Winning strategies

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.

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 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.

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.

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.