Mike Meier <<email>> writes:

When I was asked two weeks ago for my opinion on the current USHPA Competition restructuring project, I mentioned that I hadn't really followed the situation in any detail. I'd glanced through some of your comments on the Oz Report, and I'd seen the graph purporting to show the steep decline in competition in the mid 1980's, but that was about it.

I've since taken the time to read through some of the USHPA documents on the current project, and some of the comments on the Oz Report Forum. I've also gone back and re-read some articles and correspondence from the mid 1980's to refresh my memory. (I was there, and very much involved, but it was 25 to 30 years ago.)

There is a great deal of very complex history behind the issues of the NTSS and its relationship to the rest of the competition scene. Few of those involved in debating those issues today are fully aware of this historical background, because they weren't there when it happened. I have to say that the dominant feeling I had reading through the old correspondence was déjà vu - so much of what is being discussed and argued today is almost identical to what was argued then.

I will say that I don't know if I can be of much help in the current discussion. Not because I'm not current in competition (which I'm not, but certain principles don't really change), and not because I don't understand the issues, because I do, but because my opinions were largely minority opinions then, and, from what I've read, they're still minority opinions today. Still, I did promise some comment.

As to the question of whether something the USHGA did in 1986 decimated the competition scene in the U.S., no, I don't agree that that happened. I know what the USHGA did in 1986, because I was largely the one that did it. What we did, or what we tried to do, was remove the competition points system from what I (and others) felt was an inappropriate place as a centerpiece and focal point of the competition program, and attempt to make it what it should have been all along, just a small, unimportant algorithm that sat on the sidelines and quietly picked the six or eight truly best pilots, out of the maybe as many as 20 pilots who might be qualified to be considered, to put on the next US National Team for the next international competition.

Regarding the general history of competition, and the points system, and their relationship, as I remember it, it went something like this:

In the early and mid 1970's competition was very popular and meets were well attended. (There was no competition points system at that time, so clearly the competition points system was not the cause of this popularity.) The 1976 Hang Ten World Open (featured recently in Oz Report discussions) drew more than 300 competitors. In either 1976 or 1977, if memory serves, the Region 10 (southeastern US) Regionals drew 100 competitors. During this period, most regions had regional meets, and most were well attended.

You had to qualify in a Regionals to get into the Nationals because the demand exceeded the number of slots that could reasonably be provided. Ironically, it was during this period that participation in competition was probably the most frustrating. No one had yet figured out how to set up a valid competition task, meets were commonly run in heats of eight or more pilots, around some form of pylon course, the flight was short, and the difference between happening on lift or sink, during your time on the course made infinitely more difference to your score than your skill level.

Adding to the frustration for pilots, the scheduling of a competition virtually guaranteed unflyable weather. By the late 70's and early 80's we had started to figure out how to run competitions that were more valid, and how to pick sites and dates that provided reasonably reliable weather. The One-on-one format was an early success for accurately measuring pilot skill, by pitting one pilot directly against another in each competition round.

Competition locations like the Owens Valley, where thermal densities were artificially enhanced to an unusual degree, allowed, for the first time, for the 7:1 L/D gliders of the day to compete in valid cross country tasks, without the problem of an excessively high percentage of competitors failing to reach the next thermal before they glided into the ground. Ironically, as competitions became more valid, (and less frustrating for the truly competitive pilots), participation actually began to decline. All of this was still occurring before the institution of the first competition points system.

In 1980 - 1981 I helped to draft the first competition points system, to be used to pick the US Team for the 1981 FAI World Championships in Beppu, Japan. That initial system was a reasonable first effort, but it suffered from a number of problems. On the plus side, it used, in an arithmetically specific way, the value of (previously) ranked pilots in the computation of points earned by a given placing in a meet. This was a new idea (for us, at least) at the time, and it worked. On the negative side, the system also added significant points for what in today's discussion are being called "warm bodies" - pilots without any ranking, and it added far too large a percentage of points for various considerations of "format validity." In defense of this shortcoming, it was true at the time that competition formats were still evolving, and it was felt that the system needed to encourage / require the use of the best, most valid formats. But inevitably, trying to make the system serve two purposes simultaneously made it less able to do the best possible job of just ranking the pilots.

An interesting, unanticipated (for me at least), and unfortunate (in my opinion) byproduct came out of that first points system. Pilots and meet organizers began to look at the number of points awarded to the winner of the meet as the primary measure of the value of flying in, or having organized the meet. Up until then, pilots had enjoyed organizing and flying in meets for the direct, tangible benefits that came out of the experience, but all of a sudden, those benefits seemed unimportant, and all that counted was how many points the meet was worth. For the very small percentage of pilots who were seriously aspiring to be on the next national team, this may have made some sense, but for everyone else, it was really a sort of lunacy in my mind. A complicating factor was that there was a lot of regional pride, and the top ranked pilots weren't distributed evenly geographically - they tended at that time to be clustered in Southern California.

