FIXED TOTAL VALIDITY - CANUNGRA CLASSIC 2005

by D Tim Cummings - September 2005

For the Canungra Classic 2005 we will be giving pilots the opportunity of rejecting their worst results during the competition. Pilots will be able to have "a bad day" without being immediately eliminated from overall contention. However we won't be doing it on the basis of rejecting their worst day, which is not a fair system when days are of different validities, because most pilots reject the low validity days rather than their truly bad days. We will be rejecting a fixed number of "bad day points". This system is called Fixed Total Validity (FTV) which just means that the total available points to every pilot has to be the same. If the total points available during a competition is 5000 points ( sum of validity of all days is 5.000 ) then applying a FTV correction of 20% means that the fixed total available points will be 5000 - 20% = 4000 points. This means every pilot rejects their worst score for 1000 "bad day points". They could reject their worst fully valid day. Or they could reject their worst two days that were only half valid. The system is even flexible enough to reject their worst half valid day and half of their next worst fully valid day. This way everyone gets a score out of 4000 available points and the results are fair.

To put it simply, you have to get rid of the idea of “dropping days”.

What the system does, is get rid of your worst performance for the competition from your total score.

FTV has been trialled successfully in the Canungra club competitions since 2001. To be successful you still need to fly your best every day. If you get some good solid results in the early days of the competition you can start to push harder towards the end of the competition because some part of your score will have to be dropped. If you have a bad day early on in the competition, you can fly normally and still be in contention.

Read the “FTV Report” to see what points have been deducted from what days from each pilot

EXAMPLE

After two days, the first day was fully valid and the second day was only 50% valid. The total validity is 1.5 or 1500 points. After the 20% correction the fixed total available points is 1200 points, so every pilot gets a score out of 1200 after rejecting their score for their own 300 "bad day points".

Pilot A scored 1000 points on day 1 and 100 points on day 2. Pilot A wants to reject his bad day 2. He can reject 300 "bad day points" worth from the 500 day, which is 60% of the day. So his score for day 2 becomes 40 out of 200 ( which is the same relative score of 100 out of 500 ) so his total becomes 1000 out of 1000 + 40 out of 200 = 1040 out of 1200.

Pilot B scored 700 points on day 1 and 500 points on day 2. Pilot B wants to reject his bad day 1. He can reject 300 "bad day points" worth from the 1000 day which is 30% of the day. So his score for day 1 becomes 490 out of 700 ( which is the same relative score of 700 out of 1000 ) so his total becomes 490 out of 700 + 500 out of 500 = 990 out of 1200. His winning on the low validity day hasn't helped him as much as if he had won on the high validity day. However, he gets a reward for winning the second day that he would not have got using other mechanisms where he would have to discard his worst day, the day that he won!

THE FINE PRINT

For Canungra 2005 we have nominated 20% as the percentage of the total available score is to be rejected as "bad day points".

The fixed total validity will be recalculated from scratch after every round of the competition, except the first. As the total validity increases, more of each pilot’s worst performance will be rejected. This means that initially only part of their worst round is rejected, but as the competition continues, they can eventually reject all of it and start rejecting their second worst day. What may be the worst round after two rounds may very well not be the worst round after three rounds and this is taken into account as the calculation is done from the start of the comp, each day.

Any penalties that may occur will be applied after the fixed total validity calculation. However if a penalty is a percentage of the day's score, it will be calculated on the score before the FTV correction is applied.

If a pilot is to be awarded average points for assisting another pilot on a day, the average will be calculated after the FTV correction.

MORE INFORMATION

For more technical details visit

http://www.triptera.com.au/canungra/gap/ftv.html

For examples of the calculation in the Canungra Club competition see

http://www.triptera.com.au/httpdocs/canungra/csws2002