinnati Soaring Society
Basic guidelines for 
"TRUE seeded man-on-man" 
Thermal Duration contest

  1. Pilot frequencies should be reserved (if possible) ahead of the contest to ensure that frequency conflict(s) will not prevent any pilots from flying against each other. The goal is to have all pilots flying against one another in one, single class. Eliminating frequency conflicts allows the possibility of any pilot to fly against any other pilot in the contest as dictated by the running seed. If frequency reservations (pre-registrations) are impractical and frequency conflicts do occur, every effort should be made to eliminate any conflicts between pilots who could potentially end up in the highest scoring flight groups.
  2. There should be a minimum of three winches; the ideal would be as many winches as the flying site could accommodate. Each winch should be numbered for winch assignment to be drawn at random before each flight group launches. Every effort should be made to render all winches equal in launching power and speed.
  3. The number of pilots in each flight group is determined by the number of winches. When possible, an extra winch could be reserved to accommodate an immediate individual relaunch due to an equipment malfunction or line break without resorting to a relaunch of the entire flight group. No pop-off relaunches are allowed.
  4. The number of flight groups is determined by dividing the total number of pilots registered by the number of available winches.
  5. The random seed for the first round is determined by a random drawing at the pilot's meeting. Golf balls are labeled 1,2,3,etc to represent each flight group. Pilots blindly draw from the collection of labeled golf balls to determine which flight group they will fly in for the first round.
  6. When a flight group is called up, each pilot will again draw from a collection of golf balls, which are labeled to represent each of the winches. The number on the drawn labeled golf ball will assign that winch to the pilot who drew that labeled golf ball.
  7. Score cards should include: Pilot's name, pilot's frequency, and enough columns for as many rounds that may be flown. Each column should have a space for: round number (1,2,3,etc), flight group number (1A,1B,1C,etc), pilot's flight time, best flight time in flight group (used to normalize score), normalized score, landing score, total score for round, and running grand total score. Normalized score is determined by dividing the pilot's flight time by the best flight time in the flight group multiplied by 1000.
  8. Seeding for round two and all subsequent rounds is determined by the order of each pilot's place in the standings. Lowest scoring pilots fly in the first flight group, the highest scoring pilots fly in the last flight group. This allows pilots to fly in flight groups with pilots who are grouped together in the overall standings. This also allows every round to be a "Fly Off" round for the overall leaders in the standings.
  9. There can be NO throw-out rounds which could lead to "sand bagging" in the first round.
  10. A minimum of three rounds is needed to cancel out any early round aberrations.
  11. Score cards can be arranged in the order of current standing at the end of each round to help assign seeded flight groups for the next round. The score cards can be attached in the order of current standings (in rows) to a score board that will allow pilots to easily see the current standings, as well as to determine which flight group they will be in for the next round. Each row on the score board will represent one flight group and will have listed all the pilots in that flight group. If there should be any frequency conflicts, the score cards of pilots on the same frequency should be color-coded in a prominent manner to help eliminate the accidental placement of any frequency conflicts in the same flight group.
  12. After round two, it will be easy to determine the first (lowest scoring) flight group for the next round even when the last (highest scoring) flight group is still in the air. Thus, the first flight group for the next round can be called up before the entire seed is determined for that next round to help keep the contest moving along.
  13. Mass simultaneous launches are impressive, however when there is a cross wind, and/or for safety reasons launches can be staggered by 5-10 seconds as determined by the launch master, with the downwind (in a cross wind) pilots launching first to prevent chutes from drifting down over launching sailplanes.

These dynamic guidelines are to be adjusted, added to, and corrected as time goes by so we have current up-to-date guidelines available on the web site for others who wish to give "TRUE seeded man-on-man" TD contests a try!

Paul Siegel

December 13, 2001 (version #1)