Does anyone use the Club Class?

On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:46:06 -0800 (PST), Pat Russell
wrote:


My question is:

Are there any countries in the world that run national championships
in the IGC-defined Club Class?

Yup.
Lots.

Pat Russell wrote:

My understanding is that a "class" is a set of gliders. Classes can
be defined by describing the gliders that are allowed in the class or
by naming the gliders that are allowed in the class. IGC, among
others, defines classes. IGC use the first method for defining five
classes and the second method for defining two classes, one of which
is the Club Class.
-Pat

Read sc3 of the FAI sporting code (http://www.fai.org/gliding/sc3).
Where does it "name" club class gliders?

7.7.6 Club Class
The purpose of the Club Class is to preserve the value of older high
performance gliders, to provide inexpensive but high quality
international championships, and to enable pilots who do not have access
to gliders of the highest standard of performance to take part in
contests at the highest levels.

a. ENTRY The only limitation on entry of a glider into a Club Class
competition is that it is within the range of handicap factors agreed
for the competition.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Pete, thank you for your enlightening point. The gliders named in the
Sporting Code

http://www.fai.org/gliding/sporting_code/sc3a , Appendix 3

define the Club Class for World and Continental Championships, only.

Apparently, according to SC3 7.7.6a, any glider can be considered a
Club Class glider, as long as it is acceptable to the local
sanctioning authority. There is no mandatory relationship between the
sets of gliders that are allowed in any pair of contests. They are
all the Club Class.

Thank you for pointing this out.

The Club Class seems like more of a concept than a class. It sure is
different from the others.

I guess the USA Sports Class is the Club Class, after all.

-Pat

Read sc3 of the FAI sporting code (http://www.fai.org/gliding/sc3).
Where does it "name" club class gliders?

7.7.6 Club Class
The purpose of the Club Class is to preserve the value of older high
performance gliders, to provide inexpensive but high quality
international championships, and to enable pilots who do not have access
to gliders of the highest standard of performance to take part in
contests at the highest levels.

a. ENTRY The only limitation on entry of a glider into a Club Class
competition is that it is within the range of handicap factors agreed
for the competition.

On Jan 28, 12:36*pm, Pat Russell wrote:
Pete, thank you for your enlightening point. *The gliders named in the
Sporting Code

http://www.fai.org/gliding/sporting_code/sc3a, Appendix 3

define the Club Class for World and Continental Championships, only.

Apparently, according to SC3 7.7.6a, any glider can be considered a
Club Class glider, as long as it is acceptable to the local
sanctioning authority. *There is no mandatory relationship between the
sets of gliders that are allowed in any pair of contests. *They are
all the Club Class.

Thank you for pointing this out.

The Club Class seems like more of a concept than a class. *It sure is
different from the others.

I guess the USA Sports Class is the Club Class, after all.

-Pat


Interesting point - I did not know that there were different
definitions of Club Class by different sanctioning authorities. The
narrower the range of handicaps you allow the smaller the field you
will get and the less competition you will get as fewer competitors
can qualify. The Sports Class in the US, by that accounting, is the
most democratic of the "Club Class" implementations because there is
no handicap limit. No one gets excluded.

The challenge in the US is the relatively smaller number of Club Class
ships (by the IGC definition) in clubs or privately owned, compared to
the relatively large number of Sports Class (but not Club Class)
entries at competitions. Splitting the classes at the regional level
would in many cases make for too few ships to have a contest on one
class or the other or both. It may make sense to have a Club Class
Nationals, but here again it appears that the Club Class in Europe is
a path for young, up-and-coming racing pilots to gain experience. The
dearth of Club Class ships in US clubs makes this far less the case
over here.

9B

On Feb 1, 2:05*am, Andy wrote:
On Jan 28, 12:36*pm, Pat Russell wrote:







Pete, thank you for your enlightening point. *The gliders named in the
Sporting Code

http://www.fai.org/gliding/sporting_code/sc3a, Appendix 3

define the Club Class for World and Continental Championships, only.

Apparently, according to SC3 7.7.6a, any glider can be considered a
Club Class glider, as long as it is acceptable to the local
sanctioning authority. *There is no mandatory relationship between the
sets of gliders that are allowed in any pair of contests. *They are
all the Club Class.

