Task 2 (Open)

How the field flew this task, and which behaviours separated it.

The optimised route. Pilots fly it in the direction of the arrows. The radii, the leg distances and the start times are on the task page.

Analysis computed

Pilots: 46
Airtime: 103h (12:50–18:14 AEDT)
Thermals: 28772 shared by 2+ pilots
Working band: 845–2040 m
Airtime split: 37%climbing
25%gliding
38%searching

3 pilots are in the standings but not in this analysis. Which, and why

What the weather did

From the weather model

Independent of the tracklogs: modelled conditions for the task area.

Fetching the day’s weather — it will appear here in a moment.

From the pilots' tracks

What the field actually flew — wind, climb strength and leg timing measured from every pilot's tracklog.

The day’s wind, hour by hour and leg by leg. What the air did, read from the field itself. We estimate the wind from the circling of every pilot. The first method is the drift of the circle centre, and the second method, used when the first is not available, is the modulation of the ground speed. We then average the vectors two ways. The table by hour of day shows how the wind increased and changed direction through the day. The table by speed-section leg shows the wind on each part of the course. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.

How strong the day’s climbs were, hour by hour. When the day started, reached its peak, and ended. We group the thermal climbs of all pilots by the hour in which each climb started, labelled in the time zone of the competition. The median and the 90th-percentile average climb rate for each hour show how the lift developed. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.

Share of the flight spent in air that wasn’t sinking. How much of the flight was in air worth being in. The value is the share of the airborne time of a pilot, on the shared grid, with a 30 s-smoothed vario at or above −0.5 m/s. The time they flew, the line they steered and the way the flight ended all feed this value. It is therefore a reading of the day as much as of the pilot. There is no expected direction, and the sign of the correlation is the finding. The timing table compares the window of the day’s best climbs against the time when the field launched.

All charts — measured and modelled alike — share that one time axis, so a vertical scan compares the two at the same moment. Arrows fly WITH the wind — direction figures are degrees the wind blows from; arrow length and opacity track speed and sample count. On the per-leg chart the pale bar is when the field flew that leg and the solid band inside it is the circling its wind was measured from — a leg the field glided is measured in a sliver of the time it was flown. Exact numbers are in the day family’s tables under “The metrics in detail”.

The day's thermals

The 40 most-shared of 151 multi-pilot thermals, reconstructed by pooling every pilot's track through the same climb. Everything shown is measured from the tracks — no fitted lift model.

Start	Pilots	Height band	Mean climb	Strongest side
12:55 AEDT	6	600–1500 m	+1.4 m/s	SE
13:22 AEDT	10	700–1900 m	+1.3 m/s	NW
13:23 AEDT	9	700–1800 m	+1.8 m/s	W
13:26 AEDT	14	900–1800 m	+1.2 m/s	SE
13:28 AEDT	7	900–1800 m	+1.5 m/s	N
13:34 AEDT	8	1100–1900 m	+2.0 m/s	N
13:35 AEDT	8	1400–1800 m	+1.4 m/s	W
13:39 AEDT	7	1400–2000 m	+2.2 m/s	E
13:42 AEDT	9	700–1600 m	+1.4 m/s	E
13:50 AEDT	11	800–2000 m	+1.7 m/s	SW
13:50 AEDT	9	1000–1600 m	+1.5 m/s	N
13:51 AEDT	6	1000–2200 m	+1.9 m/s	E
13:52 AEDT	5	700–1100 m	+1.0 m/s	NW
13:53 AEDT	8	700–1500 m	+1.6 m/s	W
13:54 AEDT	8	1100–1700 m	+1.2 m/s	SE
13:54 AEDT	9	700–1400 m	+1.0 m/s	W
13:57 AEDT	6	1400–1700 m	+1.3 m/s	NE
13:58 AEDT	13	900–1800 m	+1.3 m/s	W
14:00 AEDT	8	1200–2100 m	+1.3 m/s	N
14:00 AEDT	6	1400–1800 m	+1.5 m/s	NE
14:01 AEDT	6	1400–2000 m	+1.1 m/s	NW
14:08 AEDT	5	800–1900 m	+1.2 m/s	E
14:09 AEDT	6	1000–1800 m	+1.4 m/s	NW
14:10 AEDT	6	800–1700 m	+1.4 m/s	NW
14:11 AEDT	14	1000–2200 m	+1.6 m/s	N
14:11 AEDT	6	700–1300 m	+1.2 m/s	N
14:13 AEDT	7	800–1400 m	+1.1 m/s	SE
14:13 AEDT	7	900–1800 m	+1.3 m/s	N
14:17 AEDT	6	1000–2100 m	+1.6 m/s	SE
14:18 AEDT	5	700–1000 m	+0.8 m/s	SW
14:21 AEDT	8	600–2300 m	+1.9 m/s	SW
14:28 AEDT	11	800–2200 m	+1.7 m/s	S
14:32 AEDT	5	1100–1700 m	+1.8 m/s	E
14:32 AEDT	7	900–1500 m	+1.4 m/s	W
14:34 AEDT	5	1100–2300 m	+1.1 m/s	W
14:50 AEDT	5	900–2200 m	+2.0 m/s	S
14:50 AEDT	5	1700–2200 m	+1.4 m/s	W
15:17 AEDT	5	800–2000 m	+1.2 m/s	E
16:18 AEDT	5	1300–2300 m	+1.0 m/s	S
16:20 AEDT	5	800–2300 m	+1.2 m/s	NW

Thermal at 13:26 AEDT — 14 pilots, 29 climbs

Wind 12.2 km/h from 279° (W), measured from 61 circle estimates in the pilots' own tracks.
Model wind cross-check loading…
Leans 29° from vertical toward 144° (SE), within 45° of downwind.
Strongest on the SE side of the core at +1.7 m/s against +1.4 m/s on the NW side.
Multiple cores in 3 of 9 bands between 900 and 1600 m — separate feeders (⬧ in the rose) before they merged.

Watch this thermal in the 3D replay

Pilots in this thermal (climb rates)

Pilot	Min	Median	Max
Neale Halsall	-1.3 m/s	+2.3 m/s	+6.0 m/s
Peter Burkitt	-4.5 m/s	+1.5 m/s	+3.8 m/s
Mark Jeffree	-2.5 m/s	+1.5 m/s	+4.0 m/s
Jon Durand	-1.5 m/s	+1.3 m/s	+3.8 m/s
Mitch Butler	-0.7 m/s	+1.0 m/s	+2.0 m/s
Rohan Taylor	-2.3 m/s	+1.0 m/s	+3.3 m/s
Todd Wisewould	-1.0 m/s	+1.0 m/s	+3.5 m/s
Michael Free	-1.0 m/s	+1.0 m/s	+2.0 m/s
Peter Tolhurst	-1.0 m/s	+0.8 m/s	+2.8 m/s
Andrew Sutton	-0.5 m/s	+0.8 m/s	+2.8 m/s
Richard Martin	-0.5 m/s	+0.8 m/s	+1.5 m/s
Adrian Connor	-1.0 m/s	+0.8 m/s	+2.0 m/s
James Atkinson	-2.5 m/s	+0.8 m/s	+2.0 m/s
Rory Duncan	-0.5 m/s	+0.7 m/s	+2.0 m/s

Each pilot's slowest, typical and best climb over their own vario samples in this thermal — a negative minimum means they touched sink inside it.

Band table (exact numbers)

Band	Core offset E/N (m)	Working radius	Extent	Mean climb	Best climb	Samples	Pilots	Cores
1700–1800 m	14 / -399	69 m	143 m	+1.7 m/s	+4.3 m/s	25	1	1
1600–1700 m	82 / -414	102 m	137 m	+2.2 m/s	+4.8 m/s	44	1	1
1500–1600 m	175 / -292	105 m	151 m	+1.8 m/s	+4.3 m/s	96	2	2
1400–1500 m	176 / -255	98 m	149 m	+2.0 m/s	+6.0 m/s	77	2	2
1300–1400 m	186 / -135	46 m	63 m	+1.1 m/s	+3.0 m/s	17	1	1
1200–1300 m	160 / 53	84 m	166 m	+1.1 m/s	+2.8 m/s	66	1	1
1100–1200 m	48 / 68	94 m	174 m	+1.1 m/s	+3.8 m/s	90	2	1
1000–1100 m	-101 / 60	111 m	210 m	+1.3 m/s	+3.0 m/s	118	2	1
900–1000 m	-53 / -33	246 m	393 m	+0.9 m/s	+3.8 m/s	616	12	3

How to read this: each thermal pools every pilot's fixes through the same climb into 100 m altitude bands; a band's core is the lift-weighted centre of its fixes, so the rose and the sector readings are already normalised for the thermal's lean and drift. Wedge length is relative climb by side of the core; the dashed ring is the measured working radius and the dotted ring the widest the field ranged. The solid arrow is the wind measured from the pilots' circles; the dashed arrow is the weather model's wind for the same place, time and altitudes — a model run, not an observation.

Which behaviours went with better results

Every row is one behaviour, measured for each pilot and then compared against the published placings (Spearman's rank correlation, ρ). Rank 1 is best, so a behaviour where more is better shows a negative ρ. A bigger bar means the behaviour tracked the placings more closely on this task, and pilots measured is how much of the analysed field the behaviour applied to — a reading drawn from half the field is thinner than one drawn from all of it. Select a row to see that behaviour plotted against rank — the chart stays in view while you work down the table.

Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb

Label every pilot

Each dot is a pilot. ρ = 0.79 (clear pattern, n = 46). Less is expected to be better here, and it was: top ranks gather to the left. The curve is a trend fitted through the dots: left to right it runs from about rank 8 to about rank 43.

