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15.      May... 1962
 
CHANGES IN RULES FOR THE 1962 NATIONALS 
by STERLING V. STARR, Chairman, SSA Rules Committee


Each year the rules for the U.S. National Soaring Championships are reviewed and revised where necessary to incorporate lessons learned in previous contests, make needed improvements, and adapt them to the particular contest locale. The complete set of rules is available from SSA. A summary of the rules changes is presented here for the information of all concerned. 
The 29th Annual U.S. National Soaring Championships will be held at El Mirage Field, Adelanto, California, from 0900 PDST Friday, August 3, 1962. A briefing will be given the evening before the contest opens, All pilots must attend this briefing or obtain the information from the Competition Director or his authorized representative prior to competing. Thursday, August 2nd, will be the last contest day. The Awards dinner will be held Friday evening, August 3rd, so as to not interfere with the final day task selection.
The Contest Committee will be selected at least one month prior to the competition, with its members subject to approval by the SSA Contest Board chairman.
The rule governing the content of radio transmissions has been eliminated because of lack of enforceability and because the subject does not fall within the jurisdiction of SSA. Similarly, the rule prohibiting gyro instruments has been eliminated.
Because of the high altitude attainable in Western flying, oxygen equipment will be required. Because of the desert terrain and climate being flown over, an emergency water supply of at least one quart in an unbreakable container will be required.
The requirements to be fulfilled in terms of the numbers and types of tasks have been relaxed somewhat to permit task-setters more freedom in adapting their call to the existing weather. The permissible free distance days have been increased from two or three, with the guide given to the task-setter that a free distance cal is particularly suitable on "uncertain" days. The minimum number of speed tasks required has been reduced from two to one, with the maximum held at four. The philosophy of dividing the tasks fairly evenly between distance and speed tasks is retained.
This year a mandatory rest day will follow a free distance task day if a flight of more than 250 miles has been achieved, rather than 200 miles as last year. This action was taken because of the long, strong soaring days and the good retrieve roads in the West. It is recognized that telephone communication problems will require good flight planning for fast retrieves to be obtained. The minimum requirements for a contest day were the subject of a considerable amount of discussion last year at Wichita because of the marginal weather during the contest. The rule of last year requiring five competitors to fly 100 km. each to qualify the day did an excellent job of eliminating those days in which luck was an important factor in performance, although in the process some spectacular flights were, of necessity, discounted.
various other procedures for establishing minimum requirements for a contest day were seriously considered, the British system of adjusting the maximum daily points in proportion to the number exceeding a given distance was studied. All appeared to have more serious drawbacks than some variation of the existing rule. In order to experiment with providing a broader base number of sailplanes flying a given distance, the rule this year will require that at least 10 sailplanes fly 75 km. (46.6 miles) for it to be a contest day. This change will further reduce the possibility of short periods of shareable wether (such as a squall line passage) providing a few sailplanes an outstanding advantage, yet will permit scoring on consistently mediocre days.
The outstanding success last year of prior photography of turnpoints with panels in place to aid in turnpoint identification has led to this procedure being incorporated into the rules.
The method of scoring speed tasks will be retained identical to that of the previous several years. To illustrate 

[[graph 1]]

this procedure, the total points for those finishing a speed task at a given speed ratio are plotted vs. the total number of contestants finishing, in the accompanying figure. It is seen that the importance of speed increases with the number finishing, up to 15, and that there is always a penalty for not finishing.
The method of scoring task distance has been changed to give distance credit for all turn points attained regardless of off-course distance on a subsequent leg.
Thus some details have been changed, but the basic rules remain very similar to those used in the recent past.
Copies of the official rules will be mailed to all preregistered pilots, and to any SSA member who writes SSA requesting a copy, as soon as they are printed.

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May...1962

Transcription Notes:
The graph still needs to be transcribed