Wake Up call for FAI, IGC and Condor Community!

[CristianoConrado]

I will not accept any kind of threat.
Everything I had to say is in the video.

Cristiano Silva Conrado Moreira
[CON]

https://youtu.be/Dk0JV3v8u3Q

[OXO]

I don't have time to watch a 1h video. Can this be summarised into one paragraph?

[havet865]

Dear Cristiano Conrado,

We do not work with video threats and we do not unveil private messages to the public when we are dealing with different matters.

I did not watch your video completely yet, but all it shows is a huge lack of respect towards myself and the entire team.

It looks like the only reasoning is that you consider myself as being a newbie while I have been flying Condor for 15 years and gliding for 12 years. And you consider that I am not able to hear anything from anyone while I actually spend my time writing dozens of emails everyday to get everyone’s advice when we have to modify a rule.

All team members have organised races from the very beginning of Condor 1. Most of us are part of the developer team of Condor, helping out Uros and Chris to develop the best possible simulator with Condor 3.

All rules have been created with the best 15 pilots of Condor (Ben Fest, Witold Rozak, Arne Martin Guettler etc…). Everyone has had the opportunity to say something about it.

You believe that we are just improvising things maybe, but it has never happened here.

We are planning things months in advance and always put everyone in the loop.

I am very much saddened by your acts and I believe we will get back to you later on.

Kind regards,
Antoine

[havet865]

I don't have time to watch a 1h video. Can this be summarised into one paragraph?

Mr Conrado was not happy with a rule at Race 6, that was not going in his favor, so he decided to post aggressive and disrespectful messages towards several members of the organisation.

Mr Conrado has been contacted by mail to face a potential Disciplinary Sanction, because he has breached several rules for months already, and rather than trying to reach us by mail when he believes that there is an issue, he just tries to discredit our work in public.
Every single time; which we do not accept as stated in previous emails.

FAI considers sporting values including fair play, respect, equality and spirit of competition to be integral to the FAI Virtual Gliding contests and participants are under obligation to honour, adhere to and promote these values at all times.
Participants are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects positively on the Competition, FAI Virtual Gliding Group (and any of its affiliates), appointed members of the press, Attendees, and other Participants, and comply with all applicable law and regulation at all times.

Participants shall not engage in conduct which Officials deems to be harmful to the business, reputation or relationships of the FAI Virtual Gliding contests, Teams, the Game, Gliding in general and/or the FAI Virtual Gliding Group.

Mr Conrado was just facing a warning so that he could think again about adhering the rules just like everyone else is doing, but apparently he prefers to speak out publicly to criticise, once again, rather than to help the project grow with proper feedback.

We have received several emails during this past event to answer questions or issue that were raised.
And we even helped some pilots who had issues with their .ftr and with their time slot while we are not supposed to do this.
We are helpful everytime.

I am personally very saddened by his decision and his acts.

I wish you all a nice day,
Antoine

[JBlyth]

Hello All,

I have watched Mr Conrado's video, although I admit that I skipped forward a few minutes a number of times. I have thought long and hard about entering the conversation.

It is a shame that the team of volunteer organisers have had strong and at times, in my opinion, undiplomatic words directed towards them. I have enjoyed flying with Mr Conrado on a number of occasions. I have learnt that he is passionate about Condor, and he does have strong views and does speak his mind firmly on a number of topics.

Perhaps Mr Conrado would have been more diplomatic if he were writing in his mother language. The nuances of English, and many other languages, can be difficult to present thoughtfully, especially when a person is passionate and experienced in a particular topic.

Australian/New Zealand English is my sole language. Even so, I sometimes cause unintended offence to others when I write. I can understand how Antoine and others have taken umbrage with some of Mr Conrado's words. However, I do believe that it was not his intent to cause offence.

Yes, there are issues with how some of the rules are/are not implemented. The late start times for most of the Gawler Races were unrealistic and made flying unrealistically difficult when compared to the real flying conditions. I have addressed my thoughts on the start times in another post on this forum.

