Does anyone use the Club Class?

delboy wrote:
On 28 Jan, 18:40, glider12321 wrote:


US..isolationist?-


In general yes, except when we would prefer that they stay out of
things, e.g. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and taking over
Manchester United Football (Soccer) and Cadbury's chocolate in the UK.

I understand that only about 25% of US Citizens even hold passports!

Derek Copeland
In the good old days, we could drive 5000 miles to get from one state
(Florida) to another (Alaska) without needing one, so there wasn't much
point to it. That's changing now, so the percentage will go up. The EU
has gone the other way, eh?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

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

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 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

I ran the grid at the Australian Club and Sports Class Nationals at
Lake Keepit in November.
Some great publicity: Third generation pilot Adam Woolley (aka
Woolley Pup Pup, flying his LS-1F) posted many videos from the Club
Class Nationals on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/getsoaring
Results are on the GFA website, Club:
http://2009.gfa.org.au/index.php?opt...76&Item id=27
Sports:
http://2009.gfa.org.au/index.php?opt...77&Item id=27
There were 58 gliders registered, 30 in Club Class. Having both
classes brings enough people to have a good contest, as it allows
anyone to participate. For example, Sports was won by David Jansen in
his AS-G29E. Traveling the most distance, Andrew Greig came from
Western Australia and rented the Keepit club's LS-7 and the club's car
to tow with. Many pilots brought their own club's equipment. Peter
Trotter won Club Class in his AS-W20, and Paul Mander took second in a
Standard Libelle! Paul is now gunning for first, with an SZD55
recently plucked from the US register.
Perhaps the active Australian "Joey" (Junior. A joey is a young
kangaroo) movement helps fuel the Club Class, as juniors are
encouraged to compete and cannot afford the latest racing machines. Is
there no Junior Nationals in the USA? Food for thought.
It seems difficult to rent a decent single seat glider in the USA,
even traditional Club Class like Cirrus, LS-1, Hornet. This coupled
with the vast distances traveled makes having any sort of contest
difficult these days, as we all know. Narrowing down the field doesn't
help, so running Club and Sports simultaneously with only Club Class
qualifying a pilot for team selection works. This is probably the only
way the World Class could have had a US Nationals, alongside other
classes.
Jim

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

SNIP
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-

Pat -

End the Club Class Experiment? The experiment has barely even gotten
started with one highly successful regional and a repeat of that same
regional this year.

While I clearly have a stake in this topic (I own and SZD-55 - IGC AND
US Club Class Eligible, and I woudl love it if my ship had a real
racing home), what has offering the possibility of Club Class
Regionals/Nationals done to your contest flying to have you outright
oppose the idea - which works so well around the world?

I do agree with you that a much more elegant solution to team
selection would be a stand alone, Club Class (US Definition) Team
Selection event. But then why not just call that event US Club Class
Nationals. This would be no different than World Class Nationals or
Open Class Nationals that have no or very few regional racing
opportunities.

And the logjam we need to break is that yes, in the US most Club Class
ships are owned by private individuals. This does not mean there
aren't any, there are tons of them. We just need to figure out a way
to have them flown or share them with those who would like to in
contests more. You can not tell me that young pilots/poorer pilots can
not be found who want to get into racing in a more fair class than
Sports Class.

Club Class - in European/Australian/South African/Whatever form - is
very fun to fly. If you've got an older ship, dust it off and come
join a club class race and measure yourself against your peers flying
today AND against the great flights in the older ships done by the
likes of Ray Gimmey, Karl Streideck, etc. You'd be surprised jsut waht
is left inthese older and outclassed ships.

EY

On Feb 1, 6:06*pm, Tim wrote:
SNIP

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-

Pat -

End the Club Class Experiment? The experiment has barely even gotten
started with one highly successful regional and a repeat of that same
regional this year.

While I clearly have a stake in this topic (I own and SZD-55 - IGC AND
US Club Class Eligible, and I woudl love it if my ship had a real
racing home), what has offering the possibility of Club Class
Regionals/Nationals done to your contest flying to have you outright
oppose the idea - which works so well around the world?

I do agree with you that a much more elegant solution to team
selection would be a stand alone, Club Class (US Definition) Team
Selection event. But then why not just call that event US Club Class
Nationals. This would be no different than World Class Nationals or
Open Class Nationals that have no or very few regional racing
opportunities.

And the logjam we need to break is that yes, in the US most Club Class
ships are owned by private individuals. This does not mean there
aren't any, there are tons of them. We just need to figure out a way
to have them flown or share them with those who would like to in
contests more. You can not tell me that young pilots/poorer pilots can
not be found who want to get into racing in a more fair class than
Sports Class.

Club Class - in European/Australian/South African/Whatever form - is
very fun to fly. If you've got an older ship, dust it off and come
join a club class race and measure yourself against your peers flying
today AND against the great flights in the older ships done by the
likes of Ray Gimmey, Karl Streideck, etc. You'd be surprised jsut waht
is left inthese older and outclassed ships.

EY

My concern is simple - fragmentation of classes leads to less
intensity of competition in each class and ultimately less enjoyment
for pilots who really want to test their skills against the best. If
the goal is to give out as many medallions as possible, we should
continue to divide classes.

I don't believe that having a Club Class will bring into the sport
large numbers of new racing pilots who would not otherwise fly Sports
Class and I think it does at the margin present the potential for
pilots wanting to fly Sports who don't have Club Class equipment to be
left in the lurch.

A Club Class Nationals might be a good answer - so long as we find
that enough top 50 pilots show up.

9B

The USA Club Class experiment should end because the results are in.
The result is that USA needs to run the Club Class for the sole
purpose of selecting the team. All other needs are met by the Sports
Class.

