On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 10:08:52 AM UTC-6, Peter F wrote:
Club Class: Used to be the case that the Cirrus / Libelle / LS1 / ASW15 level of performance was the way to go. But more than 2/3rds of the field are now flying higher performance ships (Taking the hit on handicap of course). Wasn't the Club Class originally intended as somewhere for the early (cheap) glass to find a competitive home? Do people think this is a good trend? Is this just a consequence of the expected weather in Argentina? And yes I do know that the current leader is flying a Std Cirrus Std Class: The perception (here in the UK) is that the D2 has the edge over the LS8 in strong conditions. However looking at the average speeds for most days so far the conditions in Arg have been fairly weak so the LS8s should have had the edge. D2s still seem to be dominating the leaderboard. Is this because the best pilots normally fly in better conditions, and therefore own D2s and are still winning despite the conditions? Any thoughts? Regards PF

the number of ASW-20's could simply be indicitave of the size of the fleet available in Argentina for rent/loan for the contest. If I recall correctly there has been a very high tax on importing std. class gliders into Argentina for a long time so there probably aren't a lot of Cirrus, ASW-15, Libelles available in the country. Just a thought.