Thank you for pointing this out.

The Club Class seems like more of a concept than a class. *It sure is
different from the others.

I guess the USA Sports Class is the Club Class, after all.

-Pat

Interesting point - I did not know that there were different
definitions of Club Class by different sanctioning authorities. The
narrower the range of handicaps you allow the smaller the field you
will get and the less competition you will get as fewer competitors
can qualify. The Sports Class in the US, by that accounting, is the
most democratic of the "Club Class" implementations because there is
no handicap limit. No one gets excluded.

The challenge in the US is the relatively smaller number of Club Class
ships (by the IGC definition) in clubs or privately owned, compared to
the relatively large number of Sports Class (but not Club Class)
entries at competitions. Splitting the classes at the regional level
would in many cases make for too few ships to have a contest on one
class or the other or both. It may make sense to have a Club Class
Nationals, but here again it appears that the Club Class in Europe is
a path for young, up-and-coming racing pilots to gain experience. The
dearth of Club Class ships in US clubs makes this far less the case
over here.

9B

I think the difference is in the ownership of planes in the US vs
other countries.
In the US planes are typically owned by single persons. Clubs own a
Schweitzer 1-26 or 1-34, or perhaps an L33. (This is changing
gradually.)
US competition pilots almost always bring their own plane.
In other countries planes that are competitive in the FAI classes are
typically owned by syndicates of several people. Clubs own planes
that
are a generation or two out of date. Competition pilots bring the
plane
owned by their syndicate or club.

As far as the number of club class planes in the US, there are hordes
of
them out there. All those LS-4s, ASW-24s, and ASW-20s that dominated
the competition scene here 15-20 years ago are (mostly) still around
and flying. Those are all club class planes. Many of those Libelles,
Cirruses,
and LS-1s that dominated the competition scene 15-20 years before that
are still around and flying, and are club class planes, too. The only
planes
that are excluded from club class are the newer planes that currently
dominate the FAI classes. I do understand that people like to fly
those
in sports class for a variety of reasons -- I told one guy at Perry a
couple
of years ago to switch from 15M to Sports because he'd never flown
in a contest or flown with ballast. Also, it really makes a lot of
sense
to go fly the sports national if your FAI national is a continent away
(unless you're in the running for making the international team).

On the other hand we had a big turnout at Cordele last year for club
class.
I think it has a place as a version of sports class. If all the
planes that
show up for a regional sports class qualify, go ahead and actually run
it as a club class and call the occasional AST. Also, allow pilots
to
repeat on the club class international team. It's not just a "entry/
exit"
class, it's a serious competition class. Keep allowing the experiment
at the regional level and see where it takes us.

-- Matt

Interesting point - I did not know that there were different
definitions of Club Class by different sanctioning authorities. The
narrower the range of handicaps you allow the smaller the field you
will get and the less competition you will get as fewer competitors
can qualify. The Sports Class in the US, by that accounting, is the
most democratic of the "Club Class" implementations because there is
no handicap limit. No one gets excluded.

The challenge in the US is the relatively smaller number of Club Class
ships (by the IGC definition) in clubs or privately owned, compared to
the relatively large number of Sports Class (but not Club Class)
entries at competitions. Splitting the classes at the regional level
would in many cases make for too few ships to have a contest on one
class or the other or both. It may make sense to have a Club Class
Nationals, but here again it appears that the Club Class in Europe is
a path for young, up-and-coming racing pilots to gain experience. The
dearth of Club Class ships in US clubs makes this far less the case
over here.

9B

Andy, I agree with all your points. I wonder if you agree with the
following:

1. The USA Sports Class should carry on, unchanged.
2. The USA Club Class experiment should end.
3. There should be a new national contest in the USA, the "Club Class
Team Trials," to which all IGC-listed gliders are invited (and other
gliders as guests). The results of this contest would be used to
select the US Team members.

-Pat

Three major gliding countries that don't use the IGC Club Class. *It
makes me wonder if anybody does.

