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This is where it gets obscure. Sorry if this gets a bit thick here (an example follows below).

The Workgroup plans a major change in how the NTSS ranking system works and how meets ("events") acquire the points that they are worth to the pilots that are contemplating attending them. It is difficult to follow, and I've plowed through it, so I'll do my best to explain what the proposal is.

The National Team Selection System (NTSS) is based on USHPA sanctioned competitions. You go to sanctioned competitions and you get points based on how well you did compared to the winner of the meet. Add up your NTSS points from your best four meets (you can count two foreign meets, and you used to be able to count four foreign meets) over the last two years (only two from the previous year) and that gives you your NTSS ranking compared to other pilots. This, of course, is all done for you by the USHPA office and the meet organizers. I use to so it as a USHPA volunteer.

This is the current system:

1) Sanctioned hang gliding competitions, by default, are worth at least 300 NTSS points (out of 600) to pilots. This is the not even warm bodies bonus. If you have a sanctioned competition you get to have 300 NTSS points to entice pilots looking for NTSS points to come to your competition. Now while most pilots won't care, a good number (maybe ten to twenty) "top" pilots will care, and they will show up thereby encouraging others to show up as they know a core group of good pilots will be there.

2) Competitions can get more than 300 NTSS points if they attract enough ranked pilots. They bring points to the meet and if their cumulative points exceed 300 points, the value of the meet (for NTSS points) rises. Here's what they bring:

For example, if the top ten NTSS ranked pilot show up, the meet is worth 450 NTSS point. Add a few others (up to fifteen), and it tops out at 600 points. (The winner can get 660 points, as there is a 10% bonus.)

3. Now there is another wrinkle or two. A meet has to have enough flying days (and GAP or scoring system points) to be fully valid, if you want all of the points available to or brought to the meet by the top pilots. A completed daily task is usually worth about 1000 GAP scoring points (not NTSS ranking points, sorry about that confusing use of the word "points" to mean two different things).

In the current system for a meet to be fully "valid"  the competition winner has to have accumulated at least 3,600 scoring points during the meet (about three and a half days worth). If that doesn't happen then the NTSS ranking points are devalued by the ratio of the winning pilot's scoring point to 3600. For example, if a meet winner scored only a total of 2,950 scoring points, then the meet's validity factor would be 2,950/3,600 = 0.819.

So a meet that started off being worth say 450 points would be worth only 368.55 points at the end (0.819*450). The winner would get 405.41 NTSS points (remember the 10% bonus). The other competitors would get the ratio of their scoring points to the winner's scoring points times 368.55. For example, if I scored 2800 scoring points I would get 2800/2950*368.55 = 349.81 NTSS points.

There are a few other minor points, but that is the gist of how it works.

The proposed system:

1) Instead of a meet being worth a minimum of 300 NTSS points automatically, it will depend on how many pilots show up and who shows up. So there is nothing in advance to attract pilots to come to a meet in the way of guaranteed points. They have to come for there to be any points at all. Someone has to get the ball rolling.

2) Instead of a maximum of 600 NTSS points (660 to the winner) a meet can be worth up to 1000 NTSS points. These values are arbitrary, of course, except in the case we will get to later. But the 10% winner bonus is gone.

3) Each hang glider pilot who comes to the meet brings 15 NTSS points (this is the warm body validity system). The maximum that they can bring in 15 point increments is 700 NTSS points. So if 47 hang glider pilots show up, the meet is worth 700 points, without regard to their ranking.

4) Hang gliding pilot ranked in the top 50 bring additional NTSS points. They bring their 15 points and in addition they bring more points as per this schedule:

5) So it is possible for a meet to be worth 1000 NTSS points if enough of the right quality of pilots show up.

6) The actual NTSS points available from a meet also, like the previous system, depends on validity of the meet, i.e. how many and what quality of tasks were completed during the meet. So the NTSS points available from a meet are determined as above in the existing system, but this time the meet validity factor is multiplied by perhaps 1000 NTSS points instead of 600 (for example).

Okay, so what does this change actually mean? Got me. The members of the Workgroup have not provided us with an analysis of the results of using this ranking system, say using competition results from the last two years. So we don't know if it makes any difference (at least after the fact).

