BVA's First Landing Challenge

[Cody Outten]

On April 27th from 2-4pm ET, BVA will hold it's first landing competition. This type of event is designed to test your landing skills and to prove who is the best pilot at landing in BVA. Nantucket ground and tower will be staffed to provide services to aircraft participating in the event. Cape approach will also be on to accommodate non-event aircraft. A TFR around Nantucket will be simulated and enforced for the duration of the event.

 

There will be three judges. The judges for the event are Ben(beneidemthepilot), Dylan(buttonville_cykz), and Cody(Bluewarrior4185). The judges will score a pilot's landings on the following criteria

 

1. Distance from the centerline

2. Distance from the intended target

3. Smoothness of the landing

4. Quality and stability of the approach

 

 

We will have two qualifying rounds. The top 4 aircraft from each round will be notified and permitted to participate in the elimination rounds. 4 of the 8 aircraft will be eliminated during the first elimination round. The judges will decide the top 3 landings from the remaining 4 aircraft. We have decided to allow only the default Cessna 172 to fly in the event. This prevents flooding, substitution, and performance differences. If you have any questions, please respond to this thread, or ask one of the judges in Flightdesk. More information will be posted within the next couple of weeks.

[Guest Cameron Laramee]

Is there any plan to take into effect the terrible inaccuracy of FSX multiplayer depictions? Since it doesn't update constantly, only every couple seconds, the aircraft will not appear properly to the judges. Hard landings could look smooth and vice versa. If they bounce, you might see it or you might not. It would be just as hard to accurately determine touchdown point, especially if anyone has scenery differences. In all of my experience watching landings in FSX, I have never seen a landing that looked real enough to judge by your criteria.

[Devon Hathaway]

Hate to bust bubbles but I'm right there with Cameron, have you tested it before announcing it?

[Tom Guerrette]

Is there any plan to take into effect the terrible inaccuracy of FSX multiplayer depictions? Since it doesn't update constantly, only every couple seconds, the aircraft will not appear properly to the judges. Hard landings could look smooth and vice versa. If they bounce, you might see it or you might not. It would be just as hard to accurately determine touchdown point, especially if anyone has scenery differences. In all of my experience watching landings in FSX, I have never seen a landing that looked real enough to judge by your criteria.

 

I think the first two criteria are certainly reasonable ways to judge the landing, provided everyone has BVA's version of Nantucket. However, deciding how hard/soft the landing was is certainly something that can present some challenges, as aforementioned by Cameron and Devon. How do you plan on judging how soft/hard someones landing is, just by watching it (which can work, to a certain extent)?

[Guest Christopher Jansen]

How do you plan on judging how soft/hard someones landing is, just by watching it (which can work, to a certain extent)?

 

I think the only efficient way is to get a 3rd party program such as TOPCAT or VAFS are the only ways to get precise information about landings.

[Guest Mike Pare]

Used to do similar fun events in a previous FSX server. Buttonville and Beneidem know all about that! They were fun and I think the BVA members should embrace something a little out of the ordinary now and then. Keeping it fun and sociable, you know?..put away the FAR's for an hour or two!

 

The challenges were set up where the pilots would cut engines on the downwind, BEFORE turning base. When and where they cut engines was up to the pilot, but it had to be before the base turn. Then it was a dead stick glide to the numbers. Closest to the numbers won it. Variations may have included shortest stopping distance, 360 turns before establishing final, or something else to make it a little more fun and challenging.

 

The event sounds like a good time. In the sake of making it feasible, consider the following;

 

1) I agree with previous comments on the ability to judge smoothness of landings. FSX has a very unpredictable way of displaying other aircraft other than yours. Some landings might look like a porpoise all wacked out on red bull to the judges, but to the pilot in the aircraft it was as smooth as melted butter on touchdown...I don't think smoothness of landing should be a judged criteria.

2) Fun events like this I think are better served in a more relaxed atmosphere. Packing them in at KACK with full on control sounds too much like work for an event like this. I agree that some decorum of control is required, but perhaps the event should take place at some airport that is not a major hub in the BVATC system.

3) a Power on landing at the numbers is...well...just a bad landing altogether! The numbers is not the landing target for any good landing. UNLESS we're talking power off dead stick to the runway (see above), then the defined target of the numbers puts some challenge into the pilots hands to get their speed and decent into check to avoid undershooting the runway. Further they get an opportunity to maybe pull off a few forward slips to avoid an long overrun of the numbers...

