Club Class vs. Sports Class

On Sep 23, 5:29*pm, wrote:
On Sep 23, 4:11 pm, wrote:


Non qualified Club Class gliders would still compete in Sports Class--
nothing changes.
Remember, this doesn't have to be an "either/or" scenario.

The Duos would have to fly Open if there was one and the Twin would be SOL.

"Open" Class = open to *any* glider.
Non-Club gliders are always "qualified" for Sports Class.

Only if you do both Club and Sports - which will be a numbers problem
in many regionals

Having to task a Sports Class event is a function of the performance
capability of the lowest performing glider, no matter what the highest
performing glider is and regardless of how many gliders are in
between.

That's why Sports Class is all TAT and MAT tasks so everyone can fly
the same task irrespective of performance. With 11 turnpoints and 30
mile radii this should never be a problem. Maybe we need to train CDs
better.

Splits the field/less fun: *Having to fly to the back of the TP area
on short tasks every day, no matter what, because the limitations of a
1-26/L-13/Twin Astir entrant must be considered in tasking all but
erases all else's enroute strategy options--now that's no fun.

I understand your point but disagree that this is an issue unless the
CD is indifferent to the issue. The 2005 Parowan Sports Nationals has
a Nimbus 4, a Nimbus 3, a PW-6 and a Russia. The Regionals in 2004,
2007 and 2008 had similar mixes. The guys flying the low performance
gliders got around pretty much every day but also knew they were going
to be both challenged and at a disadvantage. Again, under Sports
Class rules all the tasks are TAT/MAT so with the right tasking this
should never be a problem. If you can make it work in the west you can
make it work anywhere. Also, under your suggestion, the Nimbus 4 and
Russia are still in Sports class together, so it doesn't seem like
you've improved things for the guys who will feel it the most.


Because a Twin Astir is not a WGC Club Class designated glider. *If
the U.S. intends to send a Club Class team over to compete on the
world stage, why should not we chose that team from a process using
Club Class gliders under Club Class rules? *Does it make any sense to
pick a dirt track champion to race F-1 in the Monaco Grand Prix?

I think the facts belie this argument. Just look at the 2005 Sports
Nationals by way of example. It was not oversubscribed, yet less than
a dozen of the 48 competitors flew club class ships. You have to go
down to 15th place to fill out the podium for Club Class - I'm not
sure that's the best way to pick a world team member. Honestly I don't
think the piloting skills to make and ASW-20 go fast are closer to
those needed for a Libelle than for an ASW-27 - probably the opposite.
So, there's no point in excluding top pilots from consideration for
the team in club class just because they don't have access to an older
generation ship.

The issue is that outside the US clubs have lots of current-1 and -2
generation ships that are available to fly and race and so the class
is well filled out and competitive. That's not as true in the US, so
Club Class is more a function of private owners who race those ships
and the numbers are much smaller. I think splitting Club and Sports
and trying to run both will lead to a less competitive club class team
selection and a less robust sports class.


Not "either/or"...Not "either/or""...Not "either/or""...Not "either/
or""...Not "either/or"…

I understand - re-read my last post. I covered both the scenario where
you did Club instead of Sports as well as the scenario where you did
Club in addition to Sports.

A Sports winner and a Club winner. *Different tasking, *competing
simultaneously.
-The new guys can do Sports.
-The older guys wanting shorter tasks can do Sports.
-The guy who wants to give rides can do Sports.
-The guy in the hot ship can do Sports (though I really don’t think
that was the intent).
The guy flying a kite can do Sports.

You just argued for 75-85% of the guys currently flying Sports to keep
flying Sports. This means a small Club Class at most contests and
potentially more gaming by guys who want to fish for a trophy by
flying in the class with 4 gliders in it. You already see some of this
in 15M vs 18M class.

However,
-Those flying Club Class designated gliders who want to compete flying
more challenging courses against like aircraft (thus inducing a small
spread in handicap range) thereby making it a function of less the
plane and more the pilot, can--*and want*--to do Club Class.

I just don't agree. The guys with the extreme high and low handicaps
aren't typically high on the scoresheet, so what we're talking about
here is should an ASW-27 be permitted to fly against an ASW-20. Go
fly against Rick Culbertson in his -20 and you'll see that the pilot
matters a lot more than you might think - even without a handicap. One
thing I could see is encouraging pilots in current generation gliders
with seeding points above, say 80, to fly in an FAI class.


Holding a Club Class race within a Sports Class event takes nothing
away from the Sports Class participants. *On the other hand, forcing
Club Class gliders to the U.S. Sports Class intentions does, under
certain circumstances, take away from WGC Club Class intentions.

Again, I don't really agree. I think the main point is to try to get a
full field of competitors. Splitting up a field of 10 Sports class
competitors in a typical regionals into 4 Club Class and 6 Sports
Class just means than all but one Club Class pilots make the podium.
Good if your objective is to get a medal, but bad if you want to
determine who the best pilot is.


The great thing about Sports Class is its inclusiveness. While it has
its warts, I think it works pretty well overall in allowing pilots to
compete no matter[y] what ship they fly.

Granted. *But I don't see how allowing those wishing to compete as a
Club Class takes anything away from Sports Class any more so than,
say. World Class or the 1-26 Ass'n takes away from Sports Class.

It only takes away by driving the number of competitors in a class
down by 50% on average. I think a good exercise would be to go back
through all the sports class scoresheets for the last couple of years
and divide them into club class qualified and the remainder, just to
see what we get in terms of numbers and what it would have meant for
seeding points. My guess it that the guys flying club class gliders
will see their points go up on average, not because of handicaps, but
because of less competition.

My 2 cents.

9B

9B said:

The issue is that outside the US clubs have lots of current-1 and -2
generation ships that are available to fly and race and so the class
is well filled out and competitive. That's not as true in the US, so
Club Class is more a function of private owners who race those ships
and the numbers are much smaller. I think splitting Club and Sports
and trying to run both will lead to a less competitive club class team
selection and a less robust sports class.


I'm surprised it took so long for someone to make this excellent point
- thanks Andy!

Gliding is much more a club-based activity in Europe and the rest of
the world than it is in the USA, where it tends to be more of an
individual sport. Here, a pilot is more likely to fly his own ship at
a commercial FBO than fly a club ship at a private gliderport. With a
much smaller number of truly club-class ships, I doubt that club class
will ever be really viable in the USA.

As weatherman, I also helped the Task Committee at this year's Region
9 in Parowan. Sports Class was extremely diverse, with everything
from an ultralight Sparrowhawk to a Duo Discus. Nevertheless, the
Committee managed to set tasks that challenged every one of the
competitors. I heard no complaints about tasks being either too easy
or too difficult.

I have personally learned a lot by flying tasks with pilots who are
far better than I am. I'll never catch them, of course, - I'm just
not good enough - but I have improved my cross-country techniques and
speeds by watching them and analyzing their flight logs. Anyone can
do this, whatever they fly.

Finally, give the scorer a break! It's a hard and thankless task
without introducing yet another variable.

Mike

Todd - I was being sarcastic about "one-design" classes. I bought a
Russia AC-4 before I bought my DG-300, so I know the story of the
World Class all too well.

....And as a separate comment about this thread - It really sounds like
the people here arguing for a second handicap class all have the same
underlying desi They want a handicapped class, but one that only
includes SOME gliders - the ones they think are most fair to compete
against each other and the ones they think are already close in
performance.

(*with my tongue fimly planted in my cheek for the next few
statements*)
Wow, what would these same people think about something as "crazy" as
the Standard Class! Imagine, a Discus2 going up against an LS-10!
With NO handicap! Boy, that Discus sure is at a big disadvantage (2%
or 5%) under specific circumstances - Hell, that's a "1.05"
handicap! They ought to do something about that... Its a travesty!

Also, If we really wanted a "Club Class" in the USA that was
representative of most Club fleets, we'd see an AWFUL lot of G-102s,
Schweizer metal birds, and Blaniks or Twin Astirs... Maybe a Junior,
for the "high dollar" folks! Anyone with a glider produced after the
mid 1970's would be disqualified! And how long would it take for
people to start complaining about how that 1-26 or 1-36 can't be
handicapped well-enough to compare with that Astir or Junior on a
windy or strong-lift day? After all, the G-102 and Junior have much
better penetration and handicapping alone can't account for the
differences in their polars under various conditions!

*sigh*
--Noel

noel.wade wrote:

After all, the G-102 and Junior have much
better penetration and handicapping alone can't account for the
differences in their polars under various conditions!

How about a dynamic handicap? Using the logger files, you could evaluate
not only the wind profile, but also the strenght and diameter of
thermals and their separation, cloud base, etc. etc. and apply not a
handicap number, but rather a handycap matrix which is fair for all
gliders in all conditions. And don't forget to define a pilot factor as
well, otherwise the experienced ones would have an unfair advantage!

You know that you have your parameters and the formula correct when,
after normalizing the results, everybody gets 1000 points.

