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Old March 18th 17, 05:40 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Sierra Whiskey
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Default All US Records are Now Motor Glider Records

No, I have flown many miles in a "real" pure glider. In fact, I have flown records and record attempts in a pure glider. And it is embarrassing to think that my records and attempts in a pure glider will be overtake by someone that carried a landout field in their back pocket.

Don't get me wrong, Motor gliders can set records, but they are Not Pure Gliders, and they should not be treated the same. The bigger issue comes when outrageous records are set by expensive motor gliders and the pure gliders no longer have a chance to compete against them. In a sport, and rating that has been suffering a negative trend in growth, this is a negative factor towards proliferation of the sport. This is bad! I want to see this sport survive to my retirement MANY years away, but with the slowing trends in race appeal, and now a narrowing field of competitive gliders for record attempts, the sport is going to cease recruiting new and young blood on the pure fact that motor gliders will increase in value and pure gliders will decrease in competitive factors and subsequently financial value.

Someone already pointed this out, but I will echo, are we running out of enough server space to keep these records separate? If that is the case we might as well collapse the rest of the records and only have an Open Class because wingspan can be beneficial but it also causes more drag and limits the landouts options. The argument that a pure glider and a motor glider are the same is wrong in the same way a SZD-59 and a Yak-54 are the same in an aerobatic contest. The psychology, the strategy, and the execution are two different games no matter how much attempt at rationalization is put forward.