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Assigned Area Tasks (AAT) are slightly
different than racing tasks, but when understood are a lot of fun and often times require
different strategy than the Racing Task. Rather than a specific turn point, AAT has turn point areas that are usually quite large. It is the pilot's option to fly deep or shallow into the turn point area. The deeper you fly into a turn point area, the longer your distance. The scoring software determines your deepest penetration into an area and considers that your actual turn point. Simple, right? There is a catch. An AAT has what is called a Min. Time. All Sierra Hotel Racing AAT's have a min. time of 2hrs. The object is to fly as far as you can and come home at or just after min. time. If you come home early, your actual distance is divided by min. time. This could potentially be very bad. Typically, if you find yourself getting home early, you could have flown further. Remember, there is only one possible fastest speed in any given AAT. Max distance divided by Min. Time. So, going max distance all the time may not be the best move if you are going to exceed min. time by a large margin. The illustration on the left shows an AAT used in one of our races. The illustration on the right shows a flight track of a pilot that went deep into turn point area 1, but went only to the center of turn point area 2 to make up time for slow progress on leg 2.
There are some things you need to remember about AAT: Note the time as you go through the start gate. There is nothing more embarrassing than getting half way down the first leg and wondering how long you have been on course. Be aware of how much time you have remaining and what your ETE is to the finish line as displayed on page 3 of the Condor PDA. An IGC file is required at the completion of the task.
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