On Mar 9, 5:18*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
I don't understand the purpose of this new class. *I suspect neither
do the people who promoted it, because my sense is these guys were
more interested in lightweight, lower cost gliders, were generally
opposed to water ballast and generally okay with handicapping.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

I don't know, but I can guess. This is the successor to the world
class. They wanted some place to put the PW5s, not out to pasture, and
for some reason they did not want to create something like the US
sports class with a wide handicap range. Given that decision, I second-
guess they did not put in handicaps or a water ballast restriction,
because handicaps would have killed development and a waterballast
restriction would mean that winning gliders would be lead bombs
unsuitable for club use.

But the end result is a *a new class, and the obvious gliders that
will do well in it have not even been designed. The class winner here
will be something like a sparrowhawk with waterballast.

13.5, standard, 15, 18, 20, open, club, junior, feminine is WAY too
many classes. No country can have nationals and field teams in all
separate classes. The task for the IGC is to figure out how to reverse
this insanity and end up with no more than 3 classes, without
devaluing the existing fleet, not how to add more classes. *I'm afraid
"merge classes with handicaps for gliders produced before x date" is
the only way to do it. Flame suit on -- or suggest a better way.

John Cochrane

Well, clearly the IGC as it currently exists isn't going to do that.

Technology and cost have made Std irrelevant: the ships are at least
98% as good as 15m... and cost 98% as much. Me, I'll keep my landing
flaps, thanks. 15m is still relevant, but anyone with enough scratch
to buy a 15m (or std) ship at today's new prices demonstrably isn't
bothered by the incremental cost of going to 18m, often with a motor.
Open is an interesting niche, relevant mostly because of the wonders
that guys like Dick Butler will spend tens of thousands of hours of
labor to produce. It's cool just because it is the absolute limit of
the state of the art and they are great fun to watch. Unfortunately,
the only place you can assemble a large enough grid of these ships to
have a meaningful race is at the Worlds.

Personally, I agree with Charlie Spratt that the best racing class we
ever had in the US is 15m. Still is, although attrition will slowly
erode our numbers. I don't think there has been a new 15m racer
licensed in at least two years and no meaningful number in five or
six. I can't justify 4x the price of my current ship to buy a 2 or 3%
better 18m sled.

I'll be racing 15m until the lights go out. Took me long enough to
get here, I ain't leaving the party that easy. I invite y'all to join
me. It's good fun.

-Evan Ludeman / T8