What is Purpose of Sports Class Nationals?

BB wrote:
Papa3 wrote:
Derek Copeland wrote:

It is good for identifying the best pilots, rather
than those with the deepest pockets.


Really, I think this is the key point. I wholeheartedly agree with
the statement that what we want to do is identify the best pilots.

Interesting in this context that you cannot be selected for the US club
class world team if you have ever competed in an FAI worlds. A number
of reasons are given for this rule, but picking the best pilots is
clearly not one of them.

John Cochrane

The reason for excluding FAI class pilots was to open the field for
new, up and coming pilots coming up throught the Sports/ "Club" class
environment. It is true that this MAY not pick the best pilots we have
in the US, but it does open the doors to some new blood.

Other observations about some of these posts:
Nobody has noted that tasking if Sports is to be set based upon the
capabilities of the core (essentially the club class range) gliders.
"Properly" tasked, this means that the low performance gliders(1.15 and
below) may not get home every day and the high performance gliders will
be forced to use the entire available area which is a huge
disadvantage. With the increase in cylinder size on TAT tasks to 30
miles, more flexibility has been added in an attempt to keep tasks fair
and doable.

I completely disagree that Club class flying is some kind of a
different world from FAI class. It is true that a pilot needs to
recalibrate a bit but this is not as big a deal as it is implied. 30-40
hr in the previous 3 months is about what I have found is needed. If
you have done it before, it is a fraction of this.

A concern I have is exclusion. Let's say we have an up and coming pilot
who bought an ASW-24 or Discus because he or she wants to be within
perfomance range of current Std class and wants to learn in Sports and
Std. By the suggested by some range, this person would be excluded in
the selection scheme because the glider is a percent or so "too good".
This concept would force pilots to skip the opportunity to learn both
ways.

It should also be noted that many of the same names seem to come out
near the top, even as the gliders they fly change.

It should also be noted that just "knocking the bumps off" and putting
some good instruments in an old club class glider will not make it
truely competitve. Most of these ships need a lot of work to bring them
up to their potential. The gliders that the top guys flew at the 2002
WGC in Musbach were as well prepared as any in any class in the world.
This was obviously done at either significant expense or at least, a
ton of labor.
Dave Stevenson has thrived in our Sports class by putting in this kind
of effort. Almost nobody else has even tried.

These posts are very worthwhile.

Hank Nixon UH
Regular Sports Nationals competitor
Club Class WGC team '01 and '02
SSA RC Rules Subcommitte Chair