Leuk artikeltje van Jantje W geschreven bij RC Groups
Yes, judging the conditions correctly is an essential skill in F5J!
It is fun and interesting to see the varied launch heights. Sometimes the conditions reward risk taking, sometimes not. Interestingly, the relative penalty per meter of altitude increases in bad conditions where the minimum required launch height is high...
I participated in an F5J event earlier this year (Wilga Cup in Ukraine, see Vladimirs website for details on scores
http://f3j.in.ua/en/wilga-2015.html?#tab1 ), the first big F5J event that I've flown in. The conditions were quite varied, with some rounds being won with very low launches and others won with rather high launches. The interesting aspect to me is the discernment required to understand when one needs to go low vs going higher on the launch.
In the flyoff, the first round was won with an 18m launch height (!). Well, conditions really changed, and the 2nd round was won with a 110m launch height (there were higher and lower launches, but only one pilot made the full time) in some interesting and challenging conditions. The 3rd round didn't matter too much in launch height due to the large differentiation in scores from the 2nd round. Landings are one small discriminator, launch height is a slightly more discerning discriminator, and thermal capability is the largest discriminator in F5J. I really like that the launch height thing takes precedence over landing, as launch height becomes a proxy for understanding the air capability when the conditions are good.
At present, F5J is the closest event in RC Soaring for measuring pure soaring talent.