On 30 Nov 2004 10:37:21 -0800, (David Bingham)
wrote:

For approximately 30 years the performance of gliders has hardly
advanced at all and yet we now have the tools (computer programs) and
much stronger materials (carbon composites) to surely advance the
state of the art of gliders.

Hmm... do you know something that noone else knows?
30 years ago the maximum L/D was about 46:1, now it's 70:1... I would
dare to call this anything but marginal.
Or standard class: LD went up from 35:1 to 48:1.

Just compare the current world record lists to the ones 30 years ago:
Performances have at least gone up factor 2. 30 years ago there were
less than one handfull of people in my club who had flown a 300 km
triangle. Today student pilots fly this on their student gliders that
happen to have an L/D of 40:1.


Has this happened? Yes there are marginal
improvements but so small. What's the reason for this slowdown in
innovation?

Limitations caused by physics and depth of purse?
Eta shows what's possible. For an impossible price.

I believe in no small part it is due to the sailplane
classes. With the establishing of the classes that are so rigid and,
in my mind, so restrictive, innovation has suffered. What a breath of
fresh air the SparrowHawk is!

Well... what is the Sparrowhawk?
- performance 37:1, about the same as the first glass gliders (40
years ago)
- not certified
- anything but cheap

Sorry, but i do not see its light weight and the small span as a
breathtaking innovation.


However there is no sailplane class for
it.
Sports class?


So I got to thinking. Is the present setup of the classes
rational, reasonable? Could a better system be envisioned? OK, taking
this further if there were no classes today, and it was suggested to
set up classes, what would they look like? I think closer to what I'm
suggesting than what they are now. I hope my posting keeps the gang
thinking.

There are tens of thousands of gliders out there that match the
current classes. So you propose to throw them all away and buy new
ones that don't even exist yet? Remember: Extremely few people on this
planet can affort to buy one new aircraft, let alone four.


Bye
Andreas