 

Good idea from those involved with getting an impromptu event set up. The beauty of an online community is the ability of it's members to make it something they are excited to be a part of. Consider my comments and those of the others, and maybe refine the scope of the challenge and the judging criteria.

 

I hope I can make it to the event. These kinds of fun and relaxed events are the magic of online gaming in my opinion.

[Cody Outten]

Sorry for the late response. The landing competitions were a big hit on the FSMP server. No issues regarding the ability to judge the softness of the landings were brought up in the planning. The planners of the event will run the necessary test to make sure we will be able to judge this factor. We will make any revisions if necessary and inform all the members of those changes if any are made.

 

Nantucket was chosen for a couple reasons. The main reason is that it is a popular airport among the BVA members and it is in the Boston ARTCC. The planners did not want the first competition to be at an unfamiliar airport where the members might get lost and are not acquainted with the taxiways and runways. Competition traffic will be landing runway 30, as shown below. This allows ATC to hold an aircraft short of runway 24 while they have an aircraft depart.

 

 

If you look at runway 30, there is taxiway before the numbers. Also, there are only longitudinal lines down the center of the runway. This leaves a small area to judge a touchdown point. Instead of using just the numbers, we can use the area between the numbers and the first longitudinal line. I will sit down with the planners and we will make a final conclusion on the possible issues and ideas brought up. Please don't hesitate to ask more questions.

[Tom Guerrette]

I'd be happy to let you guys use Cape Air's VAFS to track the landing FPM if the judges would like, even if it's just supplementing your visual judging of the landing.

[Cody Outten]

How would we have to use it? Would we have to have the pilots relay the information to us or could the judges alone use it?

[Tom Guerrette]

How would we have to use it? Would we have to have the pilots relay the information to us or could the judges alone use it?

 

The judges could access the information.

[Cody Outten]

Thanks for the offer. I'll talk to everyone just to make sure they would want to. I'll contact for more details.

[Guest Ben Eidem]

As you've heard, We've been planning a landing competition for BVA's Challenge series event.

 

The numbers are actually a common point for both short field runways, and for real world training purposes. Just the other week my RW Flight Instructor was telling me to touch down on the numbers of a runway with a slightly displaced threshold, and it's a great practice for improving the quality of landings in both the Sim and the Real World

 

The judging criteria will be mostly based off of left/right lateral movement from the centerline, and the actual touchdown point, in relative distance from the middle of the #'s (being top, bottom, or however many center-line markings they float to).

Quality of the landing will not have alot of emphasis, but will be more for tie break criteria, judging the motion of the flare, and the height of flare, and short final approach angle. Additionally, We're mostly watching for if you seem to nose over in an attempt to make a hard landing on the #'s, or a nice power/pitch adjustment to float onto the numbers. This is more of a finesse detail, and CAN be depicted well if you have good frame rates (judges will use reduced scenery density to guarantee frames), and a nice eye...But once again, this is not a primary criteria, and more of a tie break finesse.

 

Hope this answers any questions. More details soon to come! As a former FSMP landing competition judge and co-founder of another small community dedicated to bi-weekly gamespy competitions (which shut down after gamespy went down), I hope to bring a trained eye to the competition.

[Cody Outten]

Just a reminder that the competition is 1 week away! The challenge page has been updated with the event information. Please note that we are requiring all participants to use the beta scenery for Nantucket, which can be found on the forums or the challenge page(http://www.bostonvirtualatc.com/Events/Challenge.aspx)On behalf of the planning team, we hope you are looking forward to the event as much as we are!

[Guenter Kowalski]

I am dispaired of looking for the beta Airport update for KACK. Can anybody lift the secret how to find this?

[Cody Outten]

It can be found at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4718

[Guest Peter Amato]

The event was awesome, thanks to judges, controllers, and everyone who took the time to set this up!

[Guest Jorge Salguero]

Agreed! I only took part I'm the first round but I enjoyed it a lot.

[Cody Outten]

Glad to hear!

[Guest Ben Eidem]

Hey guys, As one of the main organizers of this landing competition, I'm happy that so many of you liked the competition

To help make our next competition more successful, I encourage you all to visit this link and submit your detailed feedback. All responses will be reviewed, and we'll use the overall data to aid our decision in planning the next event

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/18422-F ... M/viewform

Thanks for your participation and feedback. Hope to see you in the virtual skies soon :)