If you assume the landout spot in your back pocket is there and the motor doesn't start, then you may get killed.

If you assume the landout spot in your back pocket is there and the motor starts, then you make it home.

Worst case scenario, if you assume the land out spot in your back pocket is there, and push to that thermal in the middle of "break your glider country", hook the thermal and secure the record, you are a record holder.

The third option is one that will become more popular as the reliability and efficiency of FES systems increase. The "dive break" penalty of deploying an engine is being reduced to a negligible argument, and again we have a scenario where a pilot could assume a calculated risk in search of a record completion.

A pure glider does not have those same options and thus the game is different for some pilots who may chose to make the risky decision to push on. From a safety standpoint I think this kind of rule will encourage hazardous behaviors. It only takes one person to be successful to motivate others to follow suit.

One rule that has always bothered me was the airfield bonus in contests and the way it is calculated for motor gliders. If a motor glider wants an air filed bonus, then put your tire on the pavement at that airfield just like a pure glider has to. It is another way that motor gliders are treated differently, and with additional options that pure gliders do not share.

So once all of the records are eaten up by motor gliders that have been set by risk takers and the pure glider concept is a thing of the past in performance and decision making, what will we use to motivate new members into the sport. We can argue safety, and we can disagree on the psychology difference, but no one seems to be addressing the fact that this new rule is raising the "competitive" benchmark with respect to the cost.

In the US we are killing "Club Class" by putting an LS-8 in the same category as a Standard Cirrus, and worse in the US we allow Motor Gliders to compete in Club Class. You won't find motor gliders on the FAI Club Class list (yet) but still in the US we seem to have this need to allow motor gliders into that class. What is "club class" about that?

Preserve the sport of pure soaring before we harm our already weakening community size.