Looking at the proliferation in classes from the international
prospective. The IGC/FAI has always added classes to accommodate
design advances, developing interest in types and to increase
opportunity and participation in the sport. Without getting overly
specific on the dates, new classes and thus national and world
championships have been added as follows:

1937 Open
1952* Two-place
1958 Standard
1978 15-Meter
1997 World
1999 Junior
2001 18-Meter
2001 Club/Sports
2001 Feminine

*Two Place removed in 1958

The case can be made that new classes are good for the sport. Now a
Junior pilot has the opportunity to become a World Champion as do Club
pilots, 18-Meter pilots and so on. As a member of the U.S. Team
Committee I can say that organizing and funding all these classes is a
real challenge. As for comparative performance, I suspect that if you
put the top five pilots in any of these classes together in similar
gliders you would find very few differences.

John

(Nolaminar) wrote in message ...
In the old days, we had a single National Champion.

Now we have:
World Class
Standard Class
Motorgliders
Two place
15 meter
18 meter
Club/Sports
Two Place
Open
etc.