Collision and Climb/Descent rates

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.

Worlds Day 1.2

Photos!!!!! We have finally got some photos on the web.

Mine are on flickr - link on the right.

Adam has his here: http://flickr.com/photos/wolfieb/299201030/

Enjoy.

Time to head off for the afternoon flight. Looks like rain so maybe nothing will happen. Fingers crossed we get another flight in.

Worlds Day 1.1

Ok, 1.1 means this is the second update for day 1.

We have just got back from the flight which was a PDG, FIN, FON. It looked like it was going to be a bit fast up top so the taskes were set to move us out to the west and out of the mountians where it might be slower or at the very least the landings easier.

Andrew and I worked together for the morning and ended up launching on a very different flight path to most of the field. It worked out ok as far as I am concerned with 3.14m on the PDG, about 30m on the FIN and 5m on the FON.

One technical error on my part will cost us both dearly on the FIN. We were outside the Max distance of 10km by about 390m. As a result we will have twice that added to the result.

On a morning where the results will be good it will kill us and I am expecting a total of maybe 100 points on that task. If it is any consolation, it is day 1, there will be a chance to make it up and also the results on the FIN looked very close so 30m may have only been 500 points anyway!

The funny side of the morning was the last marker. Japanese love to burn rubbish! Unfortunately my 5m drop was near a very clean living farmer who promptly burnt all of the markers he could find....Good news was that the observer had already witnessed the point where it landed so we still get the result.

Crazy stuff but we are underway!

Not long to go now

Tuesday night and basically 24 hours to go until we leave for the airport.

Every thing has been hectic at work (no real surprises there) but we are under control and ready to get back to Japan. Time to pack a few bags, get some rest and bring on the competition.

Andrew will be collecting his balloon from the freight forwarder in Narita tomorrow morning so I hope all goes well for him - his balloon has the windreader in it so it is as important to me that it clears customs as it is to him!

Pete and Adam left today some time so will be there tonight and will drive up to Motegi with Andrew in the morning.

It looks like everything with Molly is under control so Mum and Dad are definitely coming to operate the windreader which is also good news on both fronts.

New vinyl signs have been cut for all of the Australian team cars so we will at the very least look the part!