BACK Setup Flight Matrix Automatically

The most impressive part of the F3Jsetup program is the control of the flight matrix. With this tool you can really fine tune the way the matrix is build. Thereby limiting the number of times pilots fly against each other. Also time saving issues are build in the software.

For example, when Helper-team members are flying in the next slot, the start position for the following slot will be kept the same. Therefore that team doesn’t have to replace the start lines on a new start position.

There are two options to create a flight matrix, the automatic and the manual.

In most situations you let the ‘automatic’ matrix calculate the best possible matrix. Then with the use of the ‘manual’ functionality, you can solve some left over problems.

For small competitions it can be wise to use the manual-matrix screen from the start because there is not much to calculate.

TIP: Read the chapter ‘Some thoughts about creating the matrix’

There is not much to do to automatically create the flight matrix. Some options on the screen control the behaviour. Furthermore you can select if all rounds must be created or one particular round.

Once the options are the way you like them, and the correct rounds are selected you press the ‘Start calculating flight matrix’ button. Depending on the speed of the computer and the size of the matrix, the program needs two minutes per round. The progress can be followed at the bottom of the screen. Don’t worry if the counter is slowing down or not changing for a while, after some time the counter will progress.

In most cases you will see that for one or more rounds not all pilots are placed. In that case the placing algorithm could not find a correct location for that pilot. One of the reasons behind this is that the time I allow to make the allocation is limited. You can use the manual matrix to fix this easily.

After the calculation part has run, you can go straight away to the ‘Manual Matrix’ by clicking the button.