Sailplane & Gliding 1966 - Lakes Gliding Club

A RATING SYSTEM
By THE ARMCHAIR PILOT
NE way of getting some insight on
O how to organize a rating system in
which points could be scored for all
good flights, in or out. o~ .competitio.ns,
might be to ask a statIstIcIan to deSign
an ideal "experiment" for us, and then
to see whether it contained any useful
suggestions. So let us put a statistician
(who has never been in a glider before)
and a glider pilot (who has never flown
a calculating machine before) together
in the two-seater and bunjy them off
for a long stretch of hill-soaring.
STH: Well, now, what it is you want
to measure?
GLlO: I was hoping you would keep
the difficult questions until we were
higher.
STAT: But it is rather an obvious first
questiqn.
GLTo: That doesn't mean we know
. the answer. Or, rather, we don't know
what the answer means: we want to
measure pilot skill. The trouble is,
you're now going to ask "skill at what?"
STAT: Yes, I am.
GLlO: Well we have come a long
way since you could measure skill in
simple terms such as duration, or hei~ht
gained, or distance flown downwmd
(remember I was telling you about our
badge system?). Now the competition
tasks tend to be races round set courses,
and the skill is in pushing along as fast
as possible without chancing a premature
landing. You see, one is always
balanced on a knife edge: if one hurries,
one usually raises the chance of
landing -
country.
a sort of stochastic cross­
STAT: Good heavens! How did you
know what "stochastic" meilns?
GLlO: I read my SAILPLANE & GUD­
ING.
STAT (aside): I wish we had descriptions
of gliding events in the statistical
literature. (To GL10) Let's call the time
taken or distance flown, or whatever
the criterion is, the "performance" of
346
the pilot in the task in q~est!on. You.r
problem, as I understand It, IS to estl-
mate the skill of the pilot from ~is performances,
but this is not straIghtforward
because his performances depend
on much more than skill alone. Can
you tell me what these otber factors
are?
GLlO: Yes, I made a list before we
took off. Just hold this stick a minute
whilst I find it. (Pause) Here it is!
(Reads list.)
(I) Weather. In a competition task
this is nearly the same for everyone, but
not outside competitions.
(2) Glider. Some are better tban
others, depending not a little on the conditions.
(3) Site. Some sites are easier than
others, depending on the task.
(4) Task. Some pilots are better at
races, others are better at distance flights.
(5) Luck. Persistent luck, of course, is
called skill.
In addition there are other factors,
such as glider instrumentation and the
driving skill of one's wife, but we can't
take everything into account.
STAT: Exactly! We have a term for
non-.persistent luck and other odds and
ends - "error".
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