Ha ha. The goal with the petition is simply to see determine how many US club pilots desire more of a FAI tasking philosophy than is currently part of the US Club Class guidelines. There are some big concerns about including the very low performance gliders in with the US Club class (233, 135, etc). Partly because the new US Club class will be the US Team qualification path for the Club Class World Championship. Partly because a segment of pilots would like to see the US make at least one effort to keep the US Club Class as close to the world standard as possible.

My hope is the petition justifies further consideration of slight changes or clarifications to the tasking guidelines for our US Club Class. I also agree that it is important to retain many of the safety and attendance minded elements of US Soarings rules. Overall the SSA and the RC are doing an excellent job on all fronts protecting attendance and working to grow the sport within the USA. In some ways the US is leading in terms of rules philosophy.

I have grown to appreciate the basic principles of the US rules vs. FAI in certain ways. I get it. That said I think there is room to define US Club Class tasking which would go along way towards improving the racing quality of the new US Club Class while maintaining US safety principles.

So, in other words, petition is intended measure the level of enthusiasm within the potential US Club Class pilot (club glider owner) "population" AND perhaps encourage the RC to considering some slight changes (perhaps just clarifications) to the current US Club Class tasking guidelines.

The petition is NOT intended to be a protest or complaint. It is a litmus test really. If only a few sign it, then its meaningless. If many sign it, you guys can use it to judge the importance of that information and what to do with it.

I hope it all works out and newly excited pilots remain this energized! This new US Club Class has tremendous potential.

Sincerely,

Sean

P.S. - I plan to do a small, informal GP even in Ionia next summer. I am not going to do any remote support of a GP event in a western local. Probably going to be around 10 gliders over 3-5 days in July. It will be SSA wavered and sanctioned if I do it. More later.