LFSD West Coast Challenge
Long Flights On Short Days
Updated 12/5/2019 (for 2020 through 2022 calendar years)

Our South Coast Flying is some of the best to be had on short days.  To demonstrate, we offer a challenge to all un-powered foot launched aircraft on the West Coast.

The leaders will be determined by the formula:
miles times z

• Where
  • Miles = Total straight line miles (SLOFD) between two points over-flown by an unpowered aircraft that was foot launched from anywhere in one of the USA states that borders the pacific ocean (California, Oregon, and Washington)
    • Miles will be rounded to an accuracy of  no more than 1 decimal place for use in the calculator
    • SLOFD is an acronym for Straight Line Over-Flown Distance
      • SLOFD is measured to maximize the straight line distance from a "Start Point" to an "End Point". Start and End Points do not need to be pre-declared and are determined in post flight analyses.
      • If a GPS track is supplied, distance will be measured between the two furthest apart ground track points via Google Earth's Measuring Tool
    • Unassisted & non-mechanized movement on the ground is permitted (land, hike, and re-launch), but re-supply other than naturally occurring items is not permitted.
      • If a pilot has multiple launches with non-mechanized forward movement between landing and re-launch, then a straight line will be drawn from the initial "start point" to the "end point" that maximizes the total distance traveled. Lines from the landing and re-launch points that are perpendicular to the total distance line will used to subtract a section (or sections) from the max total distance straight line to calculate the SLOFD.
  • "Z" is a calculated adjustment factor to devalue longer days and is [calculated] by an [expression] that was frozen for 2021 on 12/31/04
    • Note: the spread sheet expression includes the current year as part of the formula, so you must use the Excel file for the corresponding year.
  • Final Scores (Miles x Z) will be rounded to the nearest whole integer with no decimal places.

• Rules:
  • Aircraft: any un-powered aircraft, but the launch method for the flight must be unassisted foot launch (no wheeled launches or towing, but you may use people for launch and landing assistance without the aid of mechanical devices).
  • Entry Fee: None
  • Registration or prior declaration: None Required
  • Documentation:  A reasonably descriptive article must be posted to the SCPA or the SBSA flight discussion forums.
    [http://scpa.info/bb/forum] >  Flight Discussion [http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewforum.php?f=1]
    Flight articles must be posted by January 15th after the relevant year, however, for flights in December, only a notification of the flight needs to be posted by Jan 15th with an actual flight article due by January 25th.
    • GPS data files are not required, however, if no GPS track record is available, the SBSA members present at  the February meeting will need to vote in the majority to accept the submission.  GPS files by themselves are insufficient documentation.  Submissions must be accompanied by a "reasonably descriptive article" which is a little vague, but we want to keep it simple?
  • Contest Period: From Jan 1st through Dec 31st

• Awards:
  • Awards have been discontinued for starting with the 2021 season. Previously we had a GoFundMe page setup but the amount raised did not justify the administrative overhead.