We have not seen an explanation of the Workgroup's thinking about why they propose to change the NTSS system so radically. We don't know what they were trying to accomplish. They appear to be trying to weigh more attendance than ranking in providing points to the meets, perhaps to encourage more unranked pilots to attend. But it is not clear that this system encourages such pilots to attend (assuming that they can even understand its value to them). Nor is it even clear that it weighs more toward unranked pilots than the previous system.

Now more changes come when it comes to calculating your total NTSS points. You can add your average score from your best five rounds in any Class A event over the last two years. Say, you did well in a speed gliding event, add that in. Just how exactly is unclear.

In addition, instead of two foreign competitions (as is the case now), you can only count one. Quite a reduction over the years from foreign meets being treated the same as US meets. The foreign meet must be a Class B event (does that rule out pre-Worlds?), must be GAP scored (they all are anyway) and have at least 50 entrants (unlike in the US). The 2008 Canungra Classic had less than 50 pilots this year.

So a couple of questions arise. When does this system start, if it is to be implemented at all? It seems like to be fair it should start in 2013, using and scoring the 2011 competitions as the previous year. The current NTSS system would be used for the 2011 US National team ranking. The competitions in 2009 and 2010 would valued using the current NTSS system and be used for the 2011 National team.

The 2011 and 2012 meets would be valued using this system (if it is implemented) and used for the 2013 national team.

This program can't be passed (if at all) until the Fall 2009 USHPA BOD meeting. Pilots have already made decisions about attending foreign competitions in the first three months of 2009 based in part on the current value of foreign competitions for the 2011 national team. Those meets should not be retroactively devalued. Pilots had a reasonable expectation based on the USHPA Rulebook, and it would be unfair to penalize those pilots who were just playing by the rules. (Disclaimer - I am one of those pilots.)

In addition pilots have attended US based meets based on the existing NTSS ranking system, and meets have been valued based on the results of those meets. It would be unfair to change the pilots' NTSS points after the meets based on a new NTSS ranking system. The system needs to be in place before the meets begin, and before the pilots make the decision to attend them or not.

You need to have two years of NTSS ranking points under this system only. No matter what year you implement there will be a mix of two different systems, one with a maximum of 600 points and one with a maximum of 1000 points per meet. While it is best to implement the system in the two years before a Worlds, there is still one year with a mix of both systems. How are you going to deal with this?

Have you contacted the people (Rick Butler and Dave Wheeler) at the USHPA that actually do the NTSS ranking system? Are they willing to implement all these changes within the time frame that you may propose? Can they?

It is unclear how you are going to integrate points from Class A events into this NTSS ranking system. It seems under determined, and doesn't provide clear algorithmic guidelines to the folks responsible for this to make it happen. This needs to be clarified.

The existing NTSS ranking system provides a minimum of 300 NTSS points (out of 600) to flex wing meets and 200 NTSS points to paraglider meets. Perhaps the paraglider pilots (after all this Workgroup was basically made up of paraglider pilots) want more points for their meets and want to "force" more of the top pilots to come to all the meets, because there may be more points there than they can afford to let some "journey man" have? Well, they could have just raised the minimum number of points available to paraglider meets to 400 NTSS points or maybe even 600 NTSS points. Why not make all USHPA sanctioned meets worth 600 points, right off the bat?

You could put an attendance floor in if you wanted to, say twenty pilots, or forty for paragliding. This would put a huge bull's eye on all the upcoming meets encouraging as many pilots as possible to go to them as now you've increased their worth. And you really don't have to make many changes at all to the system.

It is unclear what the point of this massive change in the NTSS system is and what are the benefits and costs. I would love to hear the justification from the Workgroup and whether they considered the costs.

Overall, it is unclear why the Workgroup is trying to use the NTSS system at all for whatever goals they are trying to achieve. The National Team Selection System is designed to choose the National team after all. If they want to promote King Mountain and Tennessee Tree Topper Team Challenge type meets, perhaps they should come up with a separate and more applicable system to do that.

This seems to be just another symptom of the fact that the USHPA can't bring itself, as an organization, to put resources into (spend money on) competition. It's all sticks and not carrots for them.