The points system was modified for the 1985 season, and unfortunately the modifications, which were misguidedly intended to address some of the complaints that arose primarily from the regional pride issues, increased the invalidities of the system substantially. This came to a head in the then infamous "Uchytil controversy" at the 1985 US Nationals. What happened at that meet was that two classes - a Sporting Class and a World class, were run and scored in a single combined meet, but the pilots were then re-ordered, and CPS system points awarded, as if the two classes had been two separate meets.

Because of the way the tasks were run and scored as one combined meet, it was possible to see exactly how each pilot would have finished in the overall order if the meet had been scored as a single class. Gerry Uchytil registered in the less competitive Sporting class (fewer ranked pilots). He won that class, and earned 398 CPS points for his win. However, had he registered in the World Class, and had exactly the same performance, he would have earned only 297 CPS points. This invalidity arose because the points system gave points for other than the number and ranking of the pilots one was competing against. (The invalidity had always been there, it had simply been hidden until the specific way the meet was run and scored revealed it). Any system that awards points for other than the demonstrated value of the opponents one finishes ahead of will inevitably have this same invalidity - we don't have to argue about whether this type of invalidity will surface, it is a proven historical fact that it has, it does, and it will. (An even larger discrepancy in the same meet applied to John Woiwode - he earned 353 points in the Sporting class with a placing that would have earned only 100 points in the World Class).

What we did in 1986 was to change the points system to remove almost everything from it except the number and ranking of the ranked pilots who flew in the meet. The only other factor in the system was an adjustment formula for ensuring a certain minimum validity of the results on the basis of which points were awarded - depending on the meet winner's points, a minimum number of rounds and airtime were required, each of which were higher in proportion to the number of points the meet winner would earn.

At the same time we tried to de-emphasize the points system as the focal point of the competition system, and get pilots re-focused on what the real, tangible benefits of competition participation were. This idea had not entirely been lost even at that time - almost certainly the best attended meet of 1985 was the Telluride Fly-In - which wasn't even a competition, and earned no points at all. But for many meet directors and pilots, the 1986 version of the points system (which in my opinion is probably still the best one we've ever had), was a gross insult, and removed all of their incentive for running, or flying in a meet. A meet without significant ranked pilots could no longer earn significant points, and this was seen as a great unfairness.

Pilots argued passionately that points should be awarded more based on the difficulty of the task that one flew in a competition, rather than the quality of the opponents one was able to beat. I never understood this argument, and I still don't. I never understood how anyone thought that a ranking system could serve also as a promotional program, a mentoring program, a training program, a regional pride program, or any of the other myriad burdens that the points system was being saddled with.

In January of 1986, before the new system had even taken effect, I wrote in a letter to Liz Sharp, "I suspect that the new points system is about to be blamed for a precipitous decline in participation in competition at the regional level. This is unfortunate, I think, since the new system has yet to take effect, and since there already has been a steady decline in such participation for the last seven years; a decline that amounts to, over that period, about 80 percent." The 1986 points system was indeed severely and bitterly criticized by a number of people, and it wasn't long before it was watered down and largely invalidated by well meaning people who lacked a basic understanding of what is required in the design of a valid ranking system. (There was no question that the system, before it was gutted, was valid - as just one example, at the end of 1986, the four pilots ranked one through four in the system were also the top four U.S. finishers in the 1986 U.S. Nationals, in exactly the same order.)

We have meets today that demonstrate how competition can be revitalized. The Team Challenge has to be the prime example. I don't believe it earns any competition points. It does provide real tangible benefits to its participants. Its existence and continued and increasing popularity proves that a points system is not necessary to promote competition participation.

There should be a ranking system to choose the National Team. It should be a small thing, operating quietly on the side or in the background. It should have one purpose - to look with a high degree of accuracy and validity at the perhaps 20 pilots, that, at any given point in time (they won't be the same 20 pilots from year to year), are legitimate candidates for the next National team. From those twenty, it should accurately and objectively select the top six or eight. That's all it needs to do, and, for it to be designed to do that job correctly, that's all it can do. It should be left alone to do that. (That doesn't mean it can't extend the ranking down to a larger number of pilots - to work, it pretty much has to. Within two years of the institution of the first cps in 1981 we had more than 200 pilots who had earned points and been ranked in the system, and there's nothing wrong with that. But that isn't the goal, and the number of pilots who get points, or who are ranked, should not be any measure of the value of that system).