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

I agree with the ideas from Tim Taylor and Phil Chidekel. The US is one of the few countries that has a national for every FAI class and our own Sports Class.

What we see as a result is smaller and smaller national attendance due to the decline in numbers of pilots due to other causes but also because we keep spreading the remaining numbers between more classes. Many countries with successful teams on the World level have combined similar performing gliders into a single handicap class. An example would be 15 Meter, Standard Class and 20 Meter. They are all within a reasonable performance range and with a small handicap adjustment can fly together with Discus 2, Ventus 3 and Arcus flip flopping at the top of the scoresheeet. There are many advantages to this arrangement including flying against 50 gliders instead of 15, less trouble finding three different contest venues, increased returns for the host, etc.

The US Club Class I do like how it is set up with a performance range that essentially matches the FAI handicaps. The FAI is from a Libelle 201 to an ASW-20A and the US extended that to an LS-6 which is only a few years older and not competitive in pure 15 Meter. That did lump in many that are not on the FAI list including the HP series and then at the higher end the more modern Discus 2/ASW-28 but these perform basically identical to a flapped ASW-20 which is on the list and the current World Champ in Club Class.

I do agree with Phil that I don't see why a Kestrel, Open Cirrus or similar glider with 16, 17, 18 Meter of span should be allowed because they are in the performance range. The FAI handicap list does include a 16 meter Cirrus B, so I would view it the same as winglets or other performance modifications that are allowed.

It is my understanding from the rules and a discussion that motors are allowed in US Club Class Nationals (Pik-20E for example) but possibly would not be eligible for Club Class selection.

Overall, I'd rather see more of a combined class approach and have 3-4 big nationals instead of 8 small nationals.

On Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 8:26:32 AM UTC-4, wrote:
I agree with the ideas from Tim Taylor and Phil Chidekel. The US is one of the few countries that has a national for every FAI class and our own Sports Class.

What we see as a result is smaller and smaller national attendance due to the decline in numbers of pilots due to other causes but also because we keep spreading the remaining numbers between more classes. Many countries with successful teams on the World level have combined similar performing gliders into a single handicap class. An example would be 15 Meter, Standard Class and 20 Meter. They are all within a reasonable performance range and with a small handicap adjustment can fly together with Discus 2, Ventus 3 and Arcus flip flopping at the top of the scoresheeet. There are many advantages to this arrangement including flying against 50 gliders instead of 15, less trouble finding three different contest venues, increased returns for the host, etc.

The US Club Class I do like how it is set up with a performance range that essentially matches the FAI handicaps. The FAI is from a Libelle 201 to an ASW-20A and the US extended that to an LS-6 which is only a few years older and not competitive in pure 15 Meter. That did lump in many that are not on the FAI list including the HP series and then at the higher end the more modern Discus 2/ASW-28 but these perform basically identical to a flapped ASW-20 which is on the list and the current World Champ in Club Class.

I do agree with Phil that I don't see why a Kestrel, Open Cirrus or similar glider with 16, 17, 18 Meter of span should be allowed because they are in the performance range. The FAI handicap list does include a 16 meter Cirrus B, so I would view it the same as winglets or other performance modifications that are allowed.

It is my understanding from the rules and a discussion that motors are allowed in US Club Class Nationals (Pik-20E for example) but possibly would not be eligible for Club Class selection.

Overall, I'd rather see more of a combined class approach and have 3-4 big nationals instead of 8 small nationals.

I agree we should have fewer but larger contests, however, I don't see a problem with hosting concurrent National Championships at one contest site. In other words, why not host the Club Class along with Std. Class, or say 15M with Std. Class or 20M, or 18M with Open, or any combination thereof. I would also look closely at making sure we accommodate pilots owning 20M ships to make sure we don't overlap 20M with those other FAI Classes. For purposes of pilot development and US Team selection I've got to think we want highly competitive nationals and don't want to see 20M overlap those other FAI Classes, except for maybe 15M, but to the extent 20M overlapping can be avoided it should. I also wouldn't hold 15M with 18M as a lot of 18M pilots fly 15M Nationals too.

As for Sports Class, it seems to me that the Seniors, Perry, and Nephi have turned into defacto Sports Class Championships of sorts. Keep in mind teams are not presently selected from Sports Class events. For this reason, dropping Sports Class Nationals and marketing the Seniors, Perry, and other Sports Class contests as special contests for those looking to compete at a National level but who aren't interested in being considered for the US Team makes a lot of sense to me.