However, everyone flew under the same conditions, and one of the important arts in gliding is to fly to the deteriorating gliding conditions. Sadly, this was something I failed to do in a few of the Gawler Races, resulting in a number of outlandings. (Sounds like real life flying

I think it was fair to say that the organisers acted with the very best of intentions, and I respect them for the considerable effort they have put into organising such a large event on our behalf. Their efforts to have Virtual Gliding included within the FAI umbrella will be seen in the future as a giant leap forward for our E-Sport.

What is most important here is the continuing growth and enjoyment of E-Sports such as the Virtual FAI SGP and other world competition events for us all in the coming years. It is also clear that there is pain and upset on both sides of this story.

Therefore, I would respectfully suggest:-

• Mr Conrado apologise to the Organising Committee for the upset his words have, no doubt unintentionally, caused them, particularly Antoine.
• The Organising Committee refrain from going forward with any current disciplinary action against Mr Conrado.

Going forward, our flying community should be mindful of the considerable effort the Organising Committee makes into creating these events. Constructive and polite suggestions on open forums should be welcome where appropriate, and by private email when requested. For its part, the Organising Committee should continue to extend lines of communication to all interested parties.

As a group, we will be much more successful working together wherever possible.

Thank you for reading this far,
John Blyth
Sunny Carnarvon - Western Australia.

[Jarmo K]

Before going to cause of this whole "mess", few lines.

There's not much pre-planning we need to do before joining the race in virtual world, but some of given information is more important and should be paid attention to.

From condorclub e-mail which arrives normally 45min before server start (example from Gawler comp. day #5):
- Wing loading limit: 48 kg/m²
- Minimum safe arrival altitude (QNH): 185 m.
= you have to cross finish LINE above that height. Going into finish sector below 185m and then pulling above means penalty points. Like I did in 1st race: 184,5m = 2 sec penalty.
- Maximum ground speed for crossing the start line: 170 km/h
= check wind direction & strength; is it going to increase or decrease your ground speed.

And 15min before server start from task description:
- max start height: 1220m
= note exact height, as Condor PDA don't show as precise information.
- min & max heights of each TP (!!, there can be surprises...)

Minimum safety and finish heights can vary from day to day, depending on wind direction and strength, never assume them to be same as previous day.
= e.g. in Varese day 5 finish & safety height was 550m due strong north wind and every other day limit was 350m.

And then why this whole discussion/complaining has started (deleted Discord messages):
- minimum finish height: 185m
= if here is in Condor task description something else than 0m, you must go above that height inside start sector, otherwise your result is outlanding.
= this can't be any surprise to anyone who have flown Condor regularly.

JKK

[CristianoConrado]

Greetings Jarmo and Condor Community;

I know that in the video there were some confusing parts because I don't have the necessary fluency to express my argument in a complete way, but writing I am able to make myself understood in a better way.

Of course I checked the pre-race briefing and identified the arrival height limit (185m). The problem is not this, it is not the minimum height limit, but the lack of validation of the low arrival with the appropriate penalty.

You said that this might not come as a surprise to an experienced pilot like me, but let me give you another point of view.

One of the impressions everyone had when the news of these FAI championships arrived was that there would certainly be unprecedented cooperation between the organization, the Condor team and the Condor Club. Which would lead to the necessary adjustments to both the simulator and the Condor Club for the SGP rules to become applicable.

Everyone would have won: the FAI would have been able to organize the event properly and Condor and the Condor Club would have renewed and multiplied interest in their products. It would also benefit all virtual pilots to have an event with unprecedented coverage and recognition and to have a simulator with increasingly advanced resources, as we see in the latest Condor 2 modifications and we will see in the new Condor 3.

This cooperation has actually taken place, many modifications have already taken place.

As it was an FAI event, me and all the pilots who flew with me, we were sure that the rules would have to be followed by us to the letter.

