I'll admit to not understanding their concept. If it involves storing energy while flying, to be used in the weak spots then I would say the physics is the same, only the details of execution are different.

There is a direct parallel in yacht racing, with a parallel controversy. Stored power is used to operate winches or cant keels, leading to the anomaly of a sailboat race with engines running the entire time to power these accessories. Even in traditional racing, engine power has been used to charge batteries for instruments, autopilots, watermakers, etc. We do the same thing in gliders, carrying stored energy in a battery to power sophisticated instruments, charged from the grid on the ground. In the recent A-cup races, stored energy was allowed but had to be generated on board. You had a team of winch grinders grinding away to refill the hydraulic storage units even when no sail trimming was being done, which would be used later.

For me the line is crossed when you finish with less energy than you started with. That line has already been crossed in a modest way with instrument batteries, but that is trivial. If I built solar panels into the wings and used the energy stored during the task to cross a blue hole, is that subverting soaring? I guess if we define soaring as only the direct use of variations in air mass movement, then it is. How about if I deploy the prop rather than the spoilers racing along under a cloud street, charging the batteries to later use to cross a blue hole? It gets pretty hard to draw a line. Loading up the energy on the ground to expend in the air though is well down a slippery cliff.


On Saturday, December 23, 2017 at 9:43:34 AM UTC-8, BobW wrote:
We already used stored energy. Are you saying there are types you like and
types you don't?

FAI have introduced "E-Concept" to the sport of Gliding. Most of the
details are yet to be worked out, but the essence of the concept is that
the use of stored energy will be allowed during the credited portion of
the flight performance.

Powered flight for credit.

Does this belong in our sport?

A stronger argument can be made that "Flight is flight," than "All flight is
the same." To use an analogy, "This particular fish seems more mullet than
salmon."

Yeah! Let's have a "soaring competition" in which no distinction is made
between "direct solar-powered flight" and "battery-(dinosaur-juice-;
rubber-band-) powered flight. And to be sure we don't lose any competition
days to bad weather, let's continue scoring during and after using
"non-natural power."

Let the semanticists begin!!!

Bob - all flight is good; not all flight is soaring flight - W.

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