On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 1:03:18 PM UTC-6, Tango Eight wrote:
On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 1:38:51 PM UTC-5, Tony wrote:
I understand the difficulty the rules committee faces attempting to encourage participation. Participation in the last 3 club class nationals would've been significantly lower if only FAI Club Class gliders had been allowed.

Part of the trouble is what people perception of the class is vs. what it was originally designed for.

I actually don't know for sure what the original intent of the club class was. It was developed before I was involved in the sport and way before I was involved in competition.

I had this idea that the purpose of the club class was to give a competition home to gliders which are no longer competitive. Including modern standard class gliders doesn't seem to fit with that idea.

Just like you were interested in expansion in order to give your ASW-20B a place to compete, i am interested in keeping my Std. Cirrus competitive..

None of the ships added are game changers. In fact the std class ships are slightly lower performance (by CH handicap) than the ASW-20, so they don't change the race *at all*. The addition of Ventus A&B, most often now flown with winglets, moves the top performing ships out 1% or so on handicap.

Where's the harm?

best,
Evan

As the top end of the range moves up, 1% at a time, and the bottom end gets chopped off, those of us now close to the bottom start to get a little nervous, that's all.