I wrote to Joerg Ewald:

At the recent Brazilian Nationals they used Jump the Gun in scoring for the
first time. They used a factor of 4.

On the sixth task (http://www.abvl.com.br/images/brasilia2013/brasilia2013prova6elite.pdf),
Eduardo Fernandes, started 38 seconds early. But he received only a penalty of
10 points.

I read in the FS documentation for “The GAP, Scoring formula explained”:

3. 6 Jump the Gun option

“Jump the gun” option is to allow pilots to start before the startgate. This
option is normally only used in HG competitions. By setting this option, a pilot
can start before the first start time or Startgate time and will get time points
for the task. But by starting earlier (if that is allowed) the pilot is
penalized for his early start in relation to start time.

A setting of 2 in “Jump the Gun” option will give a pilot starting before the
first startgate additional time in the SpeedSection of X 2 the time he started
earlier. For example if the Jump The Gun factor is set to 2 and a pilot starts
20 seconds earlier than the first startgate he will get 40 seconds added to his
speed section time.

To make this work the “Jump the Gun” factor has to be set. Also, the
StartOfSpeed Section (SS) start time must be set to be before the first
startgate time. The SS time can be set to define how early a pilot can start
before the startgate.

For example if the SS start time is set to 2 minutes prior to the first start
gate time, then this limits the pilot to a maximum of 2mins early start.

Ten points seems a bit low.

The full scoring should be found here:
http://www.abvl.com.br/images/brasilia2013/brasilia2013prova6open.pdf, but
it seems to be missing. http://www.abvl.com.br/

Jonny Durand asks, how does Jump the Gun deal with leading points and arrival
position points?

In my SeeYou-based scoring system I just move the pilot’s flight interval from
the amount of time before the first start time to that amount of time after the
first start time and score him/her normally with the new start time.

I believe that Claudio can make the Brazilian Nationals FS database available to
you.

I don’t have much documentation of the formulas for Jump the Gun.

Joerg Ewald <<joerg>>
writes:

The Jump-the-gun rule put in place by CIVL two years ago and
implemented in FS works slightly differently from the way you do it in SeeYou.
The exact definition can be found here:

http://www.fai.org/component/phocadownload/category/?download=7122:2012-civl-scoring-system

(Section 10.2, page 28)

With a Jump-the-gun factor of 4, one penalty point is applied for every four
seconds of starting early. 38 seconds give 9.5 penalty points, which are rounded
to 10. So I believe the calculation is correct and according to CIVL’s current
rules.

Note that section 7A of the FAI Sporting code (the rules that apply to World-
and Continental championships and can be used as guidelines for other comps)
states that a factor of 3 should be used:

http://www.fai.org/downloads/civl/SC_7A_2013

(Section 15.5.7.3 on page 66)

This would result in a penalty of 13 points. Still not all that much.

In paragliding, he’d only score for the distance up to the start, or minimum
distance, whichever is greater. Harsh, but I prefer this from a sportive
perspective. Our competitors learn from very early on to pay good attention at
the start, and rather start a few seconds late than a single second too early.
Even with our limited and now pretty much standardized top speeds, the start
does hardly ever play a decisive role in a task’s results.

Claudio Velloso <<claudio>>
writes:

This was not the first time we have used "Jump to Gun". We used it
about two years ago with the version 1.3.1 of FS. In this version, it calculated
the time that the pilot did start before the first start time and multiplies by
the factor (4x) and adds this to the pilot's time. Now the calculation is
different in this version (FS2013).

I did a test and used version 1.3.1 of FS in the same league and it gave the
penalty time to the pilot. Probably in Australia they are still using the old
version of the program.

Knowing now how it works, I'll ask the organizers to make a change in the rules
of the championship. I think that one should always use the latest version of FS
available.

Long ago I implemented the "Jump the Gun" (early start)
differently. It looks to me that my SeeYou-based scoring program gives a greater
penalty for starting early.

Jonny: Yes it does seem so it really is not much of a penalty. How about for a
stopped task situation?

Davis: FS doesn't give much of a penalty, but my program does. Especially in a
stopped task situation. Really severe, so you do not want to start early if the
task is stopped.

Jonny: I know your system does but I was just curious if FS does the same thing
or if you get your actual start time and distance along course line without
penalty since time is not involved?

Davis:
http://www.fai.org/component/phocadownload/category/?download=7122:2012-civl-scoring-system

Check the top of page 29.

Looks like with FS you just get their little penalty without moving your track
log and scoring it based on the new times. You appear to get your actual start
time in FS. You get your actual distance along the course line apparently.

Joerg Ewald <<joerg>>
writes:

Yes, Davis‘ analysis is correct, a pilot will always get their
regular score, as if he’d started at the correct time, minus the Jump-the-gun
penalty. This may of course have an impact on the leading points for other
pilots. I’m afraid whoever came up with this rule did not take leading points
into account.

I think it’s important to notice that this is not “FS” that does it this way. FS
merely implements the GAP scoring formula as requested by CIVL. In this
particular case, it implements something that was decided at the 2012 CIVL
Plenary, proposed by the Hang Gliding Sub-Committee. I have no idea who was
involved there, and what their motivation may have been. If things need to be
changed, you should take it up with the current HG SC.