The pre-Worlds is, as far as CIVL is concerned, a test competition
to determine if the organization and the site are ready for the Worlds the
following year. It is basically a shakedown curse for the organization, as far
as CIVL is concerned. At the end of the competition the CIVL steward hands in a
report to the CIVL Bureau with recommendations for the following year. This is
my report from the perspective of an ordinary pilot attending the competition.

For pilots this was a major competition with a high level of competitiveness. It
is the real deal. Really, as always, what CIVL thinks and does is of little
concern to them.

Overall the 2010 pre-Worlds was a very well run competition with a large,
competent staff and plenty of pilot services and support. Flavio Tebaldi's crew
created a great web site, lots of beautifully printed materials including huge
maps (and maps for the drivers), held numerous events, setup a well run
registration system, included very fast and knowledgeable scorekeepers, ran a
safe and efficient launch system, had excellent task calling, calm and focused
leadership, and plenty of weather information. Given the challenge of running a
large and complex competition they were very efficient.

On the other hand, there were a few very minor problems that did blossom into
some difficulties.

The first issue was initially poor communications due to the fact that they
attempted to address the pilots in a gymnasium. The acoustics were horrible and
no one could understand what was being said. This problem apparently arose out
of a lack of direction about whether the organization should be talking to all
the pilots or to the "team leaders." A much smaller room with better acoustics
would have accommodated the "team leaders" allowing the soft spoken meet
director, Franco Rinaldi, to communicate much more effectively.

Unfortunately the communication problem was not fixed for a number of days until
the organization did decide to hold team leader/representative briefings in the
registration area instead of in the whole gymnasium.

This initial lack of clear communications lead to the next problem which
occurred when the CIVL meet steward, who speaks English as a first language and
can make herself heard somewhat better than the meet organizers, took over much
of the communications duties. She is a an experienced and forceful meet director
and it appears as though taking charge comes naturally to her. Unfortunately,
this led to later problems, as she was now taking on the role of defacto meet
director, and not appearing to operate as the meet steward.

Airspace concerns were a big issue and it was not made clear to pilots long
before hand that there would be drastic height restrictions near the launch. In
addition, no one has tested a competition with the new CIVL altitude rules with
such a likelihood that pilots would be inadvertently entering airspace. The
outcome of this volatile mixture was hard feelings for a number of pilots.

I don't need to go into all the airspace issues here.  Some airspace issues
are found here:
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20999

Altitude definition issues are found here:
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21016

The apparent fact that the Open Air formatted file for the pre-Worlds airspace
definition was not created correctly (see what this means below) by the
scorekeepers and that this incorrectly formatted file then lead to at least one
pilot (if not others) being penalized for entering airspace when their flight
instruments with the wrong information from the meet organizers told them that
they were not in airspace certainly raises a number of issues about how to deal
with airspace.

I trust that CIVL will identify and clarify each air space issue that I and
others have raised so that we can have these issues dealt with by the time of
the Worlds.

The inappropriate interactions between the CIVL steward (including with me), the
meet personnel and the protest committee was a screw up. The Protest Committee
needed to operate independently of the meet organizers and the CIVL Steward,
otherwise it lacked any credibility with the pilots. The Protest Committee
should have physically separated themselves from the CIVL Steward and the meet
officials starting with their very first meeting. I deal with these issues here:
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20992.

One day the task committee called a turnpoint that was situated over
recognizably unlandable areas. No turnpoint should require pilots to fly over
unlandable areas unless it is completely clear the conditions show that they
will have no chance of landing in these areas. Given the air space height
restrictions and the generally poor conditions during the competition when it
came to obtaining comfortable heights, this point should never have been chosen
without a much larger radius (to keep pilots close to landable areas).

Thirty pilots stated that the task was unsafe. When the use of this waypoint was
brought up again for the last task, Franco, the meet director, wisely said that
given the negative safety reports the turnpoint could not be used.

Cloud flying was apparently an issue, although I watched pilots very closely and
did not see any in clouds. Pilots are still not willing to call out their fellow
pilots for cheating.

Pilots were never given the correct information about setting their Compeo+'s or
Flytec 6030's at launch. It is my understanding that the scorekeepers are using
the barometric pressure altitude recorded by these instruments when checking for
airspace violations. (I won't go into the whole convoluted process.)

The barometric pressure altitude recorded by these instruments assumes a mean
seal level pressure of 1013.25 mb, standard atmospheric pressure. Any reference
on launch to a different pressure at mean sea level is irrelevant and confusing
if the scorekeepers aren't making any further adjustments to the recorded
barometric pressure altitude.

I repeatedly told pilots to just set their standard altitude display to the
current height for the day (well at the time of launch) by setting it using the
standard sea level barometric pressure. They do this by pressing the left soft
button on their display Compeo+ and 6030). For example, on the last day, the
barometric pressure altitude on launch was 3720' (on my 6030, as I recall). The
GPS altitude was 3940'. I had pilots set their altitude to whatever their
instrument actually read on launch, if they wanted to use their display to help
them stay out of airspace.

Of course, there never was a statement from the meet organizers that the 6000'
level, actually meant flight level, or 6,000' pressure altitude in a standard
atmosphere. It was never clear exactly what it did mean and how pilots were
supposed to stay out of it.