Q) How is this an improvement over Racing Tasks?
A) With handicapped classes, Racing tasks tend to favour higher performance gliders as they spend less time on task & therefore are able to complete the task in peak weather.

Q) How is this an improvement of Assigned Area Tasks?
A) There is still a place for a well-set Assigned Area task, particularly days where there’s potential for the complication of storms and therefore turnpoints may be unreachable. DHTask uses “thistle” style turnpoints that allow competitors to “go around the back” of a turnpoint if necessary.

Q) How is this an improvement over Variable-Radius style Distance Handicapped Tasks?
A) Distance Handicapped Tasks with variable radius (as opposed to the method used by dhtask.com, variable centre) is relatively inacurrate and therefore unlikely to be appropriate for more serious events like National and World level competitions.

There are some inherit issues with the way the distances are calculated for one handicap in relation to another – in particular any leg where that begins with a variable radius turnpoint and ends with a fixed (500 metres) cylinder has an issue with the glider tracks being not parallel which for short legs in particular can introduce quite a large error.

Another issue is the resolution of waypoint radii in modern glide computers being limited to 100 metres which requires a rounding and could theoretically be innacurate by 49.9 metres per turnpoint. By adjusting the centre of the turnpoint the adjusted task distance for each handicap is much easier to make accurate as it is dependant only on the number of latitude and longitude decimal places.

Also, Variable Radius turnpoints present the lower performance gliders with a large area to turn in, but the highest performance has only a 500m cylinder. Using Variable Centre each competitor has the same cylinder radius.

Q) What’s the downside?
A) There are a couple of minor downsides. The first being there is a slightly higher than usual level of complexity for contest administrators (ie. scorers), particularly for the first day or two that the system is in use. The second is that competitors will need to provide their glide computer/navigation devices with each day’s task electronically in a manner similar to uploading a new waypoint file. We are working on ways to greatly simplify this process.