new Soaring article

On May 13, 9:25*am, wrote:
On May 13, 12:20*am, Frank Whiteley wrote:









On May 12, 6:32*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:

One thing that all of the
various sanctioning bodies (FAI/IGC/NACs) will have to address at some
point is a class that is primarily aimed at lowest possible cost. * In
the US we have the 1-26, but that's not necessarily a long-term or
broad enough solution. * Every other racing sport I can think of has
events and classes that are very specifically aimed at low cost of
entry (Sunfish or equivalent in sailing; all sorts of "stock" classes
in various forms of motor racing). * If "Club Class" starts to mean
$30K or more investment, *to be competitive, then it probably serves
us right if the "racing" aspect of the sport declines.

They did, give them credit. The IGC created the world class, in
response to this sentiment. It was exactly your "sunfish" class. And
pilots around the world resoundly rejected it. They voted with their
wallets, and 18 meter gliders, mostly with motors, are the only things
selling right now. Not even standard or 15m are selling.

It is a great theory. It was tried. And it failed.

John Cochrane

John Cochrane

Class designed by committee when other options were clearly evident.

Although the 13.5m class would embrace several orphaned designs,
including the PW5, support from the SSA is not there.

Frank Whiteley- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

This is not correct- The topic of 13.5M is heavily on the agenda for
the RC this Fall.
One issue has been the lack of clarity on what the class definition
will be at the world level. As of the last
IGC meeting, this is now defined.
The topic of what this class will be in the US will likely be one of
the most important ones on this year's
pilot poll.
Current, VERY preliminary thinking would define as 13.5M max span,
handicapped, likely no water. This would be
the most likely to get best participation.
Anyone with input is encouraged to provide comments to the RC.
UH
RC Chair

Thanks for the update. That wasn't the sense I got in January.

Frank

At 00:32 13 May 2011, John Cochrane wrote:

They did, give them credit. The IGC created the world class, in
response to this sentiment. It was exactly your "sunfish" class. And
pilots around the world resoundly rejected it. They voted with their
wallets, and 18 meter gliders, mostly with motors, are the only things
selling right now. Not even standard or 15m are selling.

It is a great theory. It was tried. And it failed.

Sounds like we're back to the standards of motor racing.
As the saying goes, "Speed costs money. How fast can
you afford to go?"

Jim Beckman

On May 12, 8:32*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:

They did, give them credit. The IGC created the world class, in
response to this sentiment. It was exactly your "sunfish" class. And
pilots around the world resoundly rejected it. They voted with their
wallets, and 18 meter gliders, mostly with motors, are the only things
selling right now. Not even standard or 15m are selling.

It is a great theory. It was tried. And it failed.

John Cochrane


John,

All that this failed experiment proved is that there isn't necessarily
a market for a purpose-built one-design that turns out to be more
expensive than much higher perforance ships readily available on the
market. Again working the analogy, many of the successful sailing
classes (Sunfish comes to mind) were built and became popular first -
then someone decided to race them. Same with cars.

If we set out with a mission statement where one of the primary
objectives was to "contain costs", the class specifications would
follow.

P3

On 5/14/2011 6:34 AM, Papa3 wrote:
On May 12, 8:32 pm, John
wrote:

They did, give them credit. The IGC created the world class, in
response to this sentiment. It was exactly your "sunfish" class. And
pilots around the world resoundly rejected it. They voted with their
wallets, and 18 meter gliders, mostly with motors, are the only things
selling right now. Not even standard or 15m are selling.

It is a great theory. It was tried. And it failed.

John Cochrane


John,

All that this failed experiment proved is that there isn't necessarily
a market for a purpose-built one-design that turns out to be more
expensive than much higher perforance ships readily available on the
market. Again working the analogy, many of the successful sailing
classes (Sunfish comes to mind) were built and became popular first -
then someone decided to race them. Same with cars.

If we set out with a mission statement where one of the primary
objectives was to "contain costs", the class specifications would
follow.

I was there as a Director of the SSA when the specifications were being
discussed, and "containing costs" was a major specification. Turned out,
pilots would rather have an old glider with more performance than a new
glider for the same money. It's very hard to compete against the used
market on price, and this was not appreciated at the time.

If soaring was growing instead of shrinking, used gliders would cost
more, and the PW5 would have sold a more, maybe a lot more, gliders.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

On 5/12/2011 8:32 PM, John Cochrane wrote:
One thing that all of the
various sanctioning bodies (FAI/IGC/NACs) will have to address at some
point is a class that is primarily aimed at lowest possible cost. .....

They did, give them credit. The IGC created the world class, in
response to this sentiment. It was exactly your "sunfish" class. And
pilots around the world resoundly rejected it. They voted with their
wallets,...

No. They voted for better performance at equal cost (OK, the equal cost
means used gliders) and good taste.

Tony