Markus:

Thank you for injecting a tremendous amount of fact into this discussion. Without actual facts, there can be no informed decision-making. That is what I wish to promote more of here.

While I am among the more vocal pilots for a separate Club Class to be implemented here in the US, I am not against making modifications to the range of allowed handicaps for next year's trial Club Class Nationals. We did it in Moriarty in 2011 to good effect. We brought in additional glider types (V1, Ls6, ASW20) at the low end, while expanding up a bit at the high end to try and capture the many HP gliders, among others.

But, I have to disagree with the point that the V1, LS6, and now D2 type ships are not potential game changers, especially in a US Club Class. These glider are not necessarily game changers in European conditions. When I flew my Libelle, it was a terrific ship in the East - and not so much in the west. In fact when I went to make the 2006 US Team I borrowed a Hph 304cz for the effort.

When US nationals are held west of the Mississippi it is my belief that the gliders with performance better than a Discus 1 are definitely advantaged and skew the results in favor of the lower (US)/higher(overseas) handicaps. There is one prominent US Club Class pilot who has an east coast glider and a western conditions glider. One wonders why would this be?

Most of the specific comp results posted (Thank you Markus) have been for very European conditions that I equate to East of the Mississippi conditions here in the US. I would be interested to see some broken-out results from US Sports Class Nationals, and broadly subscribed Sports Class Regionals, held west of the Mississippi to see if my suspicion is confirmed???

Whatever the eventual configuration for a US Club Class in 2013, please count on me being at Mifflin, flying Club Class (hooray!!!), and being thankful for the opportunity to do so after all these years.

And again, Thank You to everyone for their well thought comments on this topic.

Sincerely,
Tim McAllister EY