World Championship gliders

On Wednesday, August 6, 2014 3:17:24 PM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Interesting though Tom. Good point that you were the dealer though :-). I did not know the wings in the "a" models were allowed to be longer. But now that I think about it that does make sense. Shocking. Clearly the narrower fuselage and longer wings results in a dual performance advantage. Less drag/higher aspect ratio. Otherwise, why would the builder bother? This reminds me of the age of handicap sailing back in the 70s and 80s.



I have been a competitor and coach in the sport of sailing at a fairly high level. Sailing is a tremendously complex sport. One of my coaches taught me the following principle: focus on the controllable variables (positive) and don't get "caught up" in the frustration of uncontrollable variables. Or the only way to affect uncontrollable variables is to out perfect your competitors in controllable variable execution. More on this later...



The sport of "big boat" sailing became an all out designer/handicap war in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. Back then a very big element of the sport was designers and owners spending tens to hundreds of thousands each year modifying and building new boats to "beat" the handicap rule. That is to gain a fixed performance advantage over your competitors! Meanwhile rule makers changed rules constantly to plug holes in the rule that designers were exploiting. Generally the owners willingness to spend money and the designers willingness to get paid won the battle over the rule makers. Today that market (custom big boat (28-55 ft) handicap racing) has been almost completely destroyed because of it. Everyone hated the fact that boats become uncompetitive in a meter of months as new "custom" boats were built. They also hated knowing they were better sailors but getting beat by an "uncontrollable variable!" That is a boat that had a "rigged" handicap. In fact this was the norm. Tremendous damage was done to the sport because of it.



Only "one design" sailing classes are meaningfully successful today. One design means not just the same wingspan or "design rule" but the same manufacturer and the exact same boat (glider) for all competitors. This is guaranteed as part of the class charter. The class runs independently from the builder in fact.



The reason for this "evolution" in the sport of sailing is that fewer and fewer owners enjoyed putting a lot of time and effort into a sport (mastering the controllable variables such as sail shape, tacking, jybing, tactics and starting) only to lose because a new design comes along that provides a competitive advantage (uncontrollable variables). Only one rich owner could win at a time :-)! People wanted an EVEN PLAYING FIELD on which to be measured. Standard boats guaranteed to be identical, standardized race courses, condition limits, crew weights, etc.



I think soaring could use the concept of one design gliders. Something new and modern, of reasonable performance, reasonable price in which a large group of owners can buy with the confidence that in 5 years something new isn't going to come along with the specific goal of making what you own uncompetitive. It's a nasty cycle if you really think about it. Soaring has the same thing going on as sailing did back then, albeit at a slower pace.



Perhaps a change in course (owner driven) is in need?



Sean

In the US, we don't have "one design", except for the failed PW-5 experiment, and 1-26's, but we do have excellent parity in 15M, Std, and 18M with the first two having plenty of competitive gliders available at pretty reasonable prices.
I'm not sure what change would make for more stability or accessibility.
UH