Bruce Goldsmith <<bruce>>
writes:

The weightless project is a kind of live experiment using this
competition as a guinea pig. We have had the first event and this worked well
but we learnt some important lessons.

The first event had 3 weight classes The weight is total flying weight including
glider:

Up to 80Kg

80-100kg

over 100kg

The first comp went generally well, but there were some issues. We had a couple
of PWC pilots who tried the standard competition tricks of flying ballasted up
to improve performance. They were carrying ballast to be loaded right at the
limit of their weight category. We had lightweight pilots (67kg) ballasting up
to be right at the 100kg limit. This is exactly the type of thing we are trying
to stop with the weightless concept.

The idea is to remove the weight advantage so people don't have to fly with
ballast at all. So I analyzed the results from the first weightless comp, to try
to work out how weight effects the results. The data from one comp is not a huge
database for such an analysis, but at least its a start.

I found the most dominant influence on comp results was experience. So I had to
compensate first for the effect of experience before being able to see the
effect of weight.

Here is the graph that resulted. There is a trend but also a high scatter, so
results are not super clear cut.

Weight Vs. Experience:

PTV = Poids (weight) total volant = all up flying weight

From this I plan to test a new handicap system for Weightless 2019. We will
remove the weight categories and have a handicap system instead. The handicap
will be based on 0.25% score adjustment (score of each pilot per task) for every
1Kg in weight. This is the conclusion drawn from the analysis of the first
weightless comp. Fine details of how this handicap will be applied are not yet
decided. Anyway its an ongoing experiment, so we will try it next year and see
how it works.

As the BGD weightless scoring is experimental and the scoring system is 'in
development' we will be using this prototype handicap scoring system only for
the event itself. The results submitted to FAI will be the standard results
without any weight adjustment. So effectively there will be 2 different scores
for the event. The Weight adjusted scores and the standard FAI scores.

Prizes at the event will follow weight adjusted scores. FAI ranking will follow
FAI scores.