I wish someone would let me know whether it is insulting to our Argentine friends to refer to USA citizens as “Americans.”  Our Argentine friends are too polite to tell me.

Assuming that most of the readers of this blog are Americans, I thought it might be useful to describe a few of the differences between US and International contests. The nomenclature is a big part of this difference.

The competition is sanctioned and controlled by “FAI.” Despite their name and location in Switzerland, the official language of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is English, not French. And you may have recognised or recognized that the spelling is British, not American. Thus, the local group that manages this contest is known as the Organisers.

Each morning, we gather for a Briefing, not a “Pilots Meeting,” and we are given our Tasks by the Task Setter, not the “CD.” The head guy is called the Director, and the Task Setter reports to him.

We have two types of Task. A Racing Task is very similar to our AT, with the most notable difference being that all finishers are credited with the same distance.  The Assigned Area Task is a timed task with large areas, like our TAT.  In addition to circles, pie-slice shaped areas (with or without the point bitten off) are allowed in the AAT.  Thankfully, no Task Setter with any wits calls a task that uses the pie shapes.

The Start and Finish rules are unfamiliar to Americans.  They may by lines or circles (which are called Rings).  There are no sensible rules about energy control at the Start, and all attempts to make Starts both safe and fair have failed, so far.  Finishes are no better, as evidenced by the recent history of finish line accidents [in other contests, not this one, apologies to all emailers].

The multifaceted differences in scoring formulas deserve their own separate blog post. Perhaps I can get John to write that one.

If I think of some more obvious differences, I’ll try to point them out.  I have to go now, to check the official Results (not “Scores”).