Speed-section phase shares, field p25/median/p75: climb 19/32/39% · glide 24/30/34% · search 27/37/52%

Behaviour	Strength	What it means	Pilots measured
Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb		clear pattern
Glide speed between climbs		clear pattern
Share of lift turned in that was kept as a climb		clear pattern
Gliding wide of the optimal course line		clear pattern
How much of the thermal the pilot climbed before leaving it		clear pattern
How long after the gate opened the pilot started		clear pattern
Distance covered between climbs		some pattern
Climbing faster than the pilots sharing the thermal		some pattern
How low the pilot gets between climbs		some pattern
Time to core thermals		some pattern
Arriving at ESS with height to spare		could be chance
Glide L/D against the field median		some pattern
Low saves dug out from the bottom of the band		some pattern
Share of the height gain made outside thermals		some pattern
Time spent flying with a gaggle		some pattern
How often leaving the gaggle paid off		could be chance
Climb rate at thermal exit		could be chance
Climbs joined on another pilot's marker		could be chance
Share of the flight spent in air that wasn’t sinking		could be chance
Gliding faster when the next climb is stronger		could be chance
How round and consistent the circles were		could be chance

clear pattern is |ρ| ≥ 0.5, some pattern ≥ 0.3 and faint pattern below — each only once the coefficient is bigger than chance alone produces at that many pilots (its noise floor). could be chance (in the statistics: within noise) means shuffling the placings produces a coefficient that size more than 5% of the time, so it cannot be told apart from luck however big it looks. too few pilots is fewer than 8 pilots with a value — not enough to tell either way.

Rank 21 behaviours against one day's results and a few will look strong on luck alone — the ones worth believing are those that repeat across tasks in the competition-level analysis.

Metrics with a clear pattern, plotted against rank

Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb

Measured in percent · lower is better

Time that goes into neither a climb nor progress down the course. This is the time spent to find lift, to stay up, and to decide what to do next. The value is the share of the speed-section time, from the start to ESS or to the landing, in which the pilot neither climbed in a thermal nor glided with real net speed. A lower value means less time lost between climbs.

Speed-section phase shares, field p25/median/p75: climb 19/32/39% · glide 24/30/34% · search 27/37/52%

Glide speed between climbs

Measured in kilometres per hour · higher is better

How fast the pilot moves down the course when they are on a glide. The value is the duration-weighted mean ground speed over every glide after the start, which is the glide distance divided by the glide time. A higher value means more ground covered in each minute between climbs.

Each dot is a pilot. ρ = -0.79 (clear pattern, n = 40). More is expected to be better here, and it was: top ranks gather to the right. The curve is a trend fitted through the dots: left to right it runs from about rank 36 to about rank 1. 6 pilots have no value and are not plotted.

Field glide speed: median 53.9 km/h · p90 62.3 km/h (40 pilots)

Share of lift turned in that was kept as a climb

Measured in percent · no expected direction

How selective the pilot is about the lift they stop for. Each period of circling of 30 s or more after the start counts as lift that the pilot sampled. If the period overlaps a detected thermal, the pilot kept that lift. If it does not, they turned a few circles and left it. The value is the percentage kept. A low value means they are selective. A high value means they keep almost every climb they turn in. There is no expected direction: selection wins on a strong day and wastes time on a weak one.

Each dot is a pilot. ρ = -0.62 (clear pattern, n = 39). No expected direction — the sign is the finding: larger values went with better ranks here. The curve is a trend fitted through the dots: left to right it runs from about rank 38 to about rank 17. 7 pilots have no value and are not plotted.

Gliding wide of the optimal course line

Measured in percent · lower is better

How much further the pilot flew on glide than the optimised course line needed. 0% is a flight exactly along the line, and 12% is a glide 12% further than necessary. On each completed speed-section leg, we compare the pilot's route with the optimised distance of the leg, weighted by that optimised distance. Only the glides are measured at their full path length. Circling and searching contribute their entry-to-exit displacement instead. A climb or a search for lift therefore never reads as a wide line, because a pilot chooses a line only on glide. 0% is a real value that a pilot can reach: a pilot who flies the line of the optimiser scores exactly zero.

Each dot is a pilot. ρ = 0.60 (clear pattern, n = 35). Less is expected to be better here, and it was: top ranks gather to the left. The curve is a trend fitted through the dots: left to right it runs from about rank 5 to about rank 35. 11 pilots have no value and are not plotted.

How much of the thermal the pilot climbed before leaving it

Measured in percent · no expected direction

Does the pilot climb to the top of every thermal, or leave with lift still above them? We take the altitude where they left each thermal after the start, as a percentage of the day’s working band. 0% is the floor of the field and 100% is its ceiling. The value is the median. There is no expected direction: a climb to the top buys height in reserve, and an early departure buys time.

Each dot is a pilot. ρ = -0.55 (clear pattern, n = 40). No expected direction — the sign is the finding: larger values went with better ranks here. The curve is a trend fitted through the dots: left to right it runs from about rank 45 to about rank 21. 6 pilots have no value and are not plotted.

How long after the gate opened the pilot started

Measured in seconds · lower is better

Every second between the opening of the gate and the crossing of the start line is a second lost for nothing. The value is the seconds from the start gate taken to the scored SSS crossing. On an elapsed-time task, the pilot’s own crossing is the reference, so the delay is 0 by definition. The start table adds the crossing altitude, and the distance behind the leading pilot who had already started.

Each dot is a pilot. ρ = 0.53 (clear pattern, n = 46). Less is expected to be better here, and it was: top ranks gather to the left. The curve is a trend fitted through the dots: left to right it runs from about rank 36 to about rank 43.

Outcome checks

These are not behaviours. They measure the result itself, for example the time behind the leader and the race time lost, so they always follow the places. They are here as a check on the analysis. A weak pattern in this table means that something is wrong in the numbers, and not in the flying of any pilot. Their per-pilot tables stay in the Race craft section below.

Outcome	Strength	What it means	Pilots measured
Race time behind the leader at ESS		clear pattern
Race time lost against the fastest pilots, leg by leg		could be chance

The whole field at a glance

1. Rohan Taylor

2. Steven Crosby

3. Steve Docherty

4. Vic Hare

5. Rory Duncan

6. Jay Kubeil

7. Bruce Wynne

8. Jon Durand

9. Richard Martin

10. Dustan Hansen

11. Mitch Butler

12. Troy Horton

13. John Harriott

14. James Atkinson

15. Stuart Cathcart

16. Enda Carrigan

17. Mark Jeffree

18. Neale Halsall

19. Andrew Taylor

20. Trent Brown

21. Ward Gunn

22. Todd Wisewould

23. Olav Opsanger

24. Michael Free

25. Adrian Connor

26. Neil Hooke

27. Peter Adriaans

28. Hughbert Alexander

29. Tushar Pokle

30. Hossain Tefaili

31. Gary Herman

32. Rennick Kerr

33. Peter Garrone

34. Andrew Sutton

35. Peter Burkitt

36. Peter Tolhurst

37. Brett Davis

38. Mario Chapa

39. Andrew Berenyi

40. Randall Clotworthy

41. Damian Hamilton

42. Marty Hearne

43. Neill Hollingsworth

44. Wayne Johnston

45. Jason Lannstrom

46. James McGinty

The pilots in rank order against every behaviour. A darker cell is a better percentile in this field, and an empty cell is a behaviour that does not apply. The columns start with the behaviours whose better end went with better places, continue through the behaviours that separated nobody, and end with the behaviours that ran the other way. A field that one behaviour separated therefore shades dark in the top-left corner, and a field where each pilot won differently does not. The band above rates how much pattern each group of columns holds: a clear, some or faint pattern, noise (could be chance), or too few pilots to tell. The family sections below carry the exact values. † This behaviour has no good or bad direction. The shade is the position in the field, and not the quality.

Pilot style clusters

The groups are flying style, and not score. The spread of ranks in each group shows where that style paid and where it did not. Each group carries the name of its strongest signature. A ★ marks the pilot most typical of their group.

Group A — Bold leavers

25 pilots · ranks 1–31 · median 13 · middle half 7–22

High — How often leaving the gaggle paid off group median P75 in this field (100 percent)
Low — Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb group median P27 in this field (27 percent) · usually a strength
High — How much of the thermal the pilot climbed before leaving it group median P67 in this field (64 percent)
Low — Low saves dug out from the bottom of the band group median P33 in this field (0.0 count)

1. Rohan Taylor
2. Steven Crosby
3. Steve Docherty (most typical of this group)
4. Vic Hare
5. Rory Duncan
6. Jay Kubeil
7. Bruce Wynne
8. Jon Durand
9. Richard Martin
10. Dustan Hansen
11. Mitch Butler
12. Troy Horton
13. John Harriott
14. James Atkinson
15. Stuart Cathcart
19. Andrew Taylor
20. Trent Brown
21. Ward Gunn
22. Todd Wisewould
23. Olav Opsanger
24. Michael Free
28. Hughbert Alexander
29. Tushar Pokle
30. Hossain Tefaili
31. Gary Herman

Group B — Deep diggers

13 pilots · ranks 16–38 · median 32 · middle half 25–35

Low — How low the pilot gets between climbs group median P15 in this field (15 percent)
Low — Glide L/D against the field median group median P18 in this field (0.84 ratio) · usually costly
High — Climbs joined on another pilot's marker group median P81 in this field (52 percent)
High — Gliding wide of the optimal course line group median P81 in this field (79 percent) · usually costly

16. Enda Carrigan
17. Mark Jeffree
18. Neale Halsall
25. Adrian Connor (most typical of this group)
26. Neil Hooke
27. Peter Adriaans
32. Rennick Kerr
33. Peter Garrone
34. Andrew Sutton
35. Peter Burkitt
36. Peter Tolhurst
37. Brett Davis
38. Mario Chapa

Not clustered: 39. Andrew Berenyi — only 6 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 40. Randall Clotworthy — only 8 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 41. Damian Hamilton — only 9 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 42. Marty Hearne — only 12 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 43. Neill Hollingsworth — only 7 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 44. Wayne Johnston — only 9 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 45. Jason Lannstrom — only 11 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%); 46. James McGinty — only 6 of 21 metrics available (needs ≥ 60%).

GlideComp groups the pilots by flying style, and not by score. It transforms the rank of every behavioural metric to a percentile inside the field. It then compares two pilots by the mean percentile gap over the metrics that both pilots have, and never fills in a missing value. Ward-linkage agglomeration forms the groups, and the best mean silhouette selects the number of groups. Each group carries the spread of the GAP ranks of its members, which shows where a style paid and where it did not. On this task, 38 pilots on 21 behavioural metrics formed 2 groups, with k searched from 2 to 6. The mean silhouette is 0.14. A value near 0 means soft group boundaries, and a value near 1 means tight, well-separated groups.

