BobWa43 wrote on 4/11/2021 3:00 PM:
On Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 5:38:41 PM UTC-4, BobWa43 wrote:
On Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 11:17:08 AM UTC-4, jfitch wrote:
It would make more sense to stratify OLC results on glider price, than motor/no motor. Dinging a guy with a Pik20E compared to a JS1 is plain silly. A separate class or handicap for motorgliders is either a wealth or convenience tax - not a performance tax. And certainly not a testosterone measure. Probably, anyone who has to get on a public forum and boast of testosterone levels, is lacking same.

....
should compete against motor gliders on OLC.

I had flown 2000 hours in unpowered sailplanes when I switched to a
motorglider, and I did not feel I had a huge psychological advantage.
And when I fly at the Parowan motorglider event each year, somehow my
"huge psychological advantage" isn't enough to keep pilots like Rami
Yanetz and Thorsten Streple from clobbering me on the OLC! There is some
advantage, but it's not huge, or even big.

So, of all the factors that go into an OLC score, why do you focus only
on the motor? The place has a much larger effect, I think. Who has the
greater advantage: the sustainer pilot launching from Seminole lake, or
the pilot launching from Ridge Soaring on a good ridge day? Or a pilot
in South Africa?

At Dan "When you start the engine the flight is over" true, but as the man in the earlier referenced video said most times you don't have to start the engine. You get to take the chance on whether there will be lift under that distant cloud with no real penalty if there isn't. If that is not a great advantage, I don't what is. If you would agree to disable the engine after take off then it would be a level playing field. It currently is not. Why do motor glider pilots resist the idea of a separate competition group?

The "penalty" is the scoring of the flight ends when the motor starts. If you want to be
competitive, you avoid that risk; if you are flying recreationally, maybe you take the risk
because you don't care about the score.

I'm having trouble understanding your concerns, because these issues haven been worked on (at
least in the US) for at least the 25 years I've owned a motorglider, and the current rules
reflect the consensus of pilots flying competitions, whether it's Regionals, Nationals, or even
SSA records. The OLC doesn't have separate classes, either. There doesn't seem to be any need
to "resist the idea of a separate competition group", because I'm not aware of any formal (or
informal, either) attempts to change the competition classes into motor/non-motor.

We might be able to respond better to your comments if we knew what's driving this discontent
with the current situation: is it being beaten by motorized gliders in Regional and National
contests? A low ranking on the OLC because of all the motorgliders that scored better than you?
Or something else entirely?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1