On Sep 23, 11:35*am, toad wrote:
On Sep 23, 12:55*pm, "noel.wade" wrote:

1) *I strongly believe in a "run what ya brung" class.

Noel,

I am a long time sports class pilot, flying a Grob 102 and would love
a "club" class so that I would be scored more fairly, but I would miss
flying with my friends that have non-club qualifying gliders.

On balance, I would keep the classes combined.

2) *New pilots need to have a fun atmosphere where they feel that they
can do well. *But they don't need to _win_ to have a good time,

But long time pilots that fly low level equipment must be able to win,
if they are flying the best at that contest.

3) *If people feel that the handicap is out-of-whack or unfairly ...

The problem is that the handicapping should really depend on the
weather conditions, a single number handicap only works well within a
small range of handicaps. *Especially for a weather driven sport.

Finally: *The idea of a handicapping system is NOT to level the
playing-field 100%,

Yes the idea IS to level the playing field between different aircraft,
leaving pilot ability the determining factor. So that the better pilot
wins.

It is very hard to have any semblance of fairness when the rating
spread is as wide as a Nimbus 3 against a ASK 14.



--Noel

Thanks
Todd Smith
3S


Help me out here. As a prctical matter what are the alternatives?
Sure, any handicapping system is imperfect, but for example, if you
look at the last four Sports Class competitions at Parowan the top of
the podium has been claimed by a Duo twice, an LS-3 and a Twin Astir.
If I understand correctly only the LS-3 would have been allowed under
Club Class rules. So what class would those other pilots fly? The Duos
would have to fly Open if there was one and the Twin would be SOL.
There were also a number of ASW-27, D2, V2 class ships in sports,
usually flown by new (or "low key") competition pilots. Presumably
they would have to fly an FAI class or drop out if that was too
intimidating.

Under the scenario where you offer both Sports and Club classes,
pilots would divide up, some who are eligible for Club might fly
Sports, bit the mix of ships in Sports would most likely be a few low-
performance gliders and a bunch of current generation ships - which
only accentuates the issues associated with handicaps, but more
importantly splits the field, making it less fun IMHO.

The thought of scoring Club Class within Sports Class seems appealing,
but I'm not sure I see much benefit. If a guy flying a Twin Astir
wins, why would you exclude him (or her) from Club Class seeding? And
if a guy flying the latest generation ship wins, it seems a stretch to
me to award a trophy to someone who may have finished well down the
scoresheet just because his ship is on a list of Club Class gliders.
You could do it, but I don't think it solves a real-world problem.
Dividing up classes let's you give out one more trophy, but I doubt it
would very often be to someone who would have won if he'd been flying
a newer glider - or if everyone else had been flying one like his.

The great thing about Sports Class is its inclusiveness. While it has
its warts, I think it works pretty well overall in allowing pilots to
compete no mattery what ship they fly.

9B