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#31
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I don't believe that monoclass as a principle has failed. It is PW-5 which
failed. And it failed because it doesn't stand the competition on glider market. "Andreas Maurer" wrote in message ... On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:58 GMT, "Gldcomp" wrote: Applied to Soaring, where a possible "Olympic Class" may still happen one day, the L/D DOES NOT MATTER. As it happens with other olympic equipment, the design has to be made PUBLIC and available to a central organizing body. It has to be manufacturable in any part of the world at a reasonable cost. External shapes and CGs have to be ABSOLUTELY the same. ... which is unfortunately precisely the concept that already failed with the PW-5. Bye Andreas |
#32
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#33
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In article , iPilot
writes Racing with PW-5's on Olympics is more like racing with Optimist class of sailboats. We're working to get the Laser done. Or at least Dragon. How about the IGC Club Class, which already exists and can embrace the soaring equivalent of Optimist, Dragon and Laser because it is not just "one design" but compensates over a small performance bracket by handicapping according to glider performance. You can certainly have a viable IGC Club Class competition with PW5, Russia, K6, Skylarks and gliders of similar performance. The organisers simply set the performance bracket a bit lower than is normally done for Club Class competitions (which rather sums up why the PW5 has not caught the imagination of the world gliding movement). It would appear that the world gliding movement is either too small or too fragmented to embrace a successful one-design class. It might have succeeded in the 1940 Olympics (which did not happen for obvious reasons) with Hans Jacobs' great design, the Meise (also known as the Olympia), but things have moved on since then. The Standard Class of the 1950s was a great step forward in making gliders of reasonable cost viable in competition up to the world level. It also spawned that fine design the K6 and others. But it did not attempt to be a one-design class and maybe that is why not only succeeded but is still with us today. Is there a moral here that we should heed? -- Ian Strachan Lasham Gliding Centre |
#34
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Club Class will never make it to Olympics becuse of the coeficent system and
the fact that technical differences can still make the difference. "Ian Strachan" wrote in message ... In article , iPilot writes Racing with PW-5's on Olympics is more like racing with Optimist class of sailboats. We're working to get the Laser done. Or at least Dragon. How about the IGC Club Class, which already exists and can embrace the soaring equivalent of Optimist, Dragon and Laser because it is not just "one design" but compensates over a small performance bracket by handicapping according to glider performance. You can certainly have a viable IGC Club Class competition with PW5, Russia, K6, Skylarks and gliders of similar performance. The organisers simply set the performance bracket a bit lower than is normally done for Club Class competitions (which rather sums up why the PW5 has not caught the imagination of the world gliding movement). It would appear that the world gliding movement is either too small or too fragmented to embrace a successful one-design class. It might have succeeded in the 1940 Olympics (which did not happen for obvious reasons) with Hans Jacobs' great design, the Meise (also known as the Olympia), but things have moved on since then. The Standard Class of the 1950s was a great step forward in making gliders of reasonable cost viable in competition up to the world level. It also spawned that fine design the K6 and others. But it did not attempt to be a one-design class and maybe that is why not only succeeded but is still with us today. Is there a moral here that we should heed? -- Ian Strachan Lasham Gliding Centre |
#35
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"iPilot" wrote in message ... Club Class will never make it to Olympics becuse of the coeficent system and the fact that technical differences can still make the difference. Correct. Nothing in the olympics has any form of handicapping because it has to be a strictly athlete agains athlete kind of thing. A simple handicap system like the German will benefit some gliders in weak weather and others in strong weather. Certain Handicaps systems, such as the Brazilian one, do compensate for the effects of weather by applying a "Thermal Index" to the final handicap, which is extracted from the first glider to complete the task. But it still is nearly impossible to compensate for longer wingspans having the freedom to search for the strongest thermals while the "short wings" have to take more thermal, including weak ones. In other words, no Handicap system is perfect and they do not work with olympic sports. |
#36
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I think that's a theoretical discussion.
