Does anyone use the Club Class?

Does anyone use Club Class?

Yes! I "use" Club Class. I use it by flying a club class glider. I
have flown in a handful of Sports Class races and I flew in the
inagural Club Class at Cordele, Georgia, USA in 2009.

Should the "experiment" in Club Class in USA end? Yes! Time to move
forward with "Normal" club class events. Why experiment?

As Tim (Echo Yankee) has said, Club Class participants want to fly
among a smaller group of similar gliders. I don't want to fly against
the Duo Discii, the DG-1000, the Ventii, the ASW-27, the ASG-29, etc,
etc. There's really no way for me to keep up and try and fly and
learn something from the better pilot flying one of these. Is there a
chance for me to keep up and learn something from the better pilot
flying a Club Class ship? Yes. There is a chance. Slim, but at
least the chance is there.

Tasking for Sports can be a real joke with turn radii as large as 30
miles. 60 miles across. You can't see 60 miles here in the eastern
part of USA. But you could be on the "same" task, going to the "same"
turnpoint but be 60 miles apart. What good is that when pilots are
competing against each other? Are you flying in the same type of
airmass when separated that far apart? Not necessarily. Let's fly to
the same point, turn and keep going.

Last summer at Cordele, John Cochrane did explain that a CD can use
the MAT in a Sports Class to simulate an Assigned task. If the MAT is
called right, by golly, it would seem like an AST. And I would much
rather fly an AST or a properly called MAT than a turn area task with
20 or 30 mile radii on the turnpoints.

Am I a "hard core" racer? No. I just enjoy the chance to fly and fly
and fly. Yes, Sports Class is fun, but Club Class is more fun because
the competition is closer. I'm not flying Club Class to try and earn
a spot on the National Team to go fly in the Worlds. I'm just out to
have some fun.

Should Club Class negate the need for Sports Class? NO! But Sport
Class shouldn't negate the need for Club Class.

So why are some folks seemingly afraid of Club Class? Why not promote
it and allow it to grow? I'm going to keep needling at my friends
with their Standard Cirruses and LS3's and Libelles and ASW-24's and
see if I can coax them into coming to Cordele where, I hope, they will
host another Club Class.

(Ulterior motive to having lots of friends at the contest: So they
can take turns coming to get me on my landouts...)

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

On Feb 2, 11:37*am, Tim wrote:
...
But what are we going to lose
keeping the experiment going and at least trying to implement it at
the National Level...

Tim, wake up!

The USA Sports Class is a mongrel, and SSA has thrown you a bone.
Reject it. Demand a playing field in which you and your mates can
practice for the REAL Club Class.

Growl!

And I meant to say the "USA Club Class" in the previous post, of
course.

"rlovinggood" wrote in message
...
Does anyone use Club Class?

Yes! I "use" Club Class. I use it by flying a club class glider. I
have flown in a handful of Sports Class races and I flew in the
inagural Club Class at Cordele, Georgia, USA in 2009.

Should the "experiment" in Club Class in USA end? Yes! Time to move
forward with "Normal" club class events. Why experiment?

As Tim (Echo Yankee) has said, Club Class participants want to fly
among a smaller group of similar gliders. I don't want to fly against
the Duo Discii, the DG-1000, the Ventii, the ASW-27, the ASG-29, etc,
etc. There's really no way for me to keep up and try and fly and
learn something from the better pilot flying one of these. Is there a
chance for me to keep up and learn something from the better pilot
flying a Club Class ship? Yes. There is a chance. Slim, but at
least the chance is there.

Tasking for Sports can be a real joke with turn radii as large as 30
miles. 60 miles across. You can't see 60 miles here in the eastern
part of USA. But you could be on the "same" task, going to the "same"
turnpoint but be 60 miles apart. What good is that when pilots are
competing against each other? Are you flying in the same type of
airmass when separated that far apart? Not necessarily. Let's fly to
the same point, turn and keep going.

