TOPIC: ESAP Proposal

First, thank you for all of your questions and comments.
Here are some answers to your questions:
• Witnesses - If the ESAP is adopted, for the SAP or ESAP Levels requiring an LSF member witness, that witness may be an LSF member who has achieved the required level from either the SAP or the ESAP.
• ESAP competition events - Competition events will not be limited to ALES. As with the existing SAP, events will be allowed to evolve to meet future needs.
• If the ESAP is adopted, non-LSF members who complete the ESAP will receive the next available LSF number, current LSF members who choose to participate in the ESAP will retain their number.

There are now fifty days left in the ESAP Proposal question & comment period. The purpose of this period is to allow membership participation and help the LSF leadership establish an ESAP equal in quality to the cherished SAP.

During the 1st ten days, there have been comments that the ESAP should contain tasks unique to a electric powered sailplanes. Only a single post has proposed a program different than the one in the proposal. If you feel strongly that the ESAP should be different, let's hear what you'd like to see. If, you feel strongly that the proposed ESAP is completely acceptable, let us and your fellow LSF members know why. Please remember that everyone in the LSF Forum is an LSF member and accord them the courtesy and respect they deserve and also remember to generate light not heat.

Thanks in advance for your help,
On behalf of the LSF Board, Jim Deck LSF President

One of the things that the ESAP will require is a definition of an electric powered radio control model. By my reading, referring to the current FAI definition is adequate.

I would suggest that the ESAP contain wording that explicitly requires that every flight that an aspirant uses to fulfill any particular level's requirement be launched using the power of its electric motor.

With regard to ensuring that the widest possible range of events be included in the ESAP, I would suggest that the definition of allowable events (Article C Section 11) be rewritten as follows:

"Besides meeting the requirements above, pilots submitting claims for performance in an event must fly planes that were launched using the power of their electric motors and the events must require that a majority of the flying between launch and landing be done without any motor power. An event shall be deemed to meet this requirement if the Contest Director determines that the nature of the contest task(s) requires more unpowered flight time for a contestant to fully meet the contest’s task objectives than the amount of time of the motor run."

This does the following:
1. It requires that the aspirant's plane be an electric plane, flown as an electric plane.
2. It allows the flexibility to include virtually any event that requires gliding skills -- ALES, F5J, LMR, F5B, F5F, Aerobatics, Speed, Distance, Cross Country, Altitude, Triangle Course racing and hopefully the new ideas which will evolve -- as long as the skill being tested relies predominantly on what is done when the power is turned off.
3. Hopefully, it is not so broad as to include full power-on aerobatics, pylon racing or whatever. The task has to be performed mostly without power on.
4. It will facilitate the inclusion of "mixed" events where traditional and electric powered gliders compete together. It ONLY includes pilots who fly electric planes that are launched under their own power.

Anyway, I might not have the wording quite right, but I thought I would toss the idea out.

Happy Landings,

Don

dHarban wrote: One of the things that the ESAP will require is a definition of an electric powered radio control model. By my reading, referring to the current FAI definition is adequate.

I would suggest that the ESAP contain wording that explicitly requires that every flight that an aspirant uses to fulfill any particular level's requirement be launched using the power of its electric motor.

With regard to ensuring that the widest possible range of events be included in the ESAP, I would suggest that the definition of allowable events (Article C Section 11) be rewritten as follows:

"Besides meeting the requirements above, pilots submitting claims for performance in an event must fly planes that were launched using the power of their electric motors and the events must require that a majority of the flying between launch and landing be done without any motor power. An event shall be deemed to meet this requirement if the Contest Director determines that the nature of the contest task(s) requires more unpowered flight time for a contestant to fully meet the contest’s task objectives than the amount of time of the motor run."

This does the following:
1. It requires that the aspirant's plane be an electric plane, flown as an electric plane.
2. It allows the flexibility to include virtually any event that requires gliding skills -- ALES, F5J, LMR, F5B, F5F, Aerobatics, Speed, Distance, Cross Country, Altitude, Triangle Course racing and hopefully the new ideas which will evolve -- as long as the skill being tested relies predominantly on what is done when the power is turned off.
3. Hopefully, it is not so broad as to include full power-on aerobatics, pylon racing or whatever. The task has to be performed mostly without power on.
4. It will facilitate the inclusion of "mixed" events where traditional and electric powered gliders compete together. It ONLY includes pilots who fly electric planes that are launched under their own power.

Anyway, I might not have the wording quite right, but I thought I would toss the idea out.

Happy Landings,

Don

It is a small Nit, but there is typically no need to run the motor when slope soaring although I guess it would be no big deal to have to run it for a few seconds in order to fulfill this requirement.


However, if I were to hand throw it into a thermal and do a 30 minute task, would that task be disqualified because the motor was not used? I would hope not.

Ed, I agree. But if we are going to have an ESAP that includes slope, it seems to me that it should be with an electric launch. I am a little concerned that even though we cannot see it now, that if we are not explicit about the use of electric planes that some goober will find a way around it -- don't ask me how. But I have a lot of years in the world of goobers.