On Sep 24, 1:00*am, John Smith wrote:
noel.wade wrote:
After all, the G-102 and Junior have much
better penetration and handicapping alone can't account for the
differences in their polars under various conditions!

How about a dynamic handicap? Using the logger files, you could evaluate
not only the wind profile, but also the strenght and diameter of
thermals and their separation, cloud base, etc. etc. and apply not a
handicap number, but rather a handycap matrix which is fair for all
gliders in all conditions. And don't forget to define a pilot factor as
well, otherwise the experienced ones would have an unfair advantage!

You know that you have your parameters and the formula correct when,
after normalizing the results, everybody gets 1000 points.

Interesting.

I thought about this idea a bit a couple of years back. I think it
would be possible to come up with something analytically on the basis
of pilot seeding, average climb strength, average altitude, wind and
maybe some task-specific attributes. You do have to be able to
separate out pilot skill from sailplane performance when you do it and
I suspect there is some autocorrelation between the two. Something
simpler might be increasing the spread in handicaps as task distance
increases, since task distance is a decent indicator for a lot of the
other factors you'd want to consider (except wind).

The problem, and the reason I dismissed the idea, is that it is
cumbersome, would potentially lead to a lot of arguing about how each
day gets measured and further obfuscates the scoring process -- not to
mention the burden on the scorer.

The other problem is that one of the issues for very low performance
ships in particular is the risk of outlanding - which goes up as the
tasks get more challenging. Because you are adjusting handicaps on the
basis of long-term averages, you would likely see lots of points
lavished on the pilots in low-performing ships just for getting around
the course on challenging days. As a consequence you could end up with
a handicap system that pushes pilots in low-performing ships to the
top of the scoresheet in the, say, 2 out of 5 contests where they can
get around the course every day, but finds them at the bottom of the
scoresheet in the contests where they have a landout. On average they
are in the middle, but they end up winning a disproportionate share of
contests. BB wrote a very interesting article on this in terms of
overall contest strategy irrespective of handicaps. The current
handicap system has a bit of this built in already - increasing the
spreads might make it worse rather than better.

The conclusion I came to is that the current system works well enough
for most Std and 15M ship of late-70s vintage on up. The Sports Class
is and should be optimized around a typical mid-80s 15M and Std
gliders (basically, Club Class, that is). If you want to fly
something outside these parameters you need to accept the fact that
the scoring system can't totally level the playing field for you, but
in the end you probably aren't expecting to be on the podium - and
that's okay. At least you still get to fly with everybody else and
learn about racing. I have a slightly different view on 2-seaters, but
that's a topic for a whole different thread.

The idea of restricting team selection to people flying Club Class
gliders only I think is a red herring because the scoring system and
contest rules are optimized around these gliders already so the odds
that someone flying an ASK-14 is going to get on the US team is
impossibly low (if they did they'd have earned it). The arguments
about low performing gliders dragging the tasking down should be
resolved through better training of CDs on how to call tasks and in
particular by realizing that you can't optimize task calling for the
lowest common denominator - that's not the main purpose of Sports
Class. If someone wants to fly a 2-33 in a Regionals they better have
a big crew and a trailer ready to go.

9B

Also, If we really wanted a "Club Class" in the USA that was
representative of most Club fleets, we'd see an AWFUL lot of G-102s,
Schweizer metal birds, and Blaniks or Twin Astirs... *Maybe a Junior,
for the "high dollar" folks! *Anyone with a glider produced after the
mid 1970's would be disqualified! *
*sigh*
--Noel


Does anyone remember that the region 9 (which had standard, sports,
15m and 18m classes) in Parowan, the Sports Class winner was a Grob
Twin Astir? That ship needed so much work done and was so old, that
it was a "family joke" among the region 9 pilots. However, that was
the same pilot (Nick Kennedy) that was standing on the winning podium
every single day of the 7 day contest.

I have to tell you too, that the Sparrowhawk also won a day or two.
Of course, I did have to make a joke, and give the pilot of the
Sprarrowhawk (Bill Thar) a D-cell battery as a prize. Mike the Strike
was right, the tasking was different, however, I also had another
pilot at the 2008 parowan contest that had NEVER flown in a contest
before mentioning (after his gut wrenching screams, of I DID IT...I
DID IT) that he learned more in one week of a contest, than a year of
flying at the club. He flew an older ship (Ventus, but most of his
flying was in a Zuni II). If a contest is aware of the ships that
have entered, it can be fun, exciting, and a learning experience, no
matter what type of ship you are flying. Also, a lot of people forget
that contests are not just for winning trophies...they are training,
learning, and challenging yourself.

Just my 2cents.
micki