The metrics in detail

best: could be chance (0.11)

#	Pilot	NonSink%
1	Rohan Taylor	59
2	Steven Crosby	58
3	Steve Docherty	58
4	Vic Hare	54
5	Rory Duncan	60
6	Jay Kubeil	62
7	Bruce Wynne	58
8	Jon Durand	61
9	Richard Martin	63
10	Dustan Hansen	60
11	Mitch Butler	60
12	Troy Horton	59
13	John Harriott	60
14	James Atkinson	62
15	Stuart Cathcart	59
16	Enda Carrigan	64
17	Mark Jeffree	65
18	Neale Halsall	60
19	Andrew Taylor	59
20	Trent Brown	52
21	Ward Gunn	63
22	Todd Wisewould	61
23	Olav Opsanger	49
24	Michael Free	57
25	Adrian Connor	57
26	Neil Hooke	62
27	Peter Adriaans	57
28	Hughbert Alexander	55
29	Tushar Pokle	63
30	Hossain Tefaili	64
31	Gary Herman	48
32	Rennick Kerr	56
33	Peter Garrone	61
34	Andrew Sutton	64
35	Peter Burkitt	61
36	Peter Tolhurst	65
37	Brett Davis	58
38	Mario Chapa	58
39	Andrew Berenyi	24
40	Randall Clotworthy	50
41	Damian Hamilton	60
42	Marty Hearne	65
43	Neill Hollingsworth	58
44	Wayne Johnston	55
45	Jason Lannstrom	61
46	James McGinty	34

The day’s wind, hour by hour and leg by leg

Measured in kilometres per hour · no expected direction

What the air did, read from the field itself. We estimate the wind from the circling of every pilot. The first method is the drift of the circle centre, and the second method, used when the first is not available, is the modulation of the ground speed. We then average the vectors two ways. The table by hour of day shows how the wind increased and changed direction through the day. The table by speed-section leg shows the wind on each part of the course. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.

Wind by hour

Period	Speed (km/h)	Dir (°)	n
Whole task	7.5	276	6220
12:00 AEDT	4.6	325	26
13:00 AEDT	5.9	280	1219
14:00 AEDT	8.5	279	2413
15:00 AEDT	8.1	268	1692
16:00 AEDT	6.2	285	715
17:00 AEDT	6.1	262	143
18:00 AEDT	7.3	251	12

The vector mean of the wind estimate of each circle. GlideComp uses centre drift where it can, and ground-speed modulation where it cannot. The direction is the degrees the wind blows FROM (0° = north).

Hours are shown in the competition’s time zone.

Wind by leg

Leg	Flown	Pilots	Circling	Speed (km/h)	Dir (°)	n	From pilots
ELLIOT (SSS)→HALFWY	13:31–15:50 AEDT	35	13:32–15:48 AEDT	10.7	290	1007	35
HALFWY→TOOMA	13:49–16:43 AEDT	26	13:52–16:39 AEDT	8.5	273	1549	25
TOOMA→CUDG	14:43–17:30 AEDT	19	14:50–17:23 AEDT	6.5	272	689	19
CUDG→ELLIOT	15:15–17:18 AEDT	15	15:17–17:11 AEDT	10.6	264	298	14
ELLIOT→CORRY (ESS)	15:41–17:24 AEDT	15	15:44–15:47 AEDT	2.4	295	14	1
CORRY (ESS)→CORRY (GOAL)	15:45–17:24 AEDT	15	—	—	—	0	0

“Flown” is when the field was ON the leg — the first pilot entering to the last leaving — over the “Pilots” who started and flew the whole leg.

“Circling” is the narrower window the wind was actually measured in: first to last circle estimate any pilot logged while on the leg, from “From pilots” pilots. Glides produce no estimate, so a leg the field mostly glided shows a sliver of its flown window (or “—” where no one circled at all) — and a late leg the leaders glided can be measured EARLIER than the leg before it without either being wrong.

How strong the day’s climbs were, hour by hour

Measured in metres per second · no expected direction

When the day started, reached its peak, and ended. We group the thermal climbs of all pilots by the hour in which each climb started, labelled in the time zone of the competition. The median and the 90th-percentile average climb rate for each hour show how the lift developed. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.

Climb by hour

Hour	Median (m/s)	p90 (m/s)	n
12:00 AEDT	1.3	1.4	6
13:00 AEDT	1.1	1.9	350
14:00 AEDT	1.1	1.9	711
15:00 AEDT	1.0	1.9	460
16:00 AEDT	1.0	1.6	265
17:00 AEDT	0.8	1.5	42
18:00 AEDT	0.6	0.6	3

The average climb rate of every thermal use across the field, grouped by the start of the climb. The hours are in the time zone of the competition.

Share of the flight spent in air that wasn’t sinking

Measured in percent · no expected direction

How much of the flight was in air worth being in. The value is the share of the airborne time of a pilot, on the shared grid, with a 30 s-smoothed vario at or above −0.5 m/s. The time they flew, the line they steered and the way the flight ended all feed this value. It is therefore a reading of the day as much as of the pilot. There is no expected direction, and the sign of the correlation is the finding. The timing table compares the window of the day’s best climbs against the time when the field launched.

Day timing

	Time
Best conditions	13:00–14:00 AEDT
Earliest takeoff	12:50 AEDT
Median takeoff	13:45 AEDT
Latest takeoff	15:01 AEDT

Best conditions is the one-hour window with the strongest median climb (1.1 m/s), among hours with enough climbs to be representative (≥20% of the busiest hour).

best: clear pattern (0.62)