Embrace these contests, call them "Sports Class Championships" by adding the phrase to the contests names, and by all means continue to make the social aspects of the contest desirable for people traveling from all over the country - but think of them as 2nd tier National-level contests similar to the Players Championship in golf or the Miami Open in tennis. In other words, they are not "Majors" like the US Open, Wimbledon, or the Masters, etc. I have a hard time thinking attendance at these events would change simply because Sports Class Nationals was dropped from the nomenclature. I just don't see that happening.

Just my 2 cents.

- Chris Schrader

On Thursday, 23 May 2019 12:04:37 UTC-6, Christopher Schrader wrote:
On Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 8:26:32 AM UTC-4, wrote:
I agree with the ideas from Tim Taylor and Phil Chidekel. The US is one of the few countries that has a national for every FAI class and our own Sports Class.

What we see as a result is smaller and smaller national attendance due to the decline in numbers of pilots due to other causes but also because we keep spreading the remaining numbers between more classes. Many countries with successful teams on the World level have combined similar performing gliders into a single handicap class. An example would be 15 Meter, Standard Class and 20 Meter. They are all within a reasonable performance range and with a small handicap adjustment can fly together with Discus 2, Ventus 3 and Arcus flip flopping at the top of the scoresheeet. There are many advantages to this arrangement including flying against 50 gliders instead of 15, less trouble finding three different contest venues, increased returns for the host, etc.

The US Club Class I do like how it is set up with a performance range that essentially matches the FAI handicaps. The FAI is from a Libelle 201 to an ASW-20A and the US extended that to an LS-6 which is only a few years older and not competitive in pure 15 Meter. That did lump in many that are not on the FAI list including the HP series and then at the higher end the more modern Discus 2/ASW-28 but these perform basically identical to a flapped ASW-20 which is on the list and the current World Champ in Club Class.

I do agree with Phil that I don't see why a Kestrel, Open Cirrus or similar glider with 16, 17, 18 Meter of span should be allowed because they are in the performance range. The FAI handicap list does include a 16 meter Cirrus B, so I would view it the same as winglets or other performance modifications that are allowed.

It is my understanding from the rules and a discussion that motors are allowed in US Club Class Nationals (Pik-20E for example) but possibly would not be eligible for Club Class selection.

Overall, I'd rather see more of a combined class approach and have 3-4 big nationals instead of 8 small nationals.

I agree we should have fewer but larger contests, however, I don't see a problem with hosting concurrent National Championships at one contest site. In other words, why not host the Club Class along with Std. Class, or say 15M with Std. Class or 20M, or 18M with Open, or any combination thereof. I would also look closely at making sure we accommodate pilots owning 20M ships to make sure we don't overlap 20M with those other FAI Classes. For purposes of pilot development and US Team selection I've got to think we want highly competitive nationals and don't want to see 20M overlap those other FAI Classes, except for maybe 15M, but to the extent 20M overlapping can be avoided it should. I also wouldn't hold 15M with 18M as a lot of 18M pilots fly 15M Nationals too.

As for Sports Class, it seems to me that the Seniors, Perry, and Nephi have turned into defacto Sports Class Championships of sorts. Keep in mind teams are not presently selected from Sports Class events. For this reason, dropping Sports Class Nationals and marketing the Seniors, Perry, and other Sports Class contests as special contests for those looking to compete at a National level but who aren't interested in being considered for the US Team makes a lot of sense to me.

Embrace these contests, call them "Sports Class Championships" by adding the phrase to the contests names, and by all means continue to make the social aspects of the contest desirable for people traveling from all over the country - but think of them as 2nd tier National-level contests similar to the Players Championship in golf or the Miami Open in tennis. In other words, they are not "Majors" like the US Open, Wimbledon, or the Masters, etc. I have a hard time thinking attendance at these events would change simply because Sports Class Nationals was dropped from the nomenclature. I just don't see that happening.

Just my 2 cents.

- Chris Schrader

Lots of ideas, suggestions and thoughts in this thread. One area that has only been lightly touched upon is getting locations and sites for contests.

