I have had some time to think about this. I still don't have an answer for the problem and I am sure I am far from the first person to be thinking about this but here are some observations and ideas from the week in Motegi.
The number of collisions during the 2006 worlds was far from acceptable and was definitely much higher than I have ever seen at an event. In desperation the event director imposed a limit of 600 ft/min on climbs and descents with the threat of penalties for reckless flying if the speeds were found to be broken based on logger data.
For anyone not in the know, all balloons were carrying a Garmin Geko 301 GPS to log the barometric altitude and balloon position every 5 seconds during each flight. This data is then downloaded and analysed for infringement of airspace and prohibited zones as well as confirmation of launch and landing data. Exactly how much is looked at by the scorers for each flight I don't know and won't profess to know. The data is also used to reconstruct any incidents such as collisions.
The analysis of the track data for monitoring vertical speeds would no doubt be an extra challenge in time and manpower for the officials.
Anyhow, as previously mentioned the speed limit was controversial in that some people did not want it at all while others were happy to have it as it made them feel safer in the sky. For me the question is did it work and if so was it the speed limit that made things safer or the threat of a penalty?
My impression from the two flights where the speed limit was in place was that they felt a lot calmer and a little more relaxed in the sky than some other flights. Balloons were moving around a lot slower than we had previously seen but it is also important to note that the weather on those two flights also seemed to require less big vertical adjustments than we had seen on other flights. In the morning flight, higher altitudes were used later in the flight but it was all happening so slowly that a high speed vertical adjustment was not really of any advantage.
The afternoon flight could have seen more speed being used in climbs and descents but most balloons ended up with a low altitude crawl to the target so again I am not sure if there would have been much use of vertical speed on that flight.
Interestingly during the CIA debriefing it was revealed that there were a high number of minor infringements of the speed limit and a few larger ones. In the end there were no penalties applied because it was obvious that everyone was trying to comply with a very new performance limitation and that it had the desired effect on everyones behavior.
The key question is whether the speed limit made most people behave or was it the threat of penalties in the last few flights of a World Championship?
I think that if anything, the current rule book has shown that the correct penalties have a drastic effect on behavior. Pilots will avoid penalties in any way they can as penalties are a sure fire way to make sure you can't win. As such I think that a better set of fixed penalties will curb flying that causes collisions.
Currently the rules allow up to 1000 competition points for each balloon involved. Maybe this needs to be higher and some fixed penalties for fixed vertical speeds.
An example bouncing around in my mind is as follows:
500 competition points for any balloon in a collision with a speed up to 300ft/min in the previous 20 seconds before collision,
1000 points for 300 to 450 ft/min.
1500 points for 450 to 550 ft/min.
2000 points for 550 to 700 ft/min.
In the event of a collision where the speed of a particular balloon was in excess of 700 ft/min or damage to a balloon results, the collision should be considered as willful interference with another competitor and penalised under rule 13.1, unsporting behavior.
The start is always fun and as we were positioned near the first mark at the heads, we got great views as the big boats steamed past in the brisk South Easterly wind. A few attempted a spinnaker run up the harbour which made for some extra excitement as they attempted to drop them at the mark before coming on the breeze to exit the heads.
