On Jan 29, 12:13*am, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:15:00 -0800, delboy wrote:
Just about every country in the World runs Club Class competitions,
except for the US. It's one of the most popular and highly competitive
national competition in the UK.

I think he meant running Club Class to the letter of the IGC rules,
including the IGC list of eligible gliders and and using the IGC
handicaps.

We certainly don't do that: the BGA handicaps differ from the IGC ones,
and I don't mean merely that 100 is the BGA baseline compared with 1.00
for the IGC. The list of elegible gliders is a lot smaller too:

Glider * * * *BGA * *IGC

LS-8 * * * * *100 * *n/a
ASW-20 * * * * 98 * *1.08
LS-7 * * * * * 97 * *1.07
Pegase * * * * 95 * *1.04
Std Cirrus * * 90 * *1.00
ASW-15 * * * * 89 * *0.99
H-201 Libelle *89 * *0.98
Club Libelle * 86 * *0.96
G-102 Astir * *85 * *n/a
SZD Junior * * 83 * *n/a
PW-5 * * * * * 81 * *n/a *(same as a Ka-6e)

Most countries have gone metric, and we have been buying motor fuel in
litres for years in the UK.

What suddenly caused petrol to be sold in litres was Maggie Thatcher
waking up to the approach of the £2.00 gallon. She thought this would be
a political no-no so suddenly we were sold it in litres to disguise the
rising price.

And what a mess the UK made of metrication when they followed Canada,
Australia and NZ down that path. We all watched our predecessors and
avoided their mistakes, but did the UK do that? Nooooo! They refused to
learn from our experience and made a right cock-up of the process, not
only making all the mistakes we'd discovered but inventing a few new ones
as well. *

--
martin@ * | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org * * * |

The list of glider types elegible for UK club class competitiions is
not more restricted restricted than the IGC list - in theory it is the
reverse as the UK definition includes all IGC eligible gliders as well
as all gliders with a UK handicap of 98 or less. The relevant
paragraph in the 2009 competition handbook reads:

"10.2. Club Class. Water ballast must not be carried, scores are
handicapped, and gliders listed in Appendix 1 with a Speed Index not
exceeding 98 before additional performance enhancement handicap
increments, are eligible to enter. In addition, all gliders listed on
the current IGC Club Class handicap list are eligible. All gliders
will fly at their allotted BGA Speed Index."

John Galloway