Anybody notice that no new, ok maybe a couple, sites have held contests? Notice it is the same sites year over year? Notice how many sites no longer holding contests? Recruit all the competition pilots you want but if there are no sites or folks to run the contests then what are you going to do?

Chris, go back through the contests and you will see that classes are combined but it the groupings have changed over the years with introduction of 15/18M configurations and now 18M/Open glider configurations. These owners want the opportunity to fly multiple Classes per year.

Larger contests are a huge challenge when comes to glider movement, launch order, available tow planes, density altitudes etc. The Open class has a maximum weight of 850 kg, 1,873 pounds, so think about what is needed for tow planes, runway length with high density altitudes. Also some of the newer gliders have recommended tow speeds of 85 knots or higher!

Lots of variables to dal with

IIRC, one of the original concepts of a club class was that it could be defined by any limited handicap range. It seems to have morphed, at the FAI level, into a strict, these 10 models only class.

Depending on contest size, instead of one sports class encompassing 1-26 to Arcus and trying to apply handicaps, why not split it into 2 or 3 club classes of defined handicap range? Of course, you need to maintain a minimum class size to have a reasonable competition. Set ranges like Club A .80-.89 Club B .90-.99, Club C 1.00- 1.10 and keep the gliders close in performance in each class.

Class ranges likely need to be finalized the day of the contest once all gliders in the contest are known.

On Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 7:20:40 PM UTC-4, Dave Springford wrote:
IIRC, one of the original concepts of a club class was that it could be defined by any limited handicap range. It seems to have morphed, at the FAI level, into a strict, these 10 models only class.

Depending on contest size, instead of one sports class encompassing 1-26 to Arcus and trying to apply handicaps, why not split it into 2 or 3 club classes of defined handicap range? Of course, you need to maintain a minimum class size to have a reasonable competition. Set ranges like Club A .80-..89 Club B .90-.99, Club C 1.00- 1.10 and keep the gliders close in performance in each class.

Class ranges likely need to be finalized the day of the contest once all gliders in the contest are known.

That option is available in US regionals if organizers wish to do so.
UH

Chris, go back through the contests and you will see that classes are combined but it the groupings have changed over the years with introduction of 15/18M configurations and now 18M/Open glider configurations. These owners want the opportunity to fly multiple Classes per year.

I noticed that, and I fully understand where they're coming from. I wasn't sure from the previous posting (I presume it was Mike Westbrook) whether the author was suggesting we start eliminating FAI classes or not. I don't support that. I support grouping them together where it makes sense so we have roughly 3-4 healthy, well-attended Nationals taking into consideration what I said about 20M being a training ground for pilot development be it prominent Juniors or other up-and-coming racers. Other "fun" Sports Class contests like the Seniors for example may be marketed as 2nd tier national-level contests called "Championships" where I'd expect the Top 10 pilots will still be in a close competitive battle for the podium.

- Chris Schrader

On Friday, May 24, 2019 at 11:16:16 AM UTC-7, Christopher Schrader wrote:
I support grouping them together where it makes sense so we have roughly 3-4 healthy, well-attended Nationals taking into consideration what I said about 20M being a training ground for pilot development be it prominent Juniors or other up-and-coming racers. Other "fun" Sports Class contests like the Seniors for example may be marketed as 2nd tier national-level contests called "Championships" where I'd expect the Top 10 pilots will still be in a close competitive battle for the podium.

- Chris Schrader

That suggests contests being hosted together that don't overlap classes.
But how?

Some complications:
JS1C can race in 18m and Open.
Ventus 2/3, JS3 or ASG29 can race in 18m or 15m.
Discus 2 or ASW28 can race in Standard or Club.
LS8 or Discus 2 can race in Standard or 15m.

Perhaps:
Club and Sports can be hosted together with no overlap.
Standard and 18m can be hosted together with little overlap.
15 and Open can be hosted together with little overlap.
1-26, 13.5m and 20m 2-seater can be hosted together with no overlap.

How likely would there be too few or too many entries in any of those?

If we were trying to bring more people into soaring and hope most get into XC and some end up racing, more fun meets should be hosted. Call them camps, pre-regionals or whatever you like. And invite two-seaters to all regionals, for reasons already stated.

To me the Juniors and Club Class are the most important, and both SSA and FAI seem to have lost the plot for Club Class. Young or otherwise new or limited funds pilots need a place to fly their (typically less than $20k) glider. It's hard enough for them to hang around with a bunch of old farts without the contests or handicaps messing with them.

