year-limits for the Sports class

I have been reading the threads about the Sports Class with interest. I
note that currently the Sports Class tries to adjust for performance
differences between older and newer gliders. I suspect this is always
going to be hard since the performance difference between any two
gliders is not constant; it varies with conditions. Some gliders do
well in light conditions, others in heavy conditions, and so on.

But if we step back a bit, and check the big picture, the real point of
the Sports Class is to give pilots who cannot afford to keep up with
the arms race in the principal classes a chance to compete
meaningfully. The thing to note is that the pilots in such classes
don't generally fly any old crap--they fly older designs that were
competitive once, but which have been surpassed by later designs.

With this in mind, I think it might be better to limit the Sports class
by ship age rather than trying to juggle relative performance. It might
be plausible to have a twenty-year time gap. That would mean that you
can fly any ship in the Sports class that was commercially available in
or before 1986. None of those gliders would be competitive any more in
the 15-m or Open classes, but they could still fly in the Sports Class.

Johan Larson