When the arrival configuration was modified between the 2nd qualifying stage (2nd FAI Virtual SGP - Zar (Poland)) and the 3rd qualifying stage (2nd FAI Virtual SGP - Paluknys (LITHUANIA)), this happened because the organization wanted, among other things , that the PDA showed the DDH (0) in the final glide, to cross the final line at the correct height, contrary to the previous procedure in which the pilots should keep the DDH at the finish line at (0 AGL + height limit).

Then you will understand what the problem was: I and many pilots understood that there had been a new adaptation in the Condor Club script, to allow the DDH to show (0) considering the height limit and even so to consider the penalty in case the pilot crossed below the minimum height.

Why did I consider this?

There was no alert or communication from the organization informing that the arrival procedure rules had been modified.

Example:
################################

Dear Pilots;

The organization of the SGP FAI, after considering several factors, decided to change the arrival rule and from stage 3 (Paluknys), arrivals below the minimum height will not be considered, these flights being computed as non-completed and consequently landouts.

################################

This announcement could have easily been distributed via the auto-submission tool to all Condor Club pilots.

On the first day of competition in Paluknys, this report could also have been released via the DSHelp chat.

The competition rules manual could also have been modified and distributed.

As none of this was done, it was reasonable to believe that the rules described in the manual were still valid, after all, nobody conceives of an FAI race where the established and published rules are ignored.

You may ask me, how did it go so long without me noticing that the arrival was not registering below the threshold?

The answer is: I didn't go low on any of the race days after the modification.
I landedout but there were no under-limit arrivals until the said day at Gawler (5th competition day).

Of course, the competition management has the competence to change the rules and configuration of the tasks, mainly when the reason is security, but all the confusion could have been avoided with a simple communication.

Likewise, it is a good idea to keep the same control point and the same arrival rules for every day in a competition, even when the race uses different sectors and ends up coming from another direction, as this way the procedures are automated and there is less risk of confusion on the part of the pilots, who in such fierce competition can be completely focused on getting to the front, on jockeying for positions.

Adjustment points before the control point can be used to adjust the direction of arrival at the control point avoiding unwanted overflying over the runway in specific cases, but the control points and the arrival must be the same, except due to large wind changes .

If there are changes to the control point and the arrival height, it is also recommended that this be highlighted and informed to the pilots, before the start.

Now let's go to another aspect:

It is clear that more time in preparation for the races would be recommended, where each one would have enough time to notice all the details.

Of course, it would be recommended that all pilots have enough time to prepare and notice all these details and changes in a briefing, but unfortunately many of us are trying to participate in these events by mixing it with real life activities.
Many of us arrive home 20 - 15 minutes before the races or even with the server already open.
For this reason many of us use more than one timezone to complete the tasks.
This is not the race organization's responsibility, but it is the reality of many pilots, which makes the failure to notice changes in safety procedures (control point / arrival heights) understandable.

In no way do I blame this on the organization. It was my failure to notice these changes, all I was asking and suggesting was that they be highlighted before the race.

The fact is that there were gross failures in some races, like the 4/5 of the control point below ground in Varese, I lost a victory for that.

When I communicated the problem and asked for it to be resolved, it was as if I had asked for something absurd, as if it were my whim.

Yes, a manual calculation could have been made and the final score of the competition could have been adjusted, my speed and race time could have been computed at the moment of crossing the final point, but there was ill will and it was said that the direction was not there to make "my wills".

Could it be that if this problem had affected one of Mr. Havet friends, like Mr. Rozak, DGT, Ben Fest; would him have the same posture?

Wouldn't him have found a way to correct the problem and damage?

The race was voided and I lost 1000 points.

It is also a fact that on another occasion I changed the time of the competition, received the briefing, flew broadcasting the race live and was unable to upload the race to the Condor Club.
I won that task and asked to have the upload checked and reopened so I could record the result.

I was solemnly ignored.

