Mark,
These light gliders are a good idea, however the whole concept is for
a one design class so that Pilot performance only counts. The
Sparrowhawk and Russia are interesting gliders but are NOT the World
Class glider, the PW5 is. As someone who has flown one at above World
record performance [undeclared] on my one flight in it [and my Wife
achieved 4 World Records next day on a below average, blue Nevada
day]I agree the Piwi is not suitable for the reasons Ben says. He is
also correct in his comments on gaggles in heavy Standard class
gliders verses light gliders.
To get a true one design comp going we need 40:1 + performance, the
LS4 is the obvious choice, built perhaps in eastern Europe or China to
keep costs down.
There are probably 5 times as many ASH25's in the world as PW5's so
the Piwi has proven to be a failure by the lack of buyers, even clubs
who bought them initially have sold them.
Tom Claffey



(Mark James Boyd) wrote in message news:404e65b0$1@darkstar...
I for one am grateful for the World Class idea.
I'm glad IGC didn't kill it. It's nice to have
a very "entry level" competition class/records.

I'd like to see a different glider, perhaps the
AC-4 or Sparrowhawk (or variant), maybe as the
next "entry level" World Class glider.

I flew the Russia retract Saturday. I liked it.

In article ,
Charles Yeates wrote:
With Spring and a new season arriving, here are some absolutely GREAT news
for the World Class: