On Jan 26, 11:25*am, T8 wrote:
A new thread, for Rick and John (and me and anyone else):

On Jan 26, 8:56 am, John Cochrane
wrote:

Rick asked about the insane (my opinion) 13.5 meter class, including
the momentous issue of water ballast.

People will race anything they can. *I support that.

I don't support supporting more than about 3 classes at the
international level though. *It's absurdly expensive and just dilutes
the intensity and prestige of the thing. *My own personal view is that
any sort of handicap racing is a waste of time at the international
level. *No handicapping system is truly fair and at that level of
competition arguments of "low cost" and accessibility really don't
wash. *So I'd toss all the handicapped comps. *Oh, and I'd prohibit
motor gliders... or at least restrict them to one of those three
classes. *Have I offended everyone yet?

My three: open (pure glider), 18m (motor permitted), 15m (pure
glider). *Feel free to explain to me why this would not be sufficient.

So: you guys want to race lawn darts or handicapped club class or 2-
seaters, have a ball. *But I object strenuously to sanctioning so many
classes for international comps.

I realize these comments fall outside the current igc agenda. *What
the igc should realize is that their willful deafness on this issue of
class proliferation hasn't caused general acceptance.

-Evan Ludeman */ T8

Evan,

I mostly agree with you, with slightly different classes that should
be supported by the US.

First the US should refuse to join the IGC in the “we have never met a
class we won’t approve” syndrome. The US should NOT recognize the
13.5 meter class and should not support it at all. We should also
ignore the new 20 meter class as it does not bring anything new to the
table that is not already represented in the current open class.

From just a numbers standpoint the US should support 15M, 18M and Club
class in the future. Why these three:

15M and Standard class are essentially one class in performance and
price. There is no reason to support two classes here and the
representation at the last few Standard Class Nationals says this is a
dying breed. The 15M continues to be the strongest and best
represented class in the US.

The open class should be allowed to die or at least no longer be
support by US funds because there are too few pilots flying in the
class to make it viable and the competition level does not provide
“World Class” pilots to represent the US. The era of pushing the
boundaries of soaring by making bigger gliders is mostly over. The
average pilot is not going to fly a 30M glider and the places you can
safely fly one is limited. The performance difference over a good 15
to 20M glider is minimal.

The 18M class is here to stay, but could be lumped with the 20M and
called one class. It is the ideal class for Motorgliders that have
too high a wingloading at 15M.

The Club Class has the potential to be a very strong class if the US
is to embrace it like the rest of the World. It is the one class that
allows pilots on an average income to race on a fairly even field.
The US needs to start scoring the Club Class as a separate group in
the Sports Class Nationals and to call speed tasks for the pilots
rather than just TAT’s.

If the US made these changes we might be able to focus the limited
resources to truly support the US Team and the competition level would
increase the quality of the pilots representing the US in the World
Championships.