From this point it was clear that after the Varese event I would be considered "persona non grata" and everything I posted would be poorly received and considered as an offense even if I was polite and civil. It became a personal issue.

This is not an impression, this is a fact because while I was ignored or denied a similar request, see what was posted on Discord during Gawler's stage:

####################
"KH - Kresimir Hrastovec — 04/01/2023 19:56
Can any share pass for 11:30UTC? tnx

Director - Antoine HAVET — 01/04/2023 20:23
Yes if someone has had issue too! I am gonna sleep now, so you are in charge I trust you Kreso haha
Enjoy the race!"
####################

"Nothing like being friends with the King!!!"

How much Mr. Havet been a novice at organizing events, I really don't remember him organizing competitions at the Condor Club.

I've looked through the Condor Club's archives and I haven't found a single competition that he organized.

I also don't remember him as a pilot in the main races, the only French pilot with the name of Antoine that I found in the active Condor Club in recent years is Antoine71260 ; Is Antoine BURON, VACO (AN5), the same person?

No wonder I find it unusual that someone with that background has been chosen to manage the FAI/SGP project.

I could be wrong on this specific point, if that's the case, I take back what I said.

Mr. Havet always highlights the fact that he and his team work on a voluntary basis and it is a great effort to reconcile the organization of the SGP with the day-to-day work.

I have one thing to say about it:

"- Welcome to the club."

We've all been doing this for 17 years.

It takes a lot of time and dedication to keep competitions and servers opening on time for years. For this reason many of these competitions and daily servers are organized by people who are already retired or a group with a large number of administrators who share the responsibilities.

For these reasons: experience, need for constant adjustments and available time; I said that it would be expected that groups like those who manage Tchin Tchin, Condor Café or even Thierry Bodin / Condor Team themself would be at the head of the organization.

I recognize the work you're doing, but you got into this by choice.

For years, we have had virtual sailing competitions sponsored by national federations in Brazil (pioneer) and Argentina, both with awards and award ceremonies in real life, parallel to the real championships.

The FAI is not inventing the wheel, but certainly the SGP FAI is a very welcome undertaking and greatly increases the importance and recognition of the Condor.

Anyway, the biggest complaint of Mr. Havet is that I bring problems to a "public" discussion. But he calls public the discussion here in this forum where we only have pilots and developers from the Condor community.

He also considers discussions on Discord to be public, where pilots only enter by active invitation. Only participants of FAI/SGP competitions have access there.

We are not discussing problems or smearing the name of the FAI on "Le Figaro" or "TV5". This Forum and the Discord are restricted channels, only frequented by pilots and developers.

There is no damage to the FAI's image, only to Mr. Havet image in the community.

In this regard, although he stated that he advised me several times that I should talk about problems in the competition only via the Virtual FAI email, he never actually did so.

He never did it over email, he never did it over Discord or direct message like I showed in the video.

Apparently he is modifying the guidelines and publishing a new manual soon, or has already done so. But he hadn't done so until then.

I really think there's only one problem with this:

VANITY!!!

The fact is that he exposed me as an aggressive, disrespectful person, forwarding copies of emails to IGC delegates and members of the organizing committee already preparing a real reputation assassination in a malicious and untrue way.

All this for what?

To support a heavy sanction and my banishment from competitions?

Save your time. I want to stay well clear of anything under your management and therefore participate in any FAI events while you are trampling rules and people on behalf of the FAI.

You once again demonstrate in the above posts that you are unable to take any responsibility for your actions and repair your mistakes.

So there is no longer any possibility for a respectful relationship between you and me.

Your innocent face and apparently civilized manner do not deceive me, as I have learned to judge people by their actions and your actions leave no doubt about your character or lack thereof.

While Mr. Havet been involved in this project is the last time I post on any FAI related channel, I will not answer emails on this matter.

I'm just writing this long post because the video wasn't clear in all respects due to my limitation with the English language.




