Bob,

Well Stated! Too bad the SparrowHawk wasn't in contention
for the World Class. And, of course, it couldn't have
been since the World Class is several years (what,
10 or 15?) older than the SparrowHawk.

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

At 22:18 20 August 2004, Bob Kuykendall wrote:

snip:

I personally regret the choice of the PW-5 as the World
Class glider, if only from an aesthetic standpoint.
I think that the world soaring community as a whole
would have been better served if there had been an
opportunity to select a sailplane that is more stylistically
and aesthetically similar to higher performance ships.

The short span and modest performance are OK by me.
The light weight is OK, too. But I think that the choice
of a glider that looks so completely unlike higher-performance
ships was unfortunate. I firmly believe that the World
Class would have a fighting chance if its participants
could park their ships next to the latest racing ships
and feel like theirs lies on the same continuum. Such
'baby racers' would have been a lot easier to promote
to potential WC racers as well as to the non-competition
soaring pilots.

I freely admit that such thinking speaks volumes about
human weakness and susceptibility to emotion. But even
the best soaring pilots are human. And even the most
logical person has to worry about what their less-logical
fellows think when it comes time to sell.

Thanks, and best regards to all

Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24