Last summer at Cordele, John Cochrane did explain that a CD can use
the MAT in a Sports Class to simulate an Assigned task. If the MAT is
called right, by golly, it would seem like an AST. And I would much
rather fly an AST or a properly called MAT than a turn area task with
20 or 30 mile radii on the turnpoints.

Am I a "hard core" racer? No. I just enjoy the chance to fly and fly
and fly. Yes, Sports Class is fun, but Club Class is more fun because
the competition is closer. I'm not flying Club Class to try and earn
a spot on the National Team to go fly in the Worlds. I'm just out to
have some fun.

Should Club Class negate the need for Sports Class? NO! But Sport
Class shouldn't negate the need for Club Class.

So why are some folks seemingly afraid of Club Class? Why not promote
it and allow it to grow? I'm going to keep needling at my friends
with their Standard Cirruses and LS3's and Libelles and ASW-24's and
see if I can coax them into coming to Cordele where, I hope, they will
host another Club Class.

(Ulterior motive to having lots of friends at the contest: So they
can take turns coming to get me on my landouts...)

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

Cordele is hosting a Club Class at Cordele in 2010. We have moved the date
to a bit later to try to avoid the bad effects of El Nino (and a few other
reasons).

We have Sports Class too and we will blend the Club Class into the Sports
Class if we must, but so far, it looks good to go.

Come sign up-We have the "A" for the staff.-we're planning a good time for
all who come.

Hartley Falbaum
Competition Manager
Region V South, Cordele, GA

On Feb 2, 3:29*pm, Pat Russell wrote:
On Feb 2, 11:37*am, Tim wrote:

...
*But what are we going to lose
keeping the experiment going and at least trying to implement it at
the National Level...

Tim, wake up!

The USA Sports Class is a mongrel, and SSA has thrown you a bone.
Reject it. *Demand a playing field in which you and your mates can
practice for the REAL Club Class.

Growl!

Just curious as I lurk and listen.
What type/class glider do you fly and where do you compete?
UH

Just curious as I lurk and listen.
What type/class glider do you fly and where do you compete?
UH

I don't fly as P1 at all any more, regrettably. In the 70s it was
Open and Standard class comps in Maryland and Vermont. Started at
Bicester, UK.

So, UH, what is your opinion of the way the International Club Class
is implemented in USA?

-Pat

On Feb 3, 8:55*am, Pat Russell wrote:
Just curious as I lurk and listen.
What type/class glider do you fly and where do you compete?
UH

I don't fly as P1 at all any more, regrettably. *In the 70s it was
Open and Standard class comps in Maryland and Vermont. *Started at
Bicester, UK.

So, UH, what is your opinion of the way the International Club Class
is implemented in USA?

-Pat

Club Class has potential to be quite a good class in the US. The
current rules permit any organizer who chooses to run the class in
regionals. One group did it with good results last year. I understand
there will be more events this year. The gliders permitted are pretty
nuch the same as the international group with the exception that, in
the US, some additional gliders within the handicap range which pretty
much exist in the US only, are allowed to participate.
I'm hopeful that participation will grow nationally to the point where
it can become a national championship class. Some serious enthusiasts
will argue that it should be immediate. Others say take it a bit
slower. The competition pilot poll supports the latter. It will be
monitored and polled again this year.
I've flown in the Club Worlds twice, built a ship specifically for the
class last year, so you could say I do support the concept.
UH

On Feb 2, 1:53*pm, "HL Falbaum" wrote:
"rlovinggood" wrote in message

...





Does anyone use Club Class?

Yes! *I "use" Club Class. *I use it by flying a club class glider. *I
have flown in a handful of Sports Class races and I flew in the
inagural Club Class at Cordele, Georgia, USA in 2009.

Should the "experiment" in Club Class in USA end? *Yes! *Time to move
forward with "Normal" club class events. *Why experiment?

As Tim (Echo Yankee) has said, Club Class participants want to fly
among a smaller group of similar gliders. *I don't want to fly against
the Duo Discii, the DG-1000, the Ventii, the ASW-27, the ASG-29, etc,
etc. *There's really no way for me to keep up and try and fly and
learn something from the better pilot flying one of these. *Is there a
chance for me to keep up and learn something from the better pilot
flying a Club Class ship? *Yes. *There is a chance. *Slim, but at
least the chance is there.