Proposal follows.

The team should be taken from a Club Class ranking list. Pilots earn
ranking points at both the national and regional levels. At the
regional level, ranking points can be earned in all the other class
contests. At the national level, there is a contest to which all IGC-
list gliders are invited (others can be guests).

At the national contest, the MAT is not used, and scores are
calculated according to Annex A.

This proposal adds a national championship (which is better called
"Team Trials" - it doesn't' have to be large) and it defragments and
supports regional contests. It uses a sophisticated ranking list
system, which is the wave of the future for team selection. It
selects the best possible team and sets an example for the other
classes.

The current USA Club Class is a hybrid. It doesn't serve either the
"all-inclusive" purpose or the "valid team prep" purpose. It is also
politically divisive.

It is time to admit to ourselves that the Club Class is for hardcore
racers.

Finally, something I can wholeheartedly agree - the Club Class IS
designed for hardcore racers. And that's a problem? However, it has a
twist that no other class offers: Affordability. You can be a hardcore
racer and only spend about$20k (Std Libelle) to maybe $40k (Discus)
and have a class you can call your own. Yeah, that's not that
affordable some may say, but it is quite affordable in relation to a
now generation ship.

It is about inclusion in racing and giving everyone who is IN FACT a
real competitor or aspires to be an opportunity to shine. Is this
opposition a "not invented here" syndrome that US racing seems to have
so deeply ingrained? I do not know for sure.

If you can contenance giving World Class their class, Open Class their
class, and heck even Std Class lately, despite their poor numbers,
then why the h--l not give the US a Club Class and see what actually
happens.

If its a dud, then go back to sports-only for everyone not able to
afford the latest generation ships. But what are we going to lose
keeping the experiment going and at least trying to implement it at
the National Level (scored within a Sports Class Nationals). Not to be
harsh on the World Class, but if you are crowning a National Champion
from maybe 4-5 truly competitive pilots per year, you are telling me
that a US Club Class Nationals can not draw more pilots (hardcore or
not) than the above classes? Come on and be realistic - there are100's
to 1,000's of Club Class gliders here in the US!

I do not know how many people we may/will incentivize to get racing
"Club Class" ships who are not already racing, but for an aspiring
racer, without a daddy or an "angel" willing to loan/give them a new
V2 or D2 or ASG-29 or Concordia, this is a class that they can have.

Just look at the example of Kathy Fosha (Libelle) who appears to have
bought into hardcore racing, but at a level she can afford - I assume.
Now with a Club Class, Kathy and others could have a class free of the
new ships in which she can be a hardcore racer and measure herself in
much tighter competition with her peers. You could just as easily
include other names, including my own, who are in the same situation.

Is this opposition to Club Class somehow a reaction by more well-off
owners with new ships seeing a threat to their ability to fly in a
"soft" Sports Class Nationals when it is in their neck of the woods?
It sure seems like it to me.

Get off your high horses and go fly the classes for which your new
ships were designed. You can do that. We, in the Club Class ships can
not so easily bring our Std Libelle's to Standard Nationals and have
any expectation of a fair opportunity to race and win. It is equally
hard to honestly justify making hardcore Club Class aspirants fly in a
"hard" sports class against primarily new ships and offer them an
honest chance to place well if you are bringing above average or
higher skills tot he table. Sometimes it is the aircraft that is
holding you back, especially in handicapped contest that do not take
into account lift strength, winds, etc.

As for me in my SZD-55, I relish a chance to dial it up with Karl
Streideck in a Standard Cirrus, or Hank Nixon in an ASW-19, Ray Gimmey
in a Libelle, or Rick Walters in a ASW-24 at a nationals type contest
where the range of handicap would be restricted and you could TRULY
see how you stand. Oh yeah, and get to fly AST's against them and have
a real RACE! And don't tell me those type of guys would not "slum" it
and race a serious, hardcore Club Class - Hank and Rick have already
done it in Sports Nats in 2008 and 2009. There are others who have
done so as well.

I am convinced that if you give hardcore and aspiring hardcore racers
a class to race in, and they will surprise you with what they will do
to get in a ship that fits their budget and style, and race. It should
be about providing the most, hardcore, high quality racing
opportunities each year at the Nationals-level. So let's get racing in
Club Class America!

EY

P.S. - I do not think we necessarily have to mandate a regional system
of club class events that may or may not fragment the existing sports
class regional system. But rather make that an option just as it
remains a very rarely used option for the World and Open Classes at
regional contests. However, defintiely offer the opportunity to race a
Club Class at the Nationals-level (Scored Within Sports Nationals or
Stand Alone ... I do not care) A.S.A.P.

6:20*am, Pat Russell wrote:
The USA Club Class experiment should end because the results are in.
The result is that USA needs to run the Club Class for the sole
purpose of selecting the team. *All other needs are met by the Sports
Class.

Proposal follows.

The team should be taken from a Club Class ranking list. *Pilots earn
ranking points at both the national and regional levels. *At the
regional level, ranking points can be earned in all the other class
contests. *At the national level, there is a contest to which all IGC-
list gliders are invited (others can be guests).

At the national contest, the MAT is not used, and scores are
calculated according to Annex A.

This proposal adds a national championship (which is better called
"Team Trials" - it doesn't' have to be large) and it defragments and
supports regional contests. *It uses a sophisticated ranking list
system, which is the wave of the future for team selection. *It
selects the best possible team and sets an example for the other
classes.

The current USA Club Class is a hybrid. *It doesn't serve either the
"all-inclusive" purpose or the "valid team prep" purpose. *It is also
politically divisive.

It is time to admit to ourselves that the Club Class is for hardcore
racers.