Caveat:
Not a competition pilot. My involvement is limited to coaching XC, and contest crewing.
Jim

On Friday, May 24, 2019 at 12:43:49 PM UTC-7, JS wrote:
On Friday, May 24, 2019 at 11:16:16 AM UTC-7, Christopher Schrader wrote:
I support grouping them together where it makes sense so we have roughly 3-4 healthy, well-attended Nationals taking into consideration what I said about 20M being a training ground for pilot development be it prominent Juniors or other up-and-coming racers. Other "fun" Sports Class contests like the Seniors for example may be marketed as 2nd tier national-level contests called "Championships" where I'd expect the Top 10 pilots will still be in a close competitive battle for the podium.

- Chris Schrader

That suggests contests being hosted together that don't overlap classes.
But how?

Some complications:
JS1C can race in 18m and Open.
Ventus 2/3, JS3 or ASG29 can race in 18m or 15m.
Discus 2 or ASW28 can race in Standard or Club.
LS8 or Discus 2 can race in Standard or 15m.

Perhaps:
Club and Sports can be hosted together with no overlap.
Standard and 18m can be hosted together with little overlap.
15 and Open can be hosted together with little overlap.
1-26, 13.5m and 20m 2-seater can be hosted together with no overlap.

How likely would there be too few or too many entries in any of those?

If we were trying to bring more people into soaring and hope most get into XC and some end up racing, more fun meets should be hosted. Call them camps, pre-regionals or whatever you like. And invite two-seaters to all regionals, for reasons already stated.

To me the Juniors and Club Class are the most important, and both SSA and FAI seem to have lost the plot for Club Class. Young or otherwise new or limited funds pilots need a place to fly their (typically less than $20k) glider. It's hard enough for them to hang around with a bunch of old farts without the contests or handicaps messing with them.

Caveat:
Not a competition pilot. My involvement is limited to coaching XC, and contest crewing.
Jim

Not to speak for the site selection committee, but something like the above is generally the goal - host a couple of Nationals together for organizer economics - generally with a bigger class and a smaller one together (occasionally three classes, but that can lead to problems getting everyone launched in time - especially if you are talking out west with big gliders in the mix). The other goal is to make it so the folks with gliders that can reasonably fly in two different classes are eligible for at least one Nationals on their side of the country each year.
The other objective is to flip/flop east and west each year so that the Nationals for each class move around geographically year to year.

Of course this perfect world often gets confounded by which organizations are willing to host and preferences they might have for how to combine things that don't necessarily match with the above "system". The rest is subject to cajoling and negotiation.

I'm guessing the SSA would welcome energetic folks who are willing to volunteer to take on a portion of this important work.

I'm not sure how it would work to have two versions of each class' Nationals each year - at least without combining classes via handicapping. The expected size of each class would go down which could affect competitiveness. This is particularly problematic for Standard and 20M where the number of participants hovers around the minimum every year. 15M is not far behind. Open has gotten a boost from the JS1, but many of those might go to 18M if we had east and west Nationals. Splitting the folks who live in the middle of the country likely makes the competitiveness problem worse. Having a larger number of sparsely attended Nationals would give more advantage to pilots who can "double dip" by flying a lot of Nationals on both sides of the country in their specific class. Let the gamesmanship begin.

I have toyed with the idea of making PRL (and US Team selection) points a function of the average PRL points of the top 4-6 pilots in a contest and eliminating the distinction between Regionals and Nationals from a points perspective. 100 and 92 points maximum might be about right on average, but there are sparsely attended Nationals where a bit of luck counts a lot and some Regionals that are just as competitive as a Nationals - why not make the points awarded a function of the breadth and depth of the competitive field and relax some of the constraints around overweighting Nationals in a specific class?

Andy Blackburn
9B

On Saturday, 25 May 2019 16:57:04 UTC-6, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Friday, May 24, 2019 at 12:43:49 PM UTC-7, JS wrote:
On Friday, May 24, 2019 at 11:16:16 AM UTC-7, Christopher Schrader wrote:
I support grouping them together where it makes sense so we have roughly 3-4 healthy, well-attended Nationals taking into consideration what I said about 20M being a training ground for pilot development be it prominent Juniors or other up-and-coming racers. Other "fun" Sports Class contests like the Seniors for example may be marketed as 2nd tier national-level contests called "Championships" where I'd expect the Top 10 pilots will still be in a close competitive battle for the podium.