Tasking for Sports can be a real joke with turn radii as large as 30
miles. *60 miles across. *You can't see 60 miles here in the eastern
part of USA. *But you could be on the "same" task, going to the "same"
turnpoint but be 60 miles apart. *What good is that when pilots are
competing against each other? *Are you flying in the same type of
airmass when separated that far apart? *Not necessarily. *Let's fly to
the same point, turn and keep going.

Last summer at Cordele, John Cochrane did explain that a CD can use
the MAT in a Sports Class to simulate an Assigned task. *If the MAT is
called right, by golly, it would seem like an AST. *And I would much
rather fly an AST or a properly called MAT than a turn area task with
20 or 30 mile radii on the turnpoints.

Am I a "hard core" racer? *No. *I just enjoy the chance to fly and fly
and fly. *Yes, Sports Class is fun, but Club Class is more fun because
the competition is closer. *I'm not flying Club Class to try and earn
a spot on the National Team to go fly in the Worlds. *I'm just out to
have some fun.

Should Club Class negate the need for Sports Class? *NO! *But Sport
Class shouldn't negate the need for Club Class.

So why are some folks seemingly afraid of Club Class? *Why not promote
it and allow it to grow? *I'm going to keep needling at my friends
with their Standard Cirruses and LS3's and Libelles and ASW-24's and
see if I can coax them into coming to Cordele where, I hope, they will
host another Club Class.

(Ulterior motive to having lots of friends at the contest: *So they
can take turns coming to get me on my landouts...)

Thanks,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

Cordele is hosting a Club Class at Cordele in 2010. We have moved the date
to a bit later to try to avoid the bad effects of El Nino (and a few other
reasons).

We have Sports Class too and we will blend the Club Class into the Sports
Class if we must, but so far, it looks good to go.

Come sign up-We have the "A" for the staff.-we're planning a good time for
all who come.

Hartley Falbaum
Competition Manager
Region V South, Cordele, GA

Early days - but here is the current contestant sign-up by class:

Club - 8
15M - 4
Sports - 3
Standard - 2
18M - 1

If you get 40 total entries that will be 8 on average per class, if
you combined down to 3 classes you'd be at 11-12 per class or 50%
higher, but inevitably some classes will have more and others less. I
find 4-6 gliders in a class (can't have less than 4) a lot less
enjoyable and competitive than 8-10, so there's a tradeoff, but I'd be
a lot less inclined to go to a Regionals where there are barely enough
gliders signed up to make my class viable.

The idea of splitting/dividing classes depending on the entries can
make sense so long as you don't cave into pilot pressure and split a
class such that one of the split out classes has only 4-6 gliders in
it. I would find that frustrating.

9B

In article
,
rlovinggood wrote:

Does anyone use Club Class?

Yes! I "use" Club Class. I use it by flying a club class glider. I
have flown in a handful of Sports Class races and I flew in the
inagural Club Class at Cordele, Georgia, USA in 2009.



Well said, Ray and Tim!

Ray, I'm glad you mentioned the MAT. A MAT can indeed be called to
emulate the good points of an AST. That was done at the Triple Tree
race, near Spartanburg, SC (USA) this past summer. The MAT's were
essentially AST's with one pick-your-own turnpoint at the end. Worked
very well.

Tim mentioned the affordable cost of Club/Sports. I gotta brag he My
301 Libelle was bought out of Germany back in 2000 when the dollar was
worth something (I should have bought more glider). My panel is lavishly
outfitted with a Borgelt B40, Winter mechanical, and a Microair radio.
My nav suite is a $35 Palm Tungsten with a $20 battery pack, running
Soaring Pilot (freeware), and getting GPS data from a $30 bluetooth GPS
puck. I did splurge on a Volkslogger back in 2001- $700. My tow vehicle
was a $4000 Dodge van. My whole rig, for 9 years of racing cost me about
$16,000 (not counting glider insurance and repairs on that Chrysler POS).

WB

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.