A new national Hang Gliding / Paragliding Meet Point Scoring program was unveiled by the Competition Committee at the latest BOD meeting, aimed at ensuring the competition infrastructure benefits the majority of the membership. The system establishes a new national points system called NSFC Points. These points are not used to select the US World team at present (those are the other [NTSS] points), but NSFC points do create a nationwide ranking within the NSFC system. Every competitor who participates in NSFC events will be ranked, and that ranking will be published. As a pilot progresses, the ranking will reflect that.

Manufacturers are getting behind NSFC with prizes. A Pilot Of The Year will be chosen, as well as a wide array of other nominations (Rookie of the Year, Best Average, etc), and they will be published in HG Magazine and PG Magazine at year's end. The intention is to grow the system to be "The" premiere comp ranking system in the USA, and to have stakes high enough to be a carrot for anyone, even the best, while winning is possible for even the least experienced.

The NSFC also makes it possible to score a wide variety of flying meets (XC, Speed, Spot Landing, Glide Comps, HG vs.PG, Other) that are conducted in any year into a consolidated point system that will be used to rank pilots nationally. So regions that have better XC conditions need not dominate the scoring. All skills are impressive, and all skills can earn points (within reason of course).

The NSFC is currently administered by Mike Vorhis, a California pilot who was brought onto the Competition Committee a year ago by committee chair John Borton, specifically because Borton felt that representation for the great bulk of the membership had been lacking for some years in the comp scene, while the USHGA focused primarily on World Team contenders' needs. The hope was to develop a system focused on emerging, developing, and recreational pilots, geared to their equipment, free time, travel budgets, and interests-and yet still to let them compete with the big boys and girls. Vorhis chairs the "Comp Enhancement" sub-committee, from which the NSFC was born. The NSFC now has the full unanimous endorsement of the Comp Committee, the Board of Directors, and the Executive Committee, and will be launched en force in this calendar year (2001).

Philosohpy

Because every participant in an event wants a chance to do well, even against top pilots, a "levelled playing field" system was sought. NSFC is a handicapping system-but with a difference. Instead of a meet director assigning a handicap based on wing types (which invites secret tweaking and the escalation most pilots cannot or will not match), and instead of a national office keeping books on comp performance for thousands of pilots and assigning handicaps from a bureaucracy (a monstrous job), the NSFC system allows pilots to assign their own handicaps! Go for broke, or sand-bag all you want; it's all legal. But…there are strong incentives for declaring your level accurately. And your own performance ultimately tells the tale.

Scoring Overview

Every comp day is worth up to a maximum of 100 NSFC points. A day of XC equals a day of Speed Gliding. A Spot Landing meet equals them both. HG and PG can inter-compete. A three-day meet can get you three days of points, and a longer meet can get you more. (Single-day meets are legal too, for those family folks and those married to their work.) If you want more points, you can of course fly your best in each comp day, but you can also enter and fly more meets, and get more points that way. Or host a small meet of your own, to make sure you have another opportunity. As long as there are 10 or more current USHGA members competing in a meet (and as long as enrollment is open and some minimal announcement is made in the regions from which an event draws), then each day of that meet can earn each competitor NSFC points. Each club should try to put something on, and attend other clubs' events. Inter-club rivalries are easy to tally with this system too.

Your rank will be updated on the website all year long. At year's end, it's the TOTAL of NSFC points that determines winners. If you get 35 points per day for three 1-day meets, you will beat a top pilot who gets 100 points per day for two comp days. That is, in the national NSFC ranking, you'll be higher on the chart.

How To Assign Your Own Handicap

Every comp typically has some scoring system that works best for that site and that format. Let's call that the event's "straight points" system. That system stays in force; the meet head remains in control of what system he or she wants to use.

The NSFC points are calculated ALONGSIDE the event's "straight points." That is, a spreadsheet will show how well you did each day wrt the comp's own "straight points," and on page two the spreadsheet will show how many NSFC points you earned that day toward the National Ranking.

To assign your own handicap for that day, you have to know the event's "straight points" system. On each morning, you look at the task called, and the conditions, and the field of hotshots or losers you're up against. You decide for yourself how many of the comp's "straight points" that day's winner will likely get. (Or if it's mileage, you decide how many miles the day's winner will likely get.) Basically you have to decide that figure based upon some "absolute" points or mileage system. Call that the "Winner's Share."

