The 2009 Club Class Waiver

On Jan 22, 10:17*am, wrote:
On Jan 21, 10:20*pm, Pat Russell wrote:

In the IGC rules, the factor applied to your speed or distance is the
ratio of your handicap to the handicap of the best glider at the
contest. *In the US Sports Class, the factor is the handicap itself.

Pat,

When you say "best" glider at the contest , do you mean the glider
that wins the day/contest, or the glider entry having the most weighty
handicap (newer glider having the best performance capability)?

The IGC handicaps are used in an inverse way to the US handicaps,
i.e. the higher the handicap, the faster the plane. The time around
course is multiplied by the handicap before determining speed, rather
than the distance. The handicaps are all "normalized" so that the
slowest plane gets no modification. E.g., if everyone show up in
an LS3, Mini-Nimbus, Mosquito, or ASW-24 (all with the same 1.07
handicap) then everyone is scored directly on speed around course
(no modifications for handicap). If one more person shows up with
a standard Libelle (with a handicap of 0.98) then the Libelle gets
scored with straight speed and everyone else gets their time on
course increased by 1.07/0.98 = 9.18%.

I could be wrong about the exact details, since Strepla (which is
used by scoring in other countries) is not open source, unlike
WinScore.

On Jan 22, 7:44*am, PMSC Member wrote:
If we had Sports class only pilots voting on this subject the results
would probably be different.

I would like to see this vote taken.

Let's have a contest and we will see how many pilots will show up.

I doubt if the entry list of a single contest would persuade anyone
either way.

Hey, the entry list makes a big difference to me. There's a bunch
of people in the racing community I look forward to seeing every
year. Maybe I'm not that competitive (well, OK, I'd like to beat
the snot out of W8. Just kidding Ray :-), but I think my flying
gets better when I get to hang out in a contest with really good
pilots. Plus, I've made some really good friends at my few
contests.

On the other hand, flying in a club class contest
would be really attractive to me and a lot of other pilots out
there. As it is the US sports class is further away from the
WGC equivalent than other US classes. I think the US
would benefit from exposing more of its pilots to what they'll
see in the WGC.

On Jan 22, 1:00*am, Howard Banks
wrote:
To change this a bit, has anybody else noticed that the results of the poll
of pilots by the contest committee on this subject were heavily against
changing the sports class and introducing a club class variant? *
Does this committee -- or the rules part of it -- take no notice of the
results of these polls, or what?

At 03:20 22 January 2009, Pat Russell wrote:



In the IGC rules, the factor applied to your speed or distance is the
ratio of your handicap to the handicap of the best glider at the
contest. *In the US Sports Class, the factor is the handicap itself.

The difference causes the boundary between points for finishers and
non-finishers to be shifted. *The amount of shift depends on which
gliders show up for the contest *(in the IGC case).

-Pat- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The RC did pay attention to the poll. I also listened to a small, but
very vocal and dedicated
group led by 5U that think we should give Club a chance to be tried
and see what develops. There
are some real concerns aboutr how this might affect Sports. See the RC
meeting minutes for a view of those.
That said, the RC determined that it is worthwhile to give this a try,
by waiver, and see how it goes. If we see a bunch of new blood, as
some claim we will, it could be good. If all it does is cut the heart
out of Sports, that will be not good- obviously. It will not be likely
to become a full blown class withouit substantial contributions to
participation.
We will watch and see how it goes, then poll and determine next steps.
Please note that the RC does listen to the poll, but it is not the
only input.
Let's give it a chance.
FWIW - UH will be flying a Club Class glider in Elmira. Call me a
skeptical supporter.
UH
RC Chair

I have to admit initially I didn't see any real advantage to the Club
class but I think I am starting to come around to the idea. The thing
I really like about it is the handicapped Assigned task, which doesn't
happen in Sports Class. I really like Assigned Tasks and as a result
have almost exclusively flown in the 15 meter class even though I fly
a 30+ year old glider. As pointed out in another thread I have noticed
the significant drop in assigned tasks even in the 15 meter class and
would like to see this task used more.

Brian Case
HP16T