With all due respect to the community,


Cristiano Silva Conrado Moreira
[CON]

[OXO]

I remind all users of our forum rules:

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=16587

Transgressions will not be tolerated. Antoine has requested that I do not remove CristianoConrado's post above in the interests of transparency.

I may review that later..

[Bre901]

Some comments of the video stated that the Gawler tasks took place in winter.

As it is not the case (the dates are identical in the real and virtual SGP as everyone can see if they take the time to check for themselves instead of repeating what they have read or heard), I have tried posting the comment below which is merely facts and is not attacking anyone:

About "winter":
Take a look at the flight dates, you can notice that they are identical to the real life dates (i.e. 2->8 January)
The "winter" text is a glitch in the Condor Club briefing code which does not differentiate between Northern and Southern hemisphere

Besides that also look at the real life results, the first flights at Gawler were difficult : https://www.soaringspot.com/en_gb/sgp-x ... wler-2023/
The average speeds of the winners are quite similar in real life and Condor (except for the 2 last ones where Condor was a bit faster, bombastic weather is not easy to fine tune)

However, all my posts get deleted as soon as they are posted, except the one where I was saying:

Mr Conrado, deleting comments that just settle incorrect facts is somehow un-gentlemanly (that is an understatement)

which I guess Mr C. took for an approval of his position, which it is not, I was just referring to my own posts being deleted !

[Kekelekou]

Can this be summarised into one paragraph?

Cristiano scores an own goal.

[witor]

Dear Conrado

If I understand you correctly, the main point you are trying to make is that your finish below the minimal altitude in Varese qualifier should have been allowed (with a penalty) because that is what the rules say and rules should be followed (by the way, I agree that rules should be followed)

I just want to draw your attention again to the following point of the official rules which I think you are focusing on:

7.6.2 b
For World VSGP only: Flying below the minimum altitude between the reporting point and the finish line, including when crossing the line, shall be penalised. A tolerance of 5 meter shall be applied (the pilot shall get no penalty if he crosses the line less than 5m below the minimum altitude, but he shall get the penalty corresponding to the full difference between the minimum altitude and his altitude if the missing altitude is higher than 5m).

I would specifically want to draw your attention to the following words: ’ For World VSGP only’. As you can see this rule only applies to the final event where there are only 20 pilots and igc files of all flights can be processed to check for possible penalties.

The rules also say:

7.6.1 c
Mandatory Reporting Point - The organisers shall set a final turn point to align the gliders before the finish. A minimum altitude shall be set to a minimum of 30 meters above the airfield elevation in the local procedures and shall apply from the mandatory point to and including the finish line. Flying below this minimum altitude shall be penalised. The mandatory reporting point should not be located more than 15 km from the finish line. Sharp turns at this reporting point should be avoided.

I think that in that memorable race (can’t find the task to check it) simply due to a human mistake, the last turnpoint did not follow the rule above. Organisers had a difficult decision to make, but at the end cancelling the race was the right thing to do in light of the 7.6.1.c. I must admit that initially I wasn’t a fan of this day being cancelled. I thought that everyone had the same chance on that day and it was a fair race. Some people were far behind you because they flew slow to stay high, so they could dive at VNE to turn the final point with speed, to then pull up and make it to the finish line and across the line above the minimal altitude. Quite a few people managed to do this successfully, so it was possible and I think they deserved the win. This was just an unwanted, unnecessary but fair feature of that race. But again, because task did not comply with 7.6.1 c it was cancelled which I understand.

In Boras qualifier (Sweden) in race 6 I crossed the finish line below the minimal altitude and scored 0 points. I never had a problem with that. I arrived too low got 0 points end of story. At that point I was leading the competition and outlanding in the final race would have cost me not just the race, but the whole qualifying spot. Luckily for me I was able to finish the last race.