-Pat

Speaking of which. I was asked if I was going to run a "club" class
at the Memphis Region 10 North in 2010. I reviewed the ships already
signed up (thanks to EY for bringing the question to my mind). Seems
that I already have enough to run a valid club class. Are there any
other "club class" ships that would like to join us in Memphis? Are
there any pilots that thought about competing in other ships, that
would fly with us IF I added a club class, and break out your older
club class ships?

I am taking a poll, and willing to add it. I was asked the same
question about Region 9 last year, but I didn't have enough response
from club class ships. I would love to be able to have a central
region club class to go along with the one in the east coast region.

Micki Minner at msn.com

On Jan 28, 11:56*am, Pat Russell wrote:
Does any country run competitions in the IGC Club Class?


Germany comes the closest.

The German national competition rules are essentially identical to the
Annex A (IGC) rules. Tasking and scoring are very similar. The
Germans still have a distance task. Their scoring formulas differ
insignificantly from those in Annex A. In the Club Class, they have
removed some gliders from the top (high performance) end of the list
and added many gliders to the middle and lower portions. Gliders that
appear on both lists have exactly the same handicaps. Here is the
German handicap list:

http://www.daec.de/se/downfiles/2009/DMSt-WO2009.pdf


In the UK, the story is approximately the same. Tasking is identical
to Annex A. Turnpoint geometry differs. Scoring is different in ways
that affect day valuation. The Club Class list is derived from the
IGC list, but handicaps (called "speed index") are assigned by BGA.
Gliders are added throughout the list, and, unlike in Germany, no top
end gliders are removed. The UK rules, including handicaps, are he

http://www.gliding.co.uk/forms/competitionrules2009.pdf


In the USA, tasking is similar to Annex A, but with the addition of a
speed task with pilot-selected turnpoints. There are more safety-
related rules, and team flying is not allowed. Scoring is entirely
different, and penalties (esp. airspace) are more severe. There are
two classes that meet the IGC definition of Club Class. As in the UK,
handicaps are assigned by the national organization. One of the two
classes excludes no gliders at all, but disallows one of the tasks.
The other one is similar to the UK Club Class, with the addition of
locally popular gliders. Of the two classes, only the former has a
national championships. Here is the USA handicap list:

http://www.ssa.org/sailplaneadmin/sa...ndicap_xls.asp


Competition pilots in all three countries (at least those who read
this newsgroup) seem satisfied with their local implementations of the
IGC Club Class.

I keep reading this thread and I must say there are some here who have
a real competitive class to go to (e.g. ASW-27 owners) but they refuse
to give the same right to Club Class gliders owners in the U.S.

It is time to stop treating Club Class owners as lesser citizens of
this community just because they don’t have fancy gliders.

We already restrict classes. No 18 m gliders show up for the 15 m
Nationals. So what is the problem with restricting higher performance
gliders from Club Class?

Maybe we should combine open, 18 m and 15 m class and call it a Super
Sports Class and do away with the existing classes. I can see the
uprising this would cause. I am not advocating this. I am simply
making a point here.

If we have Club Class Nationals on the east coast we will have plenty
of people participating and Sports class will not die out.

I am an ex-club class glider owner moving to a different class. I have
no interest of my own here.

On Feb 3, 3:38*pm, AK wrote:
I keep reading this thread and I must say there are some here who have
a real competitive class to go to (e.g. ASW-27 owners) but they refuse
to give the same right to Club Class gliders owners in the U.S.

It is time to stop treating Club Class owners as lesser citizens of
this community just because they don’t have fancy gliders.

We already restrict classes. No 18 m gliders show up for the 15 m
Nationals. So what is the problem with restricting higher performance
gliders from Club Class?

Maybe we should combine open, 18 m and 15 m class and call it a Super
Sports Class and do away with the existing classes. I can see the
uprising this would cause. I am not advocating this. I am simply
making a point here.

If we have Club Class Nationals on the east coast we will have plenty
of people participating and Sports class will not die out.

I am an ex-club class glider owner moving to a different class. I have
no interest of my own here.

I don't think the FAI guys are as hard over about that as you think -
it isn't racing unless you are racing against someone and more is
better than less. I see a fair number of contest with combined FAI
classes. The main reason I see people resisting combining classes is
they are trying to maximize their odds of getting on the podium - but
usually those victories are a bit hollow.

9B