On Jun 10, 10:35*am, Tony wrote:
On Jun 10, 9:03*am, Andy wrote:



On Jun 10, 6:43*am, JC wrote:

Why is there always so much PW5 bashing?

Just to be clear the purpose of my post was not to bash the PW5 or the
World Class. *It was about having a Nationals with only 7
participants.

One of my contest goals is to finish in the top 10 at a Standard
Nats. *I set that goal when it was normal to have 40-50 contestants.
Meeting that goals if only 7 contestants showed up would be
meaningless.

Following the same thought, the turnout at the US Std Nats this year
is disappointingly low too.

Andy

only 12 gliders in the 1-26 nats which seems pretty low to me too. *I
suspect a combination of the economy and having the contest on a
coast.

but 7 PW-5's is 10% of the fleet which doesnt seem like too bad
representation to me.

Also to keep in mind is that the Worlds are at the end of the month,
so a couple of US pilots are not at the Nationals. Plus, one regular
competitor is acting as contest manager instead of flying.
Nonetheless, 10 competitors is pretty poor. On the other end of
the spectrum, there are 11 pilots signed up for the US Open Nationals,
of which several are actually flying 18M ships.

The class itself had a certain logic to it; the SGS1-26 class is
very popular in the US and this was an attempt to extend that
success to an international level. Arguably the L33 was a better
machine (lighter plane, same L/D, can be tied out for extended
periods, except that it failed the stall speed with spoilers out).
However, the whole concept got swamped by the club class/
sports class idea. Now THAT's a National contest -- full field
at a spectacular soaring site this year.

-- Matt