- Chris Schrader

That suggests contests being hosted together that don't overlap classes..
But how?

Some complications:
JS1C can race in 18m and Open.
Ventus 2/3, JS3 or ASG29 can race in 18m or 15m.
Discus 2 or ASW28 can race in Standard or Club.
LS8 or Discus 2 can race in Standard or 15m.

Perhaps:
Club and Sports can be hosted together with no overlap.
Standard and 18m can be hosted together with little overlap.
15 and Open can be hosted together with little overlap.
1-26, 13.5m and 20m 2-seater can be hosted together with no overlap.

How likely would there be too few or too many entries in any of those?

If we were trying to bring more people into soaring and hope most get into XC and some end up racing, more fun meets should be hosted. Call them camps, pre-regionals or whatever you like. And invite two-seaters to all regionals, for reasons already stated.

To me the Juniors and Club Class are the most important, and both SSA and FAI seem to have lost the plot for Club Class. Young or otherwise new or limited funds pilots need a place to fly their (typically less than $20k) glider. It's hard enough for them to hang around with a bunch of old farts without the contests or handicaps messing with them.

Caveat:
Not a competition pilot. My involvement is limited to coaching XC, and contest crewing.
Jim

Not to speak for the site selection committee, but something like the above is generally the goal - host a couple of Nationals together for organizer economics - generally with a bigger class and a smaller one together (occasionally three classes, but that can lead to problems getting everyone launched in time - especially if you are talking out west with big gliders in the mix). The other goal is to make it so the folks with gliders that can reasonably fly in two different classes are eligible for at least one Nationals on their side of the country each year.
The other objective is to flip/flop east and west each year so that the Nationals for each class move around geographically year to year.

Of course this perfect world often gets confounded by which organizations are willing to host and preferences they might have for how to combine things that don't necessarily match with the above "system". The rest is subject to cajoling and negotiation.

I'm guessing the SSA would welcome energetic folks who are willing to volunteer to take on a portion of this important work.

I'm not sure how it would work to have two versions of each class' Nationals each year - at least without combining classes via handicapping. The expected size of each class would go down which could affect competitiveness. This is particularly problematic for Standard and 20M where the number of participants hovers around the minimum every year. 15M is not far behind. Open has gotten a boost from the JS1, but many of those might go to 18M if we had east and west Nationals. Splitting the folks who live in the middle of the country likely makes the competitiveness problem worse. Having a larger number of sparsely attended Nationals would give more advantage to pilots who can "double dip" by flying a lot of Nationals on both sides of the country in their specific class. Let the gamesmanship begin.

I have toyed with the idea of making PRL (and US Team selection) points a function of the average PRL points of the top 4-6 pilots in a contest and eliminating the distinction between Regionals and Nationals from a points perspective. 100 and 92 points maximum might be about right on average, but there are sparsely attended Nationals where a bit of luck counts a lot and some Regionals that are just as competitive as a Nationals - why not make the points awarded a function of the breadth and depth of the competitive field and relax some of the constraints around overweighting Nationals in a specific class?

Andy Blackburn
9B

Andy, I believe your direction of thinking is correct; why is there a distinction between regionals and nationals for rewarding points for PRL or team selection? Possibly many years or decades ago it made sense now the barriers to entry for a Nationals is so low it typically comes down to writing a check and flying in a regionals.

Another way to think about this is to add a another variable to the equation; quality of pilots participating. Currently the points awarded for a competition require a minimum number of participants and minimum number of days flown. Then each day has a number of parameters that affect scoring such as number of folks completing the task, minimum number of miles, minimum time etc.

With hang gliding and paragliding they refer to this as 'Participant Validity'. Their competition rulebook states

The more accomplished the field of competitors at a given competition, the more challenging the event becomes. Participant validity takes the skill of the participants (based on performance at previous sanctioned competitions) into consideration when determining how many ranking points are potentially available for a given competition.

You can see more details at https://www.ushpa.org/page/download.aspx?DocKey=531 and go to page 14.

Your other point was how to measure the quality of a given competition. Tough one and not one I have any ideas