I am not a big fan of including the slope task, but for me at least, the electric part makes sense. It is far more likely that I can find a slope which has a small clearing at the bottom than one at the top. We have lots of hills here and lots of wind. But in the eight years I have lived here, I have not found a hill suitable for 8 hours.

Happy Landings,

Don

I suppose if you hand threw a plane with a usable motor in the nose it wouldn't be a problem. Given all the stink over electric planes encroaching on traditional soaring I'd have a hard time including non-powered planes in the program.

dHarban wrote: Ed, I agree. But if we are going to have an ESAP that includes slope, it seems to me that it should be with an electric launch. I am a little concerned that even though we cannot see it now, that if we are not explicit about the use of electric planes that some goober will find a way around it -- don't ask me how. But I have a lot of years in the world of goobers.

I am not a big fan of including the slope task, but for me at least, the electric part makes sense. It is far more likely that I can find a slope which has a small clearing at the bottom than one at the top. We have lots of hills here and lots of wind. But in the eight years I have lived here, I have not found a hill suitable for 8 hours.

Happy Landings,

Don

I suppose if you hand threw a plane with a usable motor in the nose it wouldn't be a problem. Given all the stink over electric planes encroaching on traditional soaring I'd have a hard time including non-powered planes in the program.

Understood and agree on both points.

I think the key here is that the planes are capable of being launched by an onboard electric motor.

Wording that might apply would be, "All tasks must be completed from a hand launch or the use of the onboard electric motor for launch as per the limits and guidelines of the program. No other launch methods are valid."

We would not want someone putting a hook on them and using a hi-start to fly one of the tasks. Although we have launched Radians from the winch at our club.

dHarban wrote: But I have a lot of years in the world of goobers.

That's probably why we get along so well. :)

dHarban wrote: One of the things that the ESAP will require is a definition of an electric powered radio control model.

Good point. What you posted seems like a great start.

jdadmin wrote: During the 1st ten days, there have been comments that the ESAP should contain tasks unique to a electric powered sailplanes.

I'm working on a proposal that I'll be posting here.

Ryan

I've been skimming these posts off and on for the last week or so. I hope we're past some of the sniping and getting down to useful discourse on the ESAP proposal.

dharban's comments sound well thought out, as do the follow-on ideas. What may seem like picking nits are important issues to clarify and work out so that the goobers of the world don't have an avenue to game the system.

I'm glad there is still a considerable amount of time to hash all these details out. And there are many more details than I would ever have conceived! But one thing I have not yet heard is a compelling argument against the ESAP.

There are obviously a number of people taking the lead in this endeavour, and I appreciate all the thought and time you are putting into it. The rest of us who are watching from the sidelines, so to speak, should pay close attention so we can end up with a program we are all happy with...or at least can live with!

PS..... put a 5/16 dowel inside the spar, and your Radian's wings won't flex so much on the hi-start!

LVSoaring wrote: snip...


PS..... put a 5/16 dowel inside the spar, and your Radian's wings won't flex so much on the hi-start!

That was launched on a Ford Long Shaft winch with 250 pound test line in an Eastern Soaring League contest.

I would like to make a modest proposal concerning the display of our LSF accomplishments on our planes.

First, I would like to observe that this is not exactly an earth-shaking issue. While I am sure that someone out there still displays the LSF emblem with appropriate Level Recognition additions on it on there planes, it is not widely practiced. Or at least it is not as widely practiced as it was back in the day. And for those LSF members among us who are currently not displaying this stuff should temper their objections to what is being proposed here.

As a Level IV from a long time ago I find the notion of displaying the LSF emblem and the embellishments designating accomplishment to be sort of nice. And without reigniting a war over separate-but-equal and glider integration issues there may be a worthwhile reason to offer the option of separately recognizing HOW recognition was obtained. I am proposing (exact wording attached) that no modification be made to the SAP which specifies that members may display their level of accomplishment by affixing RED numbers to the LSF emblem. I am proposing that members who attain any particular level of accomplishment via the ESAP may display their level of accomplishment by affixing BLACK numbers to the LSF emblem. And I am proposing that members who attain any particular level of accomplishment via both the SAP and the ESAP MAY display their levels of accomplishment by affixing SILVER numbers to those levels for which they have dual success.

My intention here is absolutely NOT to somehow stigmatize anyone, but to allow members to display how they achieved their recognition AND MOST IMPORTANTLY TO ALLOW THOSE OF US WHO HAVE ACHIEVED RECOGNITION THROUGH BOTH PROGRAMS TO DISPLAY THAT RECOGNITION IF WE WISH.

I don’t know what to read into the scarcity of LSF emblems on planes, so maybe this doesn’t mean much. But the practice of members affixing the LSF emblem to planes back in the day was an important way to publicize the LSF.

Happy Landings,

Don

Sounds like a cool way to display the achievement. BTW I have my LSF sticker on my Paragon although I don't think I have yet put the little iv on it.

Ryan