The biggest market for sailplanes is in Europe, and it's exactly there where the idea of a monoclass or a PW5 doesn't interest anybody - at least nobody who has money to put on the table (be it private owners or clusbs). Soaring in the rest of the world is just not big enough that anybody could make a decent living by making monoclass gliders. And in these conditions, talking about an Olympic Class with an event every 4 years ?! ... -- Bert Willing ASW20 "TW" "iPilot" a écrit dans le message de ... I don't believe that monoclass as a principle has failed. It is PW-5 which failed. And it failed because it doesn't stand the competition on glider market. "Andreas Maurer" wrote in message ... On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:58 GMT, "Gldcomp" wrote: Applied to Soaring, where a possible "Olympic Class" may still happen one day, the L/D DOES NOT MATTER. As it happens with other olympic equipment, the design has to be made PUBLIC and available to a central organizing body. It has to be manufacturable in any part of the world at a reasonable cost. External shapes and CGs have to be ABSOLUTELY the same. ... which is unfortunately precisely the concept that already failed with the PW-5. Bye Andreas |
#37
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Gerhard. You should look at the Bob's webpage (www.hpaircraft.com) about the work he's doing on HP
24. I personally know a person wh's self educated in aerodynamics and who's building a modern version of the Horten 3 (different seating position, different profiles, stiffer construction) and there's and Australian (or NZ?) group of people who are building a short-tailed glider. All of them are amateurs and afaik, none of them is learned aerodynamics in school. About the Performance World Class. If the outer shape of the glider is defined precisely enough, anyone can build a copy without aerodynamical analysis - only construction has to be engineered. Regards, Kaido "Gerhard Wesp" wrote in message ... Bob Kuykendall wrote: Eric, you know I disagree that these are huge expenses. I continue to believe that with modern softwares, and using modern commercially-available composite products, that sailplane development is within the grasp of a conscientious amateur. I disagree. IMHO, sailplane development is an extremely complex task far out of reach of anybody without some very sound aeronautical engineering education. And not only that, it also requires a good deal of experience---read: your first design will not necessarily be the best one. :-) That said, I'm open to be proven wrong by counter-examples. Anybody knows any? Cheers -Gerhard |
#38
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Once more. The reason, why PW5 failed was the fact that it's performance per money spent was dismal.
But the fact that it still got sold somewhat, talks that there is an interest towards monoclass. If, for example we declare LS-4 a monoclass it'd have a huge number of gliders available already on the market plus additional production. And when it's good for a FINN sailor to buy a $20 000 boat for a one competition in 4 years, why it shall be bad for a LS-4 pilot. National pride is going to open many currently closed pockets forl gliding. "Bert Willing" wrote in message ... I think that's a theoretical discussion. The biggest market for sailplanes is in Europe, and it's exactly there where the idea of a monoclass or a PW5 doesn't interest anybody - at least nobody who has money to put on the table (be it private owners or clusbs). Soaring in the rest of the world is just not big enough that anybody could make a decent living by making monoclass gliders. And in these conditions, talking about an Olympic Class with an event every 4 years ?! ... -- Bert Willing ASW20 "TW" "iPilot" a écrit dans le message de ... I don't believe that monoclass as a principle has failed. It is PW-5 which failed. And it failed because it doesn't stand the competition on glider market. "Andreas Maurer" wrote in message ... On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:58 GMT, "Gldcomp" wrote: Applied to Soaring, where a possible "Olympic Class" may still happen one day, the L/D DOES NOT MATTER. As it happens with other olympic equipment, the design has to be made PUBLIC and available to a central organizing body. It has to be manufacturable in any part of the world at a reasonable cost. External shapes and CGs have to be ABSOLUTELY the same. ... which is unfortunately precisely the concept that already failed with the PW-5. Bye Andreas |
#39
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In article , Gldcomp
writes Nothing in the olympics has any form of handicapping because it has to be a strictly athlete agains athlete kind of thing. OK, if that is so, it's probably the Standard and/or 15 metre class, if the IGC want to try and get into the Olympics in the future. The main barrier to new sports getting in seems to be the Olympic organisation itself. I understand that the President and General Secretary of FAI have made presentations about air sports to IOC meetings, particularly on parachuting. The International Parachuting Commission of FAI have wanted to get into the Olympics for some years now. -- Ian Strachan Lasham Gliding Centre UK |
#40
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iPilot wrote:
Racing with PW-5's on Olympics is more like racing with Optimist class of sailboats. We're working to get the Laser done. Or at least Dragon. Another difference with the Laser is that, as far as I remember, it was not designed for Olympics, just as a modern sailboat with good performance and state of the art design operated by a single person. The success of the design later made it an Olympic class, not the opposite. |
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