[h.kreso]

####################
"KH - Kresimir Hrastovec — 04/01/2023 19:56
Can any share pass for 11:30UTC? tnx

Director - Antoine HAVET — 01/04/2023 20:23
Yes if someone has had issue too! I am gonna sleep now, so you are in charge I trust you Kreso haha
Enjoy the race!"
####################

"Nothing like being friends with the King!!!"

Dear Conrado,

Why didn't you make a copy paste of the entire text of the message. This way you only bring more unrest to the group.

We are not professionals who have to be in a certain place at a certain time. It's just our hobby, our free time, which sometimes isn't planned the way we want it to be.

I do not know Mr. Antoine personally, but I am grateful for what he has done for the Condor community

Regards,

[witor]

After my post Conrado sent me a private message in which he pointed out that my understanding of the situation in Varese qualifier is not fully correct. After watching the video of his flight, I must admit that in fact I did not fully understand what happened and I want to apologise Conrado for saying that he arrived at the finish line below the minimal altitude. In fact, he arrived at the finish line above the minimal altitude of 400m. This makes the first quote of the rules in my previous post irrelevant.

However, I still think that the decision to cancel this day. was correct.

To clarify what actually happened. Conrado flew towards the last TP and arrived at the last TP above 400m. When he entered the last TP cylinder he relised that something was not right as he did not get the yellow condor message confirming that he turned the turnpoint. At this moment trying to figure out what is going on he noticed on the condor PDA that turnopint has a label 0-4, which means max altitude of 400m. He tried to dive, managed to get down to 429m, but that was not enough (due to the terrain at this location) and still too high. He then puled back up and proceeded to the finish line. Despite arriving above 400m condor did not give him the congratulation message as he did not turn the previous TP below the max altitude set by mistake in the condor fpl file.

In my opinion the decision to cancel this day was correct because:

1) Conrado did not notice 0-4 label on the TP until it was to late to plan what could be done to turn this turnpoint. I know for a fact that some other pilots have noticed this and planned well in advance to fly slower to have enough altitude in order to dive to VNE at the last TP and be certain that they can reach the finish line above 400m. Someone who didn’t have to do that had an unfair advantage and could not be awarded the win.
2) Turnpoint helpers were on and other pilots were able to see the lower area where they could turn the final turnpoint. This however required a slightly longer path. Conrado could do the same but chose not to, which gave him a tiny unfair advantage.
3) Other pilots did turn the final turnpoint successfully, so someone who did not can not claim the race victory in my opinion. If Conrado descended another 29 meters and flew slightly longer track it is hard to predict if he would be able to reach finish line above 400m and it is hard to expect that organisers will do such predictions.
4) And finally, and most importantly.

7.6.1 c
Mandatory Reporting Point - The organisers shall set a final turn point to align the gliders before the finish. A minimum altitude shall be set to a minimum of 30 meters above the airfield elevation

.

The final turnpoint minimal altitude in this task was by mistake set to 0, so turnpoint was not valid and organisers had no real other choice but to cancel the task. As I stated before If it was up to me I would have not cancelled the results, but I fully understand why organisers decided to cancel this race. Anybody could protest the last TP being against the rules so organisers didn't have much choice in my opinion.

[Jarmo K]

Hi Witor,

tiny correction to Your post: actually there was min height in the TP4 (350m) and as max was 400m, turning it was "a bit" tricky
Those who want to double check it, can find it from Condor Club own Pilot Ranking List. Either your flight analysis or clicking the task name.
Race date 12.6.2022.

12.6.2022 Varese TP4.JPG

CU,
Jarmo

[witor]

Yes you are right Jarmo

Condor PDA actually shows 4-4 not 0-4. Was difficult to see on the youtube video and my eyes getting old .

I believe my other 3 points are still valid and it would still be unfair in my opinion to declare Conrado a winner. In that case 7.6.1 c was not broken and organisers could have gone both ways with their decision. They could have gone with whatever results they had on Condor Club or cancel the task as final turn point was unnecessarily surprising. There were arguments for both.