Bright 321, Day 1

Beautiful Cu today, but too much SW wind for a task. The briefing this AM went for 3 hours, no kidding, the big issue was how to implement the FAI rules for Airspace.

The FAI rules are anything but clear, and it wasn't long before the group came up with a few scenarios whereby the rules totally contradicted themselves and some of the assumptions became highly suspect, so we broke into small groups to brainstorm and that really sped things up and got us back on track.

Amazingly, in the end, everyone was satisfied that we had a clear interpretation of the rules - it was fair and enforceable and even took into account how the scoring software might be affected by the penalties.

Because of the type of airspace we have around here, this is my take on how the rules affect this comp: if you penetrate a chunk of controlled airspace vertically by MORE than 100 meters, you are scored to that point, and get a zero for the day by getting a penalty equal to your score. Getting a zero score this way hurts you but not the task's validity.

If you penetrated less than 100 meters vertically into airspace (either once or multiple times on that flight) no penalty applies, but you get an official warning - and if you did the same thing the next day (or subsequent days), you are scored to the point you entered airspace, and get a zero score in the same way as above.

So you get one "get out of jail free" card per comp, but only if you penetrate airspace less than 100 meters vertically. Note that if you penetrated (horizontally) into the side of an airspace "step", your infraction is calculated exactly as above, i.e. only your distance vertically above the horizontal airspace boundary is what is measured!

While it may seem a little strange, that is the interpretation of what a group of about 20+ smart people finally agreed upon.

Lastly - this was my interpretation, so don't get your pants in a wad if the above isn't spot on....

Tomorrow looks 50/50 as the wind is forecast to be strong....