Contest Class Development for Future Success - The Case fordeveloping the Handicapped Classes

Why, exactly, WILL (my emphasis) Modern Standard be part of Club Class?
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If we go to handicapped racing as the main experience in sailplane racing, we need to make it work so that everyone has or feels like they are getting the best racing experience possible. This si done by narrowing, not broadening the handicap ranges.


"Will" is from my memory of last RC minutes, available on ssa.org if you want to check. Club will be everything on the US team club class list handicap range, running from ventus 1 down to about 1.10. Gliders below 1.10 will not be sent home, but will not get further handicap.

It seemed a little silly to let in gliders with 0.90 handicap (ventus 1, asw20) and exclude gliders with 0.915 handicap (D2,28, LS8) just because they are newer. Also, it is important to craft a place for standard class to go in view of its possible demise as a separate class.

This will all certainly be revisited over and over and over again. Nothing ever seems to be settled with rules.

The best racing experience combines narrower handicap ranges and larger number of pilots. In my opinion, and that of most pilots I've talked to, classes of 5 people at regionals and 8 at nationals -- the bare minimum -- with narrower handicap ranges are less fun, and less quality race, than classes of 25 people with broader handicap ranges.

We all want 50 gliders in pure FAI classes or one design. We have to write rules for the world we have not the one we'd dream of having. But the tradeoff between handicap range and size of fleet will be one I'm sure we will revisit over and over again.

The 15 meter + standard FAI class with handicaps down to 0.94 sounds to me like a great solution for many racers. These gliders cost half what a new 18 meter glider costs, there are hundreds, maybe a thousand or more good gliders in the country, so it's basically one design racing for the foreseeable future.

John Cochrane