#	Pilot	Out-climb	Core s	LeaveRate	Kept%	TopOut%	Round
1	Rohan Taylor	71 (46 shared climbs)	34 (15 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.4 (9 climbs ≥ 90 s)	74 (14/19 circling bouts led to climbs)	51 (mean on-course altitude 50% of band)	0.18 (151 circles, 70% left)
2	Steven Crosby	64 (34 shared climbs)	37 (20 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (18 climbs ≥ 90 s)	78 (14/18 circling bouts led to climbs)	75 (mean on-course altitude 64% of band)	0.18 (192 circles, 52% left)
3	Steve Docherty	64 (22 shared climbs)	37 (20 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (12 climbs ≥ 90 s)	77 (17/22 circling bouts led to climbs)	63 (mean on-course altitude 57% of band)	0.17 (197 circles, 35% left)
4	Vic Hare	75 (32 shared climbs)	33 (22 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.5 (16 climbs ≥ 90 s)	94 (16/17 circling bouts led to climbs)	74 (mean on-course altitude 64% of band)	0.20 (203 circles, 50% left)
5	Rory Duncan	73 (44 shared climbs)	35 (20 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.1 (11 climbs ≥ 90 s)	82 (18/22 circling bouts led to climbs)	55 (mean on-course altitude 63% of band)	0.14 (181 circles, 10% left)
6	Jay Kubeil	66 (70 shared climbs)	12 (17 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.4 (9 climbs ≥ 90 s)	82 (18/22 circling bouts led to climbs)	74 (mean on-course altitude 64% of band)	0.17 (154 circles, 30% left)
7	Bruce Wynne	63 (19 shared climbs)	72 (21 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.4 (19 climbs ≥ 90 s)	81 (17/21 circling bouts led to climbs)	96 (mean on-course altitude 44% of band)	0.14 (64 circles, 14% left)
8	Jon Durand	70 (38 shared climbs)	38 (21 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.9 (16 climbs ≥ 90 s)	90 (18/20 circling bouts led to climbs)	59 (mean on-course altitude 48% of band)	0.15 (227 circles, 54% left)
9	Richard Martin	74 (27 shared climbs)	42 (19 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.0 (17 climbs ≥ 90 s)	74 (20/27 circling bouts led to climbs)	64 (mean on-course altitude 52% of band)	0.15 (240 circles, 5% left)
10	Dustan Hansen	66 (29 shared climbs)	32 (22 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.2 (16 climbs ≥ 90 s)	72 (18/25 circling bouts led to climbs)	65 (mean on-course altitude 58% of band)	0.12 (179 circles, 42% left)
11	Mitch Butler	65 (48 shared climbs)	34 (21 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.1 (14 climbs ≥ 90 s)	65 (15/23 circling bouts led to climbs)	44 (mean on-course altitude 52% of band)	0.14 (320 circles, 38% left)
12	Troy Horton	74 (65 shared climbs)	33 (31 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.4 (21 climbs ≥ 90 s)	74 (26/35 circling bouts led to climbs)	64 (mean on-course altitude 54% of band)	0.22 (186 circles, 64% left)
13	John Harriott	65 (55 shared climbs)	28 (18 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.4 (11 climbs ≥ 90 s)	58 (15/26 circling bouts led to climbs)	69 (mean on-course altitude 70% of band)	0.16 (221 circles, 10% left)
14	James Atkinson	69 (63 shared climbs)	30 (22 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (12 climbs ≥ 90 s)	70 (21/30 circling bouts led to climbs)	61 (mean on-course altitude 50% of band)	0.18 (246 circles, 27% left)
15	Stuart Cathcart	69 (17 shared climbs)	54 (33 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.6 (21 climbs ≥ 90 s)	58 (14/24 circling bouts led to climbs)	71 (mean on-course altitude 65% of band)	0.22 (132 circles, 53% left)
16	Enda Carrigan	72 (65 shared climbs)	34 (27 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.0 (19 climbs ≥ 90 s)	70 (21/30 circling bouts led to climbs)	47 (mean on-course altitude 44% of band)	0.16 (395 circles, 78% left)
17	Mark Jeffree	69 (76 shared climbs)	36 (25 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (13 climbs ≥ 90 s)	70 (26/37 circling bouts led to climbs)	41 (mean on-course altitude 34% of band)	0.17 (290 circles, 43% left)
18	Neale Halsall	74 (35 shared climbs)	55 (12 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (11 climbs ≥ 90 s)	88 (14/16 circling bouts led to climbs)	37 (mean on-course altitude 42% of band)	0.16 (163 circles, 11% left)
19	Andrew Taylor	58 (20 shared climbs)	60 (23 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.4 (20 climbs ≥ 90 s)	74 (14/19 circling bouts led to climbs)	86 (mean on-course altitude 61% of band)	— (9 circles, 33% left)
20	Trent Brown	81 (11 shared climbs)	27 (6 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.4 (6 climbs ≥ 90 s)	56 (9/16 circling bouts led to climbs)	37 (mean on-course altitude 36% of band)	0.19 (114 circles, 100% left)
21	Ward Gunn	58 (56 shared climbs)	35 (22 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.2 (13 climbs ≥ 90 s)	68 (15/22 circling bouts led to climbs)	79 (mean on-course altitude 71% of band)	0.15 (209 circles, 1% left)
22	Todd Wisewould	69 (50 shared climbs)	35 (14 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.2 (7 climbs ≥ 90 s)	56 (9/16 circling bouts led to climbs)	74 (mean on-course altitude 55% of band)	0.17 (212 circles, 62% left)
23	Olav Opsanger	70 (23 shared climbs)	32 (10 climbs ≥ 60 s)	2.0 (6 climbs ≥ 90 s)	64 (7/11 circling bouts led to climbs)	55 (mean on-course altitude 48% of band)	0.17 (97 circles, 22% left)
24	Michael Free	65 (46 shared climbs)	53 (14 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.8 (7 climbs ≥ 90 s)	100 (12/12 circling bouts led to climbs)	49 (mean on-course altitude 49% of band)	0.18 (158 circles, 8% left)
25	Adrian Connor	69 (55 shared climbs)	54 (15 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.2 (9 climbs ≥ 90 s)	69 (9/13 circling bouts led to climbs)	58 (mean on-course altitude 47% of band)	0.14 (216 circles, 6% left)
26	Neil Hooke	62 (30 shared climbs)	54 (14 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (10 climbs ≥ 90 s)	81 (13/16 circling bouts led to climbs)	59 (mean on-course altitude 41% of band)	0.16 (139 circles, 27% left)
27	Peter Adriaans	73 (30 shared climbs)	34 (13 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.1 (12 climbs ≥ 90 s)	63 (12/19 circling bouts led to climbs)	56 (mean on-course altitude 45% of band)	0.13 (152 circles, 16% left)
28	Hughbert Alexander	64 (10 shared climbs)	61 (13 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.3 (10 climbs ≥ 90 s)	57 (8/14 circling bouts led to climbs)	55 (mean on-course altitude 40% of band)	0.22 (27 circles, 37% left)
29	Tushar Pokle	71 (31 shared climbs)	24 (19 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.0 (12 climbs ≥ 90 s)	68 (13/19 circling bouts led to climbs)	103 (mean on-course altitude 78% of band)	0.16 (154 circles, 58% left)
30	Hossain Tefaili	63 (37 shared climbs)	48 (7 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.2 (5 climbs ≥ 90 s)	36 (4/11 circling bouts led to climbs)	49 (mean on-course altitude 39% of band)	0.17 (165 circles, 17% left)
31	Gary Herman	79 (6 shared climbs)	68 (3 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.5 (2 climbs ≥ 90 s)	40 (2/5 circling bouts led to climbs)	67 (mean on-course altitude 49% of band)	0.18 (57 circles, 4% left)
32	Rennick Kerr	77 (17 shared climbs)	39 (7 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.5 (4 climbs ≥ 90 s)	50 (2/4 circling bouts led to climbs)	70 (mean on-course altitude 47% of band)	0.14 (62 circles, 21% left)
33	Peter Garrone	59 (16 shared climbs)	48 (10 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.8 (6 climbs ≥ 90 s)	57 (8/14 circling bouts led to climbs)	31 (mean on-course altitude 34% of band)	0.19 (103 circles, 6% left)
34	Andrew Sutton	57 (31 shared climbs)	41 (10 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.2 (6 climbs ≥ 90 s)	50 (3/6 circling bouts led to climbs)	35 (mean on-course altitude 36% of band)	0.18 (98 circles, 44% left)
35	Peter Burkitt	68 (16 shared climbs)	35 (5 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.8 (3 climbs ≥ 90 s)	67 (4/6 circling bouts led to climbs)	2 (mean on-course altitude 3% of band)	0.14 (74 circles, 50% left)
36	Peter Tolhurst	56 (30 shared climbs)	54 (7 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.6 (2 climbs ≥ 90 s)	83 (5/6 circling bouts led to climbs)	27 (mean on-course altitude 23% of band)	0.15 (53 circles, 26% left)
37	Brett Davis	70 (8 shared climbs)	46 (3 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.4 (3 climbs ≥ 90 s)	40 (2/5 circling bouts led to climbs)	17 (mean on-course altitude 13% of band)	0.15 (35 circles, 20% left)
38	Mario Chapa	54 (5 shared climbs)	80 (9 climbs ≥ 60 s)	0.3 (7 climbs ≥ 90 s)	63 (5/8 circling bouts led to climbs)	22 (mean on-course altitude 7% of band)	— (9 circles, 100% left)
39	Andrew Berenyi	6 (2 shared climbs)	—	—	—	—	— (5 circles, 0% left)
40	Randall Clotworthy	27 (1 shared climb)	16 (1 climb ≥ 60 s)	—	—	—	0.26 (23 circles, 26% left)
41	Damian Hamilton	76 (13 shared climbs)	42 (8 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (6 climbs ≥ 90 s)	—	—	0.19 (105 circles, 0% left)
42	Marty Hearne	50 (18 shared climbs)	55 (4 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.3 (2 climbs ≥ 90 s)	33 (1/3 circling bouts led to climbs)	-23 (mean on-course altitude -26% of band)	0.17 (106 circles, 16% left)
43	Neill Hollingsworth	25 (1 shared climb)	—	—	—	—	— (6 circles, 17% left)
44	Wayne Johnston	60 (18 shared climbs)	90 (2 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.9 (1 climb ≥ 90 s)	—	—	0.14 (13 circles, 0% left)
45	Jason Lannstrom	63 (27 shared climbs)	50 (6 climbs ≥ 60 s)	1.6 (4 climbs ≥ 90 s)	—	-15 (mean on-course altitude -17% of band)	0.21 (73 circles, 42% left)
46	James McGinty	25 (4 shared climbs)	—	—	—	—	— (5 circles, 40% left)

Share of lift turned in that was kept as a climb

Measured in percent · no expected direction

Acceptance by hour

Hour	Median accepted (%)	pilots
13:00 AEDT	100	15
14:00 AEDT	79	38
15:00 AEDT	71	36
16:00 AEDT	68	20
17:00 AEDT	33	9
18:00 AEDT	0	1

Median per-pilot acceptance %, bucketed by the hour (competition time zone).

How round and consistent the circles were

Measured in ratio · lower is better

Whether the pilot flies clean, repeatable circles, or moves around the thermal. We fit each detected circle by least squares. The RMS fit error divided by the fitted radius measures how round the turn was. The value is the median over all of the circles of the pilot. A lower value means smoother and more consistent turns.

Turn direction across the field: 35% left (6220 circles).

best: clear pattern (0.79)

#	Pilot	GlideSpd	GlideL/D	SpeedToFly	Wide%	Dolphin%
1	Rohan Taylor	67.8 (19 glides, 62 min gliding)	0.92 (5 legs compared)	-0.5 (18 glide→climb pairs)	20 (5 legs completed)	15 (842 of 5729 m gained outside thermals)
2	Steven Crosby	65.3 (19 glides, 67 min gliding)	1.06 (5 legs compared)	5.3 (18 glide→climb pairs)	24 (5 legs completed)	10 (540 of 5673 m gained outside thermals)
3	Steve Docherty	61.0 (24 glides, 77 min gliding)	1.05 (5 legs compared)	-2.9 (23 glide→climb pairs)	32 (5 legs completed)	11 (649 of 5875 m gained outside thermals)
4	Vic Hare	64.9 (18 glides, 69 min gliding)	0.99 (5 legs compared)	4.7 (17 glide→climb pairs)	27 (5 legs completed)	9 (531 of 5911 m gained outside thermals)
5	Rory Duncan	60.7 (25 glides, 79 min gliding)	1.24 (5 legs compared)	-2.6 (24 glide→climb pairs)	27 (5 legs completed)	14 (686 of 5073 m gained outside thermals)
6	Jay Kubeil	55.0 (32 glides, 96 min gliding)	1.40 (5 legs compared)	1.8 (31 glide→climb pairs)	27 (5 legs completed)	24 (1244 of 5256 m gained outside thermals)
7	Bruce Wynne	63.6 (15 glides, 74 min gliding)	1.02 (5 legs compared)	-6.0 (14 glide→climb pairs)	30 (5 legs completed)	3 (200 of 7479 m gained outside thermals)
8	Jon Durand	58.4 (24 glides, 78 min gliding)	1.04 (5 legs compared)	7.2 (23 glide→climb pairs)	30 (5 legs completed)	10 (612 of 6105 m gained outside thermals)
9	Richard Martin	61.0 (23 glides, 84 min gliding)	1.12 (5 legs compared)	-2.4 (22 glide→climb pairs)	34 (5 legs completed)	11 (565 of 5344 m gained outside thermals)
10	Dustan Hansen	60.9 (25 glides, 87 min gliding)	1.01 (5 legs compared)	-0.7 (24 glide→climb pairs)	37 (5 legs completed)	16 (1038 of 6324 m gained outside thermals)
11	Mitch Butler	61.5 (22 glides, 81 min gliding)	0.97 (5 legs compared)	-2.2 (21 glide→climb pairs)	28 (5 legs completed)	12 (735 of 6120 m gained outside thermals)
12	Troy Horton	52.4 (30 glides, 96 min gliding)	0.83 (5 legs compared)	-4.3 (29 glide→climb pairs)	30 (5 legs completed)	14 (1084 of 7700 m gained outside thermals)
13	John Harriott	51.1 (30 glides, 119 min gliding)	1.16 (5 legs compared)	0.2 (29 glide→climb pairs)	31 (5 legs completed)	19 (1212 of 6552 m gained outside thermals)
14	James Atkinson	55.3 (32 glides, 112 min gliding)	1.13 (5 legs compared)	0.5 (31 glide→climb pairs)	40 (5 legs completed)	26 (1574 of 5952 m gained outside thermals)
15	Stuart Cathcart	53.0 (18 glides, 88 min gliding)	1.04 (5 legs compared)	3.1 (17 glide→climb pairs)	39 (5 legs completed)	6 (399 of 6965 m gained outside thermals)
16	Enda Carrigan	57.4 (36 glides, 122 min gliding)	1.00 (3 legs compared)	0.9 (35 glide→climb pairs)	85 (3 legs completed)	21 (1434 of 6875 m gained outside thermals)
17	Mark Jeffree	44.8 (49 glides, 172 min gliding)	0.77 (3 legs compared)	0.4 (48 glide→climb pairs)	62 (3 legs completed)	20 (1813 of 8930 m gained outside thermals)
18	Neale Halsall	62.2 (26 glides, 71 min gliding)	0.93 (3 legs compared)	0.9 (25 glide→climb pairs)	39 (3 legs completed)	17 (890 of 5189 m gained outside thermals)
19	Andrew Taylor	47.8 (14 glides, 79 min gliding)	1.00 (3 legs compared)	1.0 (13 glide→climb pairs)	28 (3 legs completed)	3 (159 of 5541 m gained outside thermals)
20	Trent Brown	58.6 (13 glides, 54 min gliding)	1.16 (2 legs compared)	7.5 (12 glide→climb pairs)	28 (2 legs completed)	18 (608 of 3447 m gained outside thermals)
21	Ward Gunn	56.3 (27 glides, 81 min gliding)	1.09 (2 legs compared)	0.5 (26 glide→climb pairs)	46 (2 legs completed)	19 (879 of 4583 m gained outside thermals)
22	Todd Wisewould	58.8 (12 glides, 70 min gliding)	1.07 (2 legs compared)	4.4 (11 glide→climb pairs)	31 (2 legs completed)	19 (597 of 3162 m gained outside thermals)
23	Olav Opsanger	60.4 (11 glides, 39 min gliding)	0.80 (2 legs compared)	-5.6 (10 glide→climb pairs)	23 (2 legs completed)	29 (1252 of 4352 m gained outside thermals)
24	Michael Free	49.4 (18 glides, 71 min gliding)	1.12 (2 legs compared)	5.8 (17 glide→climb pairs)	33 (2 legs completed)	21 (827 of 3959 m gained outside thermals)
25	Adrian Connor	49.3 (20 glides, 72 min gliding)	0.78 (2 legs compared)	0.0 (19 glide→climb pairs)	86 (2 legs completed)	23 (1490 of 6501 m gained outside thermals)
26	Neil Hooke	54.1 (11 glides, 43 min gliding)	0.77 (2 legs compared)	1.5 (10 glide→climb pairs)	42 (2 legs completed)	14 (454 of 3199 m gained outside thermals)
27	Peter Adriaans	53.6 (13 glides, 67 min gliding)	0.85 (1 leg compared)	-4.6 (12 glide→climb pairs)	74 (1 leg completed)	11 (470 of 4404 m gained outside thermals)
28	Hughbert Alexander	50.1 (5 glides, 42 min gliding)	1.01 (1 leg compared)	-3.8 (4 glide→climb pairs)	33 (1 leg completed)	4 (91 of 2564 m gained outside thermals)
29	Tushar Pokle	43.3 (19 glides, 77 min gliding)	0.93 (1 leg compared)	2.0 (18 glide→climb pairs)	113 (1 leg completed)	14 (572 of 4148 m gained outside thermals)
30	Hossain Tefaili	56.3 (8 glides, 40 min gliding)	1.24 (1 leg compared)	0.9 (7 glide→climb pairs)	98 (1 leg completed)	27 (425 of 1569 m gained outside thermals)
31	Gary Herman	44.3 (2 glides, 25 min gliding)	0.92 (1 leg compared)	—	26 (1 leg completed)	6 (37 of 590 m gained outside thermals)
32	Rennick Kerr	37.8 (2 glides, 26 min gliding)	1.01 (1 leg compared)	—	34 (1 leg completed)	30 (165 of 553 m gained outside thermals)
33	Peter Garrone	46.0 (10 glides, 39 min gliding)	0.83 (1 leg compared)	-1.6 (9 glide→climb pairs)	163 (1 leg completed)	3 (96 of 3097 m gained outside thermals)
34	Andrew Sutton	50.6 (8 glides, 22 min gliding)	0.75 (1 leg compared)	-2.2 (7 glide→climb pairs)	109 (1 leg completed)	15 (194 of 1281 m gained outside thermals)
35	Peter Burkitt	48.9 (8 glides, 24 min gliding)	1.03 (1 leg compared)	-0.2 (7 glide→climb pairs)	84 (1 leg completed)	34 (306 of 896 m gained outside thermals)
36	Peter Tolhurst	46.0 (8 glides, 17 min gliding)	—	7.4 (7 glide→climb pairs)	—	37 (244 of 653 m gained outside thermals)
37	Brett Davis	40.7 (2 glides, 13 min gliding)	—	—	—	27 (81 of 296 m gained outside thermals)
38	Mario Chapa	38.5 (4 glides, 18 min gliding)	—	—	—	3 (17 of 523 m gained outside thermals)
39	Andrew Berenyi	—	—	—	—	—
40	Randall Clotworthy	—	—	—	—	—
41	Damian Hamilton	—	—	—	—	—
42	Marty Hearne	47.6 (2 glides, 8 min gliding)	—	—	—	—
43	Neill Hollingsworth	—	—	—	—	100 (423 of 423 m gained outside thermals)
44	Wayne Johnston	—	—	—	—	—
45	Jason Lannstrom	46.8 (1 glides, 8 min gliding)	—	—	—	—
46	James McGinty	—	—	—	—	—

Glide speed between climbs

Measured in kilometres per hour · higher is better

Field glide speed: median 53.9 km/h · p90 62.3 km/h (40 pilots)

best: clear pattern (0.79)

#	Pilot	Floor%	LowSaves	km/climb	Search%
1	Rohan Taylor	44 (12 descents, lowest -31% of band)	0.0	1.8 (mean shared-climb pctile 61%)	27
2	Steven Crosby	59 (11 descents, lowest 12% of band)	0.0	2.4 (mean shared-climb pctile 56%)	26
3	Steve Docherty	37 (17 descents, lowest 17% of band)	0.0	1.8 (mean shared-climb pctile 48%)	26
4	Vic Hare	55 (11 descents, lowest 4% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from 12% of band)	2.3 (mean shared-climb pctile 53%)	23
5	Rory Duncan	42 (13 descents, lowest -12% of band)	0.0	1.8 (mean shared-climb pctile 51%)	26
6	Jay Kubeil	50 (16 descents, lowest -36% of band)	0.0	1.3 (mean shared-climb pctile 53%)	25
7	Bruce Wynne	40 (11 descents, lowest -13% of band)	2.0 (deepest save from 6% of band)	3.7 (mean shared-climb pctile 53%)	12
8	Jon Durand	30 (12 descents, lowest -21% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -5% of band)	1.7 (mean shared-climb pctile 54%)	23
9	Richard Martin	43 (11 descents, lowest -4% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -1% of band)	2.1 (mean shared-climb pctile 49%)	35
10	Dustan Hansen	38 (11 descents, lowest -12% of band)	0.0	1.5 (mean shared-climb pctile 50%)	27
11	Mitch Butler	31 (12 descents, lowest -16% of band)	2.0 (deepest save from -10% of band)	1.8 (mean shared-climb pctile 46%)	32
12	Troy Horton	44 (12 descents, lowest -24% of band)	2.0 (deepest save from -10% of band)	1.3 (mean shared-climb pctile 58%)	32
13	John Harriott	53 (12 descents, lowest 16% of band)	0.0	1.3 (mean shared-climb pctile 44%)	36
14	James Atkinson	40 (12 descents, lowest -10% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -2% of band)	1.1 (mean shared-climb pctile 55%)	38
15	Stuart Cathcart	62 (12 descents, lowest -11% of band)	0.0	2.1 (mean shared-climb pctile 46%)	23
16	Enda Carrigan	13 (13 descents, lowest -18% of band)	2.0 (deepest save from 1% of band)	1.0 (mean shared-climb pctile 47%)	41
17	Mark Jeffree	16 (15 descents, lowest -29% of band)	2.0 (deepest save from 9% of band)	0.8 (mean shared-climb pctile 50%)	51
18	Neale Halsall	33 (10 descents, lowest -1% of band)	0.0	1.3 (mean shared-climb pctile 55%)	38
19	Andrew Taylor	50 (9 descents, lowest -19% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -9% of band)	3.1 (mean shared-climb pctile 46%)	16
20	Trent Brown	22 (9 descents, lowest -20% of band)	0.0	1.7 (mean shared-climb pctile 67%)	38
21	Ward Gunn	60 (11 descents, lowest 23% of band)	0.0	0.9 (mean shared-climb pctile 41%)	34
22	Todd Wisewould	58 (6 descents, lowest -27% of band)	0.0	1.6 (mean shared-climb pctile 47%)	46
23	Olav Opsanger	43 (17 descents, lowest -34% of band)	0.0	1.7 (mean shared-climb pctile 60%)	32
24	Michael Free	22 (7 descents, lowest 5% of band)	0.0	1.3 (mean shared-climb pctile 51%)	24
25	Adrian Connor	14 (9 descents, lowest -7% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from 7% of band)	0.8 (mean shared-climb pctile 55%)	32
26	Neil Hooke	19 (5 descents, lowest -17% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -12% of band)	1.5 (mean shared-climb pctile 41%)	31
27	Peter Adriaans	36 (8 descents, lowest -27% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -26% of band)	1.1 (mean shared-climb pctile 50%)	36
28	Hughbert Alexander	14 (2 descents, lowest -12% of band)	1.0 (deepest save from -3% of band)	3.0 (mean shared-climb pctile 55%)	25
29	Tushar Pokle	85 (9 descents, lowest 19% of band)	0.0	0.7 (mean shared-climb pctile 49%)	42
30	Hossain Tefaili	45 (3 descents, lowest 3% of band)	0.0	—	57
31	Gary Herman	—	0.0	—	43
32	Rennick Kerr	—	0.0	—	38
33	Peter Garrone	31 (5 descents, lowest -17% of band)	2.0 (deepest save from -27% of band)	—	33
34	Andrew Sutton	—	0.0	—	40
35	Peter Burkitt	-17 (2 descents, lowest -21% of band)	0.0	—	55
36	Peter Tolhurst	10 (2 descents, lowest -2% of band)	0.0	—	52
37	Brett Davis	—	0.0	—	62
38	Mario Chapa	2 (2 descents, lowest 0% of band)	0.0	—	45
39	Andrew Berenyi	—	0.0	—	100
40	Randall Clotworthy	—	0.0	—	100
41	Damian Hamilton	—	0.0	—	100
42	Marty Hearne	—	0.0	—	92
43	Neill Hollingsworth	—	0.0	—	100
44	Wayne Johnston	—	0.0	—	100
45	Jason Lannstrom	—	0.0	—	66
46	James McGinty	—	0.0	—	100

Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb

Measured in percent · lower is better

Speed-section phase shares, field p25/median/p75: climb 19/32/39% · glide 24/30/34% · search 27/37/52%

best: some pattern (0.32)

#	Pilot	InGaggle%	Marked%	LeaveWin%
1	Rohan Taylor	27	28 (11/40 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
2	Steven Crosby	69	41 (12/29 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
3	Steve Docherty	15	3 (1/39 climbs marked)	—
4	Vic Hare	74	47 (14/30 climbs marked)	100 (2W–0L (2 departures))
5	Rory Duncan	13	26 (10/39 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
6	Jay Kubeil	35	30 (17/56 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
7	Bruce Wynne	31	32 (6/19 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
8	Jon Durand	13	32 (13/41 climbs marked)	—
9	Richard Martin	10	6 (2/33 climbs marked)	—
10	Dustan Hansen	13	13 (6/48 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
11	Mitch Butler	33	26 (10/39 climbs marked)	—
12	Troy Horton	39	51 (28/55 climbs marked)	33 (1W–2L (3 departures))
13	John Harriott	21	50 (26/52 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
14	James Atkinson	26	32 (20/62 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
15	Stuart Cathcart	10	18 (6/34 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
16	Enda Carrigan	9	21 (14/66 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
17	Mark Jeffree	16	47 (37/78 climbs marked)	—
18	Neale Halsall	51	52 (22/42 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
19	Andrew Taylor	22	22 (4/18 climbs marked)	—
20	Trent Brown	19	28 (8/29 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
21	Ward Gunn	19	24 (13/55 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
22	Todd Wisewould	9	45 (13/29 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
23	Olav Opsanger	16	9 (2/23 climbs marked)	—
24	Michael Free	8	9 (3/33 climbs marked)	—
25	Adrian Connor	27	52 (22/42 climbs marked)	—
26	Neil Hooke	56	61 (14/23 climbs marked)	100 (1W–0L (1 departure))
27	Peter Adriaans	46	71 (20/28 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
28	Hughbert Alexander	46	60 (6/10 climbs marked)	—
29	Tushar Pokle	11	9 (3/35 climbs marked)	—
30	Hossain Tefaili	29	18 (3/17 climbs marked)	—
31	Gary Herman	24	—	—
32	Rennick Kerr	6	80 (4/5 climbs marked)	—
33	Peter Garrone	34	0 (0/11 climbs marked)	—
34	Andrew Sutton	66	92 (11/12 climbs marked)	—
35	Peter Burkitt	16	38 (5/13 climbs marked)	0 (0W–1L (1 departure))
36	Peter Tolhurst	54	64 (7/11 climbs marked)	—
37	Brett Davis	0	—	—
38	Mario Chapa	0	0 (0/5 climbs marked)	—
39	Andrew Berenyi	0	—	—
40	Randall Clotworthy	59	—	—
41	Damian Hamilton	0	—	—
42	Marty Hearne	63	—	—
43	Neill Hollingsworth	0	—	—
44	Wayne Johnston	0	—	—
45	Jason Lannstrom	0	—	—
46	James McGinty	0	—	—

Time spent flying with a gaggle

Measured in percent · no expected direction

Whether the pilot raced with other pilots or alone. The value is the share of their flying time after the start inside a detected gaggle, that is, clustered with one other racing pilot or more on the shared time grid. There is no expected direction. A gaggle increases the power to search for lift, but it also holds a pilot to its own speed. The sign of the correlation says which of the two occurred here.

69 gaggle episodes detected (peak size 10 pilots).

best: clear pattern (0.53)

#	Pilot	StartDly	TimeLost	Behind	Spare m
1	Rohan Taylor	19	166	0.0	65
2	Steven Crosby	35	146	9.4	89
3	Steve Docherty	122	487	19.1	47
4	Vic Hare	90	439	11.6	-65
5	Rory Duncan	149	166	13.2	336
6	Jay Kubeil	75	379	14.6	648
7	Bruce Wynne	112	769	32.3	380
8	Jon Durand	63	860	33.6	8
9	Richard Martin	53	1107	32.7	307
10	Dustan Hansen	137	1080	33.4	550
11	Mitch Butler	152	1347	39.9	-82
12	Troy Horton	109	2294	58.4	304
13	John Harriott	177	2915	64.8	793
14	James Atkinson	63	2677	57.7	225
15	Stuart Cathcart	111	3304	72.9	563
16	Enda Carrigan	594	4541	—	—
17	Mark Jeffree	324	6194	—	—
18	Neale Halsall	54	1073	—	—
19	Andrew Taylor	152	2275	—	—
20	Trent Brown	152	41	—	—
21	Ward Gunn	644	427	—	—
22	Todd Wisewould	52	985	—	—
23	Olav Opsanger	73	0	—	—
24	Michael Free	497	1150	—	—
25	Adrian Connor	589	2786	—	—
26	Neil Hooke	69	1091	—	—
27	Peter Adriaans	99	947	—	—
28	Hughbert Alexander	84	413	—	—
29	Tushar Pokle	712	1967	—	—
30	Hossain Tefaili	360	1072	—	—
31	Gary Herman	804	121	—	—
32	Rennick Kerr	9	359	—	—
33	Peter Garrone	629	2577	—	—
34	Andrew Sutton	531	992	—	—
35	Peter Burkitt	44	752	—	—
36	Peter Tolhurst	509	—	—	—
37	Brett Davis	395	—	—	—
38	Mario Chapa	-192	—	—	—
39	Andrew Berenyi	871	—	—	—
40	Randall Clotworthy	1707	—	—	—
41	Damian Hamilton	1647	—	—	—
42	Marty Hearne	1600	—	—	—
43	Neill Hollingsworth	239	—	—	—
44	Wayne Johnston	629	—	—	—
45	Jason Lannstrom	1393	—	—	—
46	James McGinty	268	—	—	—

How long after the gate opened the pilot started

Measured in seconds · lower is better

Start execution

Pilot	Delay	Alt m	Band %	Behind km
Rohan Taylor	0:19	1889	87	8.9
Steven Crosby	0:35	1554	59	6.6
Steve Docherty	2:02	1425	49	0.8
Vic Hare	1:30	1591	62	6.5
Rory Duncan	2:29	1738	75	7.2
Jay Kubeil	1:15	1905	89	8.0
Bruce Wynne	1:52	1537	58	6.5
Jon Durand	1:03	1496	54	6.2
Richard Martin	0:53	1837	83	8.6
Dustan Hansen	2:17	1942	92	8.5
Mitch Butler	2:32	1687	70	8.6
Troy Horton	1:49	1526	57	6.4
John Harriott	2:57	1600	63	7.3
James Atkinson	1:03	1826	82	8.4
Stuart Cathcart	1:51	1945	92	8.5
Enda Carrigan	9:54	1951	93	8.4
Mark Jeffree	5:24	1425	49	8.3
Neale Halsall	0:54	1457	51	6.6
Andrew Taylor	2:32	1634	66	9.1
Trent Brown	2:32	1540	58	6.9
Ward Gunn	10:44	1978	95	9.7
Todd Wisewould	0:52	1946	92	8.4
Olav Opsanger	1:13	1441	50	0.8
Michael Free	8:17	1826	82	8.6
Adrian Connor	9:49	1798	80	8.4
Neil Hooke	1:09	1531	57	6.6
Peter Adriaans	1:39	1558	60	6.5
Hughbert Alexander	1:24	1581	62	6.6
Tushar Pokle	11:52	1560	60	10.5
Hossain Tefaili	6:00	1503	55	9.7
Gary Herman	13:24	2029	99	8.8
Rennick Kerr	0:09	1789	79	9.9
Peter Garrone	10:29	593	-21	12.1
Andrew Sutton	8:51	1838	83	9.2
Peter Burkitt	0:44	1515	56	6.7
Peter Tolhurst	8:29	1912	89	9.3
Brett Davis	6:35	1444	50	10.0
Mario Chapa	-3:12	1351	42	0.0
Andrew Berenyi	14:31	409	-36	12.4
Randall Clotworthy	28:27	651	-16	12.1
Damian Hamilton	27:27	416	-36	13.3
Marty Hearne	26:40	615	-19	13.7
Neill Hollingsworth	3:59	304	-45	10.3
Wayne Johnston	10:29	601	-20	8.0
Jason Lannstrom	23:13	1064	18	9.0
James McGinty	4:28	466	-32	12.9

Delay = gate taken → SSS crossing. Behind km = extra distance to the next turnpoint vs the furthest-along already-started pilot at the moment of this start (time grid).

Race time lost against the fastest pilots, leg by leg

Measured in seconds · lower is better

For each completed speed-section leg, we compare the leg time of the pilot with the mean of the top 10 pilots by rank who completed that leg. Only the losses count, and we add them together. The sum of the leg times is the race time, and the rank defines the reference, so this metric follows the result by construction. Read the waterfall table, which shows every leg against the task winner, for the diagnosis. Do not read the correlation as a finding.

Steven Crosby against the winner, leg by leg: bars hanging below the line are time lost, bars above are time gained; over the 5 compared legs, +9:10 overall. — marks a leg the pilot or the winner did not complete; the table below has every pilot.

Leg waterfall — leg time vs the task winner

Pilot	SSS→HALFWY	HALFWY→TOOMA	TOOMA→CUDG	CUDG→ELLIOT	ELLIOT→ESS	Total
Rohan Taylor	+0:00	+0:00	+0:00	+0:00	+0:00	+0:00
Steven Crosby	+8:11	-1:18	+5:53	-3:49	+0:13	+9:10
Steve Docherty	+5:12	+9:10	+0:35	+2:07	+0:19	+17:22
Vic Hare	+9:03	-3:06	+6:28	-7:11	+5:09	+10:23
Rory Duncan	+0:39	+6:23	+11:09	-7:29	+0:19	+11:01
Jay Kubeil	+4:02	-0:09	+14:25	-6:32	+1:52	+13:38
Bruce Wynne	+8:18	+11:45	+13:14	-3:45	+1:11	+30:43
Jon Durand	+7:33	+13:37	+8:40	+2:05	+0:58	+32:54
Richard Martin	+13:23	+9:25	+16:11	-7:46	+0:56	+32:09
Dustan Hansen	+1:11	+13:31	+11:48	+4:41	+0:17	+31:28
Mitch Butler	+15:43	+17:06	+10:09	-5:48	+0:31	+37:41
Troy Horton	+17:34	+10:03	+9:02	+19:20	+0:55	+56:54
John Harriott	+18:24	+0:40	+34:31	+4:38	+3:59	+62:12
James Atkinson	+7:55	+37:34	+19:30	-9:17	+1:17	+56:59
Stuart Cathcart	+37:39	+28:21	+6:31	-2:59	+1:54	+71:24
Enda Carrigan	+8:16	+73:43	+14:12	—	—	+96:12
Mark Jeffree	+66:35	+34:15	+22:55	—	—	+123:45
Neale Halsall	+9:43	+19:51	-0:08	—	—	+29:26
Andrew Taylor	+23:52	+8:33	+26:01	—	—	+58:26
Trent Brown	+6:27	-4:36	—	—	—	+1:50
Ward Gunn	+10:00	+8:48	—	—	—	+18:48
Todd Wisewould	+7:39	+20:27	—	—	—	+28:06
Olav Opsanger	+3:38	-7:23	—	—	—	-3:45
Michael Free	+24:55	-11:03	—	—	—	+13:52
Adrian Connor	+23:48	+34:19	—	—	—	+58:07
Neil Hooke	+14:22	+15:30	—	—	—	+29:52
Peter Adriaans	+21:32	—	—	—	—	+21:32
Hughbert Alexander	+12:39	—	—	—	—	+12:39
Tushar Pokle	+38:32	—	—	—	—	+38:32
Hossain Tefaili	+23:37	—	—	—	—	+23:37
Gary Herman	+7:46	—	—	—	—	+7:46
Rennick Kerr	+11:44	—	—	—	—	+11:44
Peter Garrone	+48:42	—	—	—	—	+48:42
Andrew Sutton	+22:17	—	—	—	—	+22:17
Peter Burkitt	+18:17	—	—	—	—	+18:17

Each cell is the leg time of this pilot minus the leg time of the winner. A + value is slower than the winner, and a − value is faster. A — means that the pilot or the winner did not complete the leg.

The scalar metric instead adds the losses against the mean of the top 10 pilots who completed each leg. A leg flown faster than that reference contributes 0.

Race time behind the leader at ESS

Measured in minutes · lower is better

At each speed-section turnpoint, we compare the elapsed race time of the pilot, which is the reaching time minus their own start, with the fastest pilot to that turnpoint. The value is the minutes behind at ESS. It follows the final rank almost exactly, because this metric is the sanity check of the evaluation.

Minutes behind the fastest pilot at each turnpoint — the leader runs along the top at zero, and a line that stops early is a pilot who landed. The top 5 are coloured; every pilot's exact numbers are in the table below.

Horserace — minutes behind the leader at each turnpoint

Pilot	ELLIOT	HALFWY	TOOMA	CUDG	ELLIOT	CORRY	CORRY
Rohan Taylor	3.5	0.0	2.8	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Steven Crosby	3.8	8.5	10.0	13.0	9.2	9.4	9.4
Steve Docherty	5.2	6.9	18.9	16.7	18.8	19.1	19.1
Vic Hare	4.7	10.2	10.0	13.6	6.4	11.6	11.6
Rory Duncan	5.7	2.8	12.1	20.4	12.9	13.2	13.2
Jay Kubeil	4.5	5.0	7.7	19.2	12.7	14.6	14.6
Bruce Wynne	5.1	9.9	24.4	34.8	31.1	32.3	32.3
Jon Durand	4.3	8.3	24.8	30.6	32.7	33.6	33.6
Richard Martin	4.1	13.9	26.2	39.5	31.8	32.7	32.7
Dustan Hansen	5.5	3.2	19.5	28.5	33.2	33.4	33.4
Mitch Butler	5.7	17.9	37.9	45.2	39.4	39.9	39.9
Troy Horton	5.0	19.1	32.0	38.2	57.5	58.4	58.4
John Harriott	6.2	21.1	24.6	56.2	60.8	64.8	64.8
James Atkinson	4.3	8.7	49.1	65.7	56.5	57.7	57.7
Stuart Cathcart	5.0	39.2	70.4	74.0	71.0	72.9	72.9
Enda Carrigan	13.1	17.9	94.4	105.8	—	—	—
Mark Jeffree	8.6	71.7	108.8	128.8	—	—	—
Neale Halsall	4.1	10.3	33.0	30.0	—	—	—
Andrew Taylor	5.7	26.1	37.5	60.7	—	—	—
Trent Brown	5.7	8.7	6.9	—	—	—	—
Ward Gunn	13.9	20.4	32.1	—	—	—	—
Todd Wisewould	4.1	8.2	31.5	—	—	—	—
Olav Opsanger	4.4	4.5	0.0	—	—	—	—
Michael Free	11.5	32.9	24.7	—	—	—	—
Adrian Connor	13.0	33.3	70.5	—	—	—	—
Neil Hooke	4.4	15.2	33.6	—	—	—	—
Peter Adriaans	4.9	22.9	—	—	—	—	—
Hughbert Alexander	4.6	13.7	—	—	—	—	—
Tushar Pokle	15.1	50.1	—	—	—	—	—
Hossain Tefaili	9.2	29.3	—	—	—	—	—
Gary Herman	16.6	20.9	—	—	—	—	—
Rennick Kerr	3.4	11.6	—	—	—	—	—
Peter Garrone	13.7	58.9	—	—	—	—	—
Andrew Sutton	12.0	30.8	—	—	—	—	—
Peter Burkitt	3.9	18.7	—	—	—	—	—
Peter Tolhurst	11.7	—	—	—	—	—	—
Brett Davis	9.8	—	—	—	—	—	—
Mario Chapa	0.0	—	—	—	—	—	—
Andrew Berenyi	17.7	—	—	—	—	—	—
Randall Clotworthy	31.7	—	—	—	—	—	—
Damian Hamilton	30.7	—	—	—	—	—	—
Marty Hearne	29.9	—	—	—	—	—	—
Neill Hollingsworth	7.2	—	—	—	—	—	—
Wayne Johnston	13.7	—	—	—	—	—	—
Jason Lannstrom	26.4	—	—	—	—	—	—
James McGinty	7.7	—	—	—	—	—	—

The elapsed race time, from the pilot’s own start, minus the fastest elapsed time to that turnpoint. A — means that the pilot did not reach the turnpoint.

Arriving at ESS with height to spare

Measured in metres · lower is better

Height still available at ESS that the pilot no longer needed. That altitude was available for more speed, and the pilot did not use it. The value is the altitude at ESS minus the altitude needed to glide to goal at the standard glide ratio of the sport, which is 5.0 for HG and 4.0 for PG (S7F §12.3.6). A large positive margin means the pilot arrived too high. A margin near zero means they flew the final glide with little height to spare.

ESS altitude margin over final glide: top-10 median 198 m (n=10) vs rest median 304 m (n=5).

Footnotes

3 pilots in the standings but not in this analysis

Bruce Atkinson — scored from a manual flight report — no tracklog to analyse
Cedric Joyce — scored from a manual flight report — no tracklog to analyse
Neil Hooke — scored from a manual flight report — no tracklog to analyse

The correlations are measured against the published ranks, and those ranks include these pilots. Their behaviour cannot be measured without a tracklog.

How the field is compared

Everything that compares pilots to each other uses one shared clock. That includes gaggles, shared thermals, and the position of each pilot at the same moment. GlideComp resamples every track onto a common 10-second grid. Two pilots are therefore always compared at the same instant, whatever rate their instruments logged at.

Metric glossary

How GlideComp measures every metric on this page. On screen, the ⓘ beside a metric opens the same description in place. On paper, this section is the reference for all of them.

Day profile & wind

The day’s wind, hour by hour and leg by leg(“Wind” in tables): Measured in kilometres per hour · no expected direction
What the air did, read from the field itself. We estimate the wind from the circling of every pilot. The first method is the drift of the circle centre, and the second method, used when the first is not available, is the modulation of the ground speed. We then average the vectors two ways. The table by hour of day shows how the wind increased and changed direction through the day. The table by speed-section leg shows the wind on each part of the course. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.
How strong the day’s climbs were, hour by hour(“Climb/hr” in tables): Measured in metres per second · no expected direction
When the day started, reached its peak, and ended. We group the thermal climbs of all pilots by the hour in which each climb started, labelled in the time zone of the competition. The median and the 90th-percentile average climb rate for each hour show how the lift developed. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.
Share of the flight spent in air that wasn’t sinking(“NonSink%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
How much of the flight was in air worth being in. The value is the share of the airborne time of a pilot, on the shared grid, with a 30 s-smoothed vario at or above −0.5 m/s. The time they flew, the line they steered and the way the flight ended all feed this value. It is therefore a reading of the day as much as of the pilot. There is no expected direction, and the sign of the correlation is the finding. The timing table compares the window of the day’s best climbs against the time when the field launched.

Climbing

Climbing faster than the pilots sharing the thermal(“Out-climb” in tables): Measured in percent · higher is better
When this pilot and other pilots were in the SAME thermal, who climbed faster? In every thermal that two pilots or more used, we rank each use by its average climb rate. The percentile of a use is the share of uses that were strictly slower. The value is the duration-weighted mean percentile over the shared climbs of the pilot. 50% is exactly average. 80% means they climbed faster than four in five of the pilots they shared lift with. The shared thermal is what separates centring skill from thermal selection: a pilot who only found better air gets no higher value here.
Time to core thermals(“Core s” in tables): Measured in seconds · lower is better
How long the pilot takes to get into the best lift after they arrive in a thermal. For each thermal of 60 s or more, we measure the seconds from the entry until the 30 s rolling climb rate first reaches 90% of its peak in that thermal. The value is the median across the thermals of the pilot. Every second here is a second spent climbing slower than the thermal can carry them.
Climb rate at thermal exit(“LeaveRate” in tables): Measured in metres per second · no expected direction
The median climb rate that the pilot left thermals at. For each thermal of 90 s or more, we take the climb rate over its final 30 s. A high value means they leave lift that still works. A low value means they stay in a climb until nothing is left. This is an absolute rate, so read it against the day: compare it with the median climb in "How strong the day’s climbs were". A pilot who leaves at 1.5 m/s leaves a good climb on a 1 m/s day, and takes the worst lift available on a 4 m/s day. There is no expected direction. The sign of the correlation says which behaviour paid on this task.
Share of lift turned in that was kept as a climb(“Kept%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
How selective the pilot is about the lift they stop for. Each period of circling of 30 s or more after the start counts as lift that the pilot sampled. If the period overlaps a detected thermal, the pilot kept that lift. If it does not, they turned a few circles and left it. The value is the percentage kept. A low value means they are selective. A high value means they keep almost every climb they turn in. There is no expected direction: selection wins on a strong day and wastes time on a weak one.
How much of the thermal the pilot climbed before leaving it(“TopOut%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
Does the pilot climb to the top of every thermal, or leave with lift still above them? We take the altitude where they left each thermal after the start, as a percentage of the day’s working band. 0% is the floor of the field and 100% is its ceiling. The value is the median. There is no expected direction: a climb to the top buys height in reserve, and an early departure buys time.
How round and consistent the circles were(“Round” in tables): Measured in ratio · lower is better
Whether the pilot flies clean, repeatable circles, or moves around the thermal. We fit each detected circle by least squares. The RMS fit error divided by the fitted radius measures how round the turn was. The value is the median over all of the circles of the pilot. A lower value means smoother and more consistent turns.

Gliding

Glide speed between climbs(“GlideSpd” in tables): Measured in kilometres per hour · higher is better
How fast the pilot moves down the course when they are on a glide. The value is the duration-weighted mean ground speed over every glide after the start, which is the glide distance divided by the glide time. A higher value means more ground covered in each minute between climbs.
Glide L/D against the field median(“GlideL/D” in tables): Measured in ratio · higher is better
Whether the pilot found better air on glide than the other pilots on the same leg. For each completed speed-section leg, we take the pilot's glide-phase L/D. That is the path distance divided by the net altitude lost during the glides, and we skip a leg that loses less than 100 m. We divide it by the median L/D of the field on that same leg, and then average over the legs. 1.10 means the pilot glided 10% further for each metre lost than the usual pilot on those legs.
Gliding faster when the next climb is stronger(“SpeedToFly” in tables): Measured in kilometres per hour · higher is better
Speed to fly: the pilot flies faster when a good climb is in front of them, and slower when it is not. We pair each glide after the start with the climb rate of the next thermal that starts within 5 minutes. The value is the mean glide speed before climbs stronger than the median, minus the mean glide speed before weaker climbs. +8 km/h means the pilot flew 8 km/h faster into the good climbs. This is a PROXY, and not true speed to fly, because there is no glider polar data.
Gliding wide of the optimal course line(“Wide%” in tables): Measured in percent · lower is better
How much further the pilot flew on glide than the optimised course line needed. 0% is a flight exactly along the line, and 12% is a glide 12% further than necessary. On each completed speed-section leg, we compare the pilot's route with the optimised distance of the leg, weighted by that optimised distance. Only the glides are measured at their full path length. Circling and searching contribute their entry-to-exit displacement instead. A climb or a search for lift therefore never reads as a wide line, because a pilot chooses a line only on glide. 0% is a real value that a pilot can reach: a pilot who flies the line of the optimiser scores exactly zero.
Share of the height gain made outside thermals(“Dolphin%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
Dolphin flying: how much of the height that the pilot gained came outside of circling. The value is the share of the altitude gain after the start, smoothed over 10 s, that the pilot made outside a detected thermal. There is no expected direction. The sign of the correlation shows whether dolphin flying paid on this day.

Decision-making

How low the pilot gets between climbs(“Floor%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
How low the pilot goes before the next climb. A high value is a race with height in reserve, and a low value is a flight that goes down near the ground. We take each pair of climbs that the pilot made after the start, and we find the lowest point between them. We keep only the gaps that go down 100 m or more, because a top-up between two climbs is not a descent. We do not count a sled run or the glide to goal, because the pilot made no climb after them. The value is the median of those low points, as a percentage of the day's working band. 0% is where the lowest tenth of the field's climbs started, and 100% is where the highest tenth stopped. Thus a negative value shows that the pilot went lower than almost all of the field. The pilot must have two or more of these descents. There is no expected direction. The sign of the correlation says whether height in reserve pays.
Low saves dug out from the bottom of the band(“LowSaves” in tables): Measured in count · no expected direction
How many times the pilot got low and climbed out again. We count the climbs after the start that the pilot entered below 15% of the working band, and that then gained 300 m or more. Those are true low saves. Zero is a real value, and not a missing one: it means the pilot never got that low. There is no expected direction. The sign of the correlation says whether a climb-out or a flight that stays high pays.
Distance covered between climbs(“km/climb” in tables): Measured in kilometres · higher is better
How far the pilot gets down the course before they must stop and circle again. This is the direct reading of how often they stop. The value is the scored flown distance divided by the number of thermals taken after the start, so 3 km means three kilometres of course for each climb. The pilot must fly 20 km or more. The note of each pilot adds their mean climb percentile inside shared thermals, so you can read the number of stops together with the climb strength. Long legs between weak climbs is a different day from long legs between strong ones.
Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb(“Search%” in tables): Measured in percent · lower is better
Time that goes into neither a climb nor progress down the course. This is the time spent to find lift, to stay up, and to decide what to do next. The value is the share of the speed-section time, from the start to ESS or to the landing, in which the pilot neither climbed in a thermal nor glided with real net speed. A lower value means less time lost between climbs.

Gaggle

Time spent flying with a gaggle(“InGaggle%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
Whether the pilot raced with other pilots or alone. The value is the share of their flying time after the start inside a detected gaggle, that is, clustered with one other racing pilot or more on the shared time grid. There is no expected direction. A gaggle increases the power to search for lift, but it also holds a pilot to its own speed. The sign of the correlation says which of the two occurred here.
Climbs joined on another pilot's marker(“Marked%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
How much of the lift of the pilot another pilot found first. The value is the share of their climbs after the start where another pilot was already established in the same thermal when they arrived. Established means 30 s or more into the climb, and still climbing. A high value means they mostly climb on the markers of other pilots. A low value means they find their own air. There is no expected direction. A marker is free information, but it puts a pilot where the last climb was, and not where the next one is.
How often leaving the gaggle paid off(“LeaveWin%” in tables): Measured in percent · no expected direction
When a pilot leaves a gaggle that continues to fly, did the departure pay off? We compare the arrival of the pilot who left at the next turnpoint against the median arrival of the pilots who stayed. A win rate of more than 50% means their departures beat the gaggle. A pilot counts as a pilot who stayed only if they were still in the gaggle after the split, and reached that turnpoint after it.

Race craft

How long after the gate opened the pilot started(“StartDly” in tables): Measured in seconds · lower is better
Every second between the opening of the gate and the crossing of the start line is a second lost for nothing. The value is the seconds from the start gate taken to the scored SSS crossing. On an elapsed-time task, the pilot’s own crossing is the reference, so the delay is 0 by definition. The start table adds the crossing altitude, and the distance behind the leading pilot who had already started.
Race time lost against the fastest pilots, leg by leg(“TimeLost” in tables): Measured in seconds · lower is better
For each completed speed-section leg, we compare the leg time of the pilot with the mean of the top 10 pilots by rank who completed that leg. Only the losses count, and we add them together. The sum of the leg times is the race time, and the rank defines the reference, so this metric follows the result by construction. Read the waterfall table, which shows every leg against the task winner, for the diagnosis. Do not read the correlation as a finding.
Race time behind the leader at ESS(“Behind” in tables): Measured in minutes · lower is better
At each speed-section turnpoint, we compare the elapsed race time of the pilot, which is the reaching time minus their own start, with the fastest pilot to that turnpoint. The value is the minutes behind at ESS. It follows the final rank almost exactly, because this metric is the sanity check of the evaluation.
Arriving at ESS with height to spare(“Spare m” in tables): Measured in metres · lower is better
Height still available at ESS that the pilot no longer needed. That altitude was available for more speed, and the pilot did not use it. The value is the altitude at ESS minus the altitude needed to glide to goal at the standard glide ratio of the sport, which is 5.0 for HG and 4.0 for PG (S7F §12.3.6). A large positive margin means the pilot arrived too high. A margin near zero means they flew the final glide with little height to spare.
Final glide committed to when leaving the last climb(“FinalGl” in tables): Measured in ratio · no expected direction
How optimistic the pilot was about their final glide. A pilot wins or loses a task by the height at which they leave the last climb. At the last climb of the pilot before ESS, or before the landing, we divide the distance to goal by their height above goal. That is the glide ratio they committed to. 8 means they left and needed 8:1 to make goal. The value counts only when that climb ended within 1.5 times the distance of the final leg from goal. There is no expected direction: a marginal glide wins if it connects, and loses if it does not.

Task 2 (Open)

What the weather did

From the weather model

From the pilots' tracks

The day's thermals

Thermal at 13:26 AEDT — 14 pilots, 29 climbs

Which behaviours went with better results

Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb

Metrics with a clear pattern, plotted against rank

Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb

Glide speed between climbs

Share of lift turned in that was kept as a climb

Gliding wide of the optimal course line

How much of the thermal the pilot climbed before leaving it

How long after the gate opened the pilot started

Outcome checks

The whole field at a glance

Pilot style clusters

The metrics in detail

Day profile & windbest: could be chance (0.11)

Climbingbest: clear pattern (0.62)

Share of lift turned in that was kept as a climb

Acceptance by hour

How round and consistent the circles were

Glidingbest: clear pattern (0.79)

Glide speed between climbs

Decision-makingbest: clear pattern (0.79)

Share of race time spent hunting for the next climb

Gagglebest: some pattern (0.32)

Race craftbest: clear pattern (0.53)

Footnotes

3 pilots in the standings but not in this analysis

How the field is compared

Metric glossary

Day profile & wind

Climbing

Gliding

Decision-making

Gaggle

Race craft

best: could be chance (0.11)

best: clear pattern (0.62)

best: clear pattern (0.79)

best: clear pattern (0.79)

best: some pattern (0.32)

best: clear pattern (0.53)