Then, you decide what percentage of the "Winner's Share" you yourself are likely to get on that day. You can choose a maximum of 90%. Or choose 80%, 70%, 60%…down to 10%. (You must choose in increments of ten, which makes the spreadsheet easier.) Declare your percentage level to the Meet Head for the day.

Then fly.

What You Get

As long as you make your declaration (or beat it), you will earn NSFC points. The formula used to assign the points compresses the scores slightly toward the top. For example, a 90% pilot who makes 90% or more will earn 90 NSFC points. An 80% pilot, if successful, will earn about 83 points. A 50% pilot can earn about 60 points. A 10% pilot who makes his call will earn about 32 points.

You can see that lower levels get some boost toward the top. But the boost is not huge. So the incentive is also there to declare higher-especially if your buddy declares higher. If a rivel declares at 60% and you declare at 50%, even if you out-fly your rival, you will get about 6 points less. So you have to declare accurately to do well.

If you win the day, you get 10 bonus points added to whatever you declared. So the only way to get 100 NSFC points in a day is to declare at 90% (the max you can declare), and then WIN. (Also, if you sand-bagged, a win will not get you as much as if you'd declared higher; a 50% declaration and a win will earn only about 70 NSFC points.)

So to do well, you have to declare as high as you can make.

Watch out though! If you do NOT make your declaration, guess what? You ZERO the day, as far as NSFC points go! (Kinda like making an over-aggressive choice in a big flight and ending up on the ground.) This feature is the Great Equalizer between highly aggressive pilots and the average Joe(sephine). You can really catch someone if they over-extend and leave the door open. (Know anyone like that?)

The equation's weighting is designed so that, between a 50% pilot who makes his/her declarations all three days of a 3-day meet, and a 90% pilot who makes the 90% two days but misses on one day, the 50% pilot will beat the 90% pilot by about 1 point.

Another benchmark example shows that, between a 60% pilot who makes his/her 60% all three days of a 3-day meet, and a 90% pilot who WINS THE DAY two days but does not get 90% on the third day, the 60% pilot will beat the 90% pilot by about 3 point, over that 3-day meet.

You can see how the equalizing can make the difference. And you can see how participation in a number of events can put you in a fantastic position nationally, even if you are declaring somewhat down on the scale each day.

Long-Term Benefits

As a pilot progresses, skills that will improve include evaluating tasks, knowing his/her own abilities, learning (perhaps the hard way) when to stretch personal goals, analyzing the comp's "straight points" scoring system, CONSISTENCY, and figuring out generally what to do to win, either against personal goals or against the field. This system should not only be a blast, it should go along way toward developing comp pilots for future World Team contention.

Considerations

There is a nuance or two being ironed out. And a "Comp In A Can" is being developed, to help new meet organizers who have never run a meet before. Format menus, a spreadsheet, promotion and advertising advice, etc., will be part of it. Just open the can and out pops a Comp, or as close as we can get to that. (Also, incentives for Meet Organizers are being developed.)

There have been minor corrections along the way as The National Sport Flight Conference was developed, which have helped evolve the system. At it's core it's a handicap system, but the competitor gets to choose his/her own handicap (a different one each day probably, based on task and conditions). And the scoring builds in simultaneous incentives for declaring high and for being cautious.

As we said, Regional meets should take off again, not to mention inter-club challenges. Team scoring will now be easy-just add up the NSFC points. Even the big meets in Florida, and the Nationals, will be offering NSFC points on a second page to their NTSS national team system they always use. And they will be recognizing the NSFC achievers in those meets. It could be top pilots or it could be someone further down in the ranks. Anything can happen.

The big things are to consider are:

• 1. The NSFC is approved and is a reality NOW.
  
• 2. ALL paricipants will be ranked nationally, not just the top people.
  
• 3. The key to doing well is PARTICIPATION in multiple events.
  
• 4. The time to start planning a meet, and to start issuing those personal, club, regional, and team challenges is NOW.

The NSFC sub-committee will help with anything that needs help. Information at present can be gotten through your Regional Director, or from these people: