Metric details

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, from how far the centre of each circle drifts. We then combine the estimates 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.

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. The first row is the whole task, measured over every climb of the day in one set, and not as an average of the hourly rows. This metric describes the day, so it has no value for each pilot.

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.

Measured in seconds · no expected direction

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. There is no expected direction. Time spent working into the core is not lost if the pilot ends up in the better lift, so the sign of the correlation says whether the hunt paid on this day. We leave out a pilot whose instrument records a position only every 5 seconds or less often. A track that coarse cannot show this detail, and the pilot would seem to fly differently when they do not.

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.

Measured in ratio · no expected direction

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. There is no expected direction: a rough trace can be a pilot chasing a drifting or broken core rather than a pilot circling badly. We leave out a pilot whose instrument records a position less often than every 2 seconds. A track that coarse cannot show this detail, and the pilot would seem to fly differently when they do not.

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 while not circling. There is no expected direction. The sign of the correlation shows whether dolphin flying paid on this day. We leave out a pilot whose instrument records a position less often than every 2 seconds. A track that coarse cannot show this detail, and the pilot would seem to fly differently when they do not.

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. We leave out a pilot whose instrument records a position only every 5 seconds or less often. A track that coarse cannot show this detail, and the pilot would seem to fly differently when they do not.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.