On Sep 21, 3:14*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
On Sep 21, 12:13*pm, Tim wrote:

Hello All:

If you have not figured it out, this is a topic I care passionnately
about...

Could we try and give the members of the US RC that post here/read
opinions here regularly an idea of the possible support for
establishing a stand alone US Club Class Nationals?

I think you're mixing two issues: 1) having a contest labeled "club
class nationals" that only allows club gliders 2) getting the US team
committee to commit ahead of time to use the results of that contest,
and only that contest, to select world team members.

Issue #1 is pretty easy to solve. I can't speak for the entire RC, but
I would certainly support a request to run a "club class super
regionals" and probably even a "club class nationals." Heck, we allow
a "senior nationals" so why not. As with many big changes, it's worth
doing it by waiver for a few years to gauge success before permanently
changing rules. It would have to be inserted carefully in the contest
season --- the major objection to "club" is leaving the low
performance and older high performance gliders nowhere to fly, so it
should probably be on the other coast from the "sports nationals." But
it seems like a reasonable idea.

So, once again, if you want it, stop complaining and run it! Our major
problem is finding operators and CDs willing to run contests. We'll
look for your bid for next year. You might even be able to get one in
for the 2011 season if you hurry.

As for issue #2, well, try to understand the view of the very
reasonable people on the team committee. *When they look at sports
class results under current rules, they see a very weak team; one that
US pilots are not likely in the end to support with our hard-earned
cash. (We've talked here about megabucks -- the real megabucks is what
it costs to go to the worlds, any worlds.) It would be pretty
irresponsible of them to change team selection rules to use results of
a class that has had a grand total of two contests, and has not
responded to the pilot and glider restrictions in sports class.

I know you feel that "build it and they will come," if only there were
a separate scoresheet and no asw27s buzzing around, we'd finally have
50 people at these nationals, not 10-14 that show up (and almost none
two years in a row) despite the 27s not being eligible for team
selection. But you have to understand that they really can't change
rules based on a theory. If you run some "sports class nationals" by
waiver, and lots of people show up, that is most likely to persuade
them.

You may say "people won't show up without team points." But they would
answer "people aren't showing up now, despite team points, so team
points must not be that important to the vast majority of pilots." And
the team rankings back them up, in every class. See here

http://soaringweb.org/US_Team/HomePage.html

It's blatantly obvious that even in 15, 18, standard and PW5 that no
more than 4 or 5 people care enough about team points to bother
showing up to the same contest two years in a row.

Anyway, that's my best guess at how the team committee thinks about
it, and addressing that point of view is the most likely route to
success.

Just to be clear, there is nothing I would like to see more than a
vibrant club class with 60 pilots duking it out every year, then going
on to do well at the worlds. Make it happen. I think the whole RC and
team committee feel that way. There is nobody, absolutely nobody,
"against" club class. There is a worry that going about it wrong could
hurt the very successful sports class, produce a small weak
"specialist" class, and lead to more small contests that are money-
losers for the organizers. Address those worries, and you'll get what
you want.

John Cochrane

John,

your post is full of positive comments and for that we are thankful,
however I think there might be an issue with what you are saying in
regards to ranking.

Let's take an example of the Sports Nationals in Elmira last year
where conditions were very weak. Sean Franke flew a Club Class glider.
He did very well beating some well known pilots. Sean was 3rd overall.
One can wonder if Sean had flown an ASG-29 (first place) or an ASW-27
(second place) what the results would have been like. Now if the first
two pilots flew Club Class gliders Sean's ranking might have been 100.
I know these pilots flying these modern gliders are exceptionally good
(one of the best), but no one will ever know what would have happened
if they flew Club Class gliders in these poor conditions. Maybe they
still would have won maybe not.

I think the point I am trying to make is that pilots dedicated to Club
Class might have difficult time getting good ranking through Sports
Class alone, especially in contests where weak conditions prevail.
Everyone knows contests are won or lost on weak days. While ASG-29 can
make another thermal LS-1F might end up in a field. Simply saying Club
Class pilots ranking is too low might not be representative of their
skills.

Sean was selected based on the Club Class rules. He did very well at
the WGC, I say much better than the pilots who were selected to the
Team prior to restricting team eligibility to pilots flying Club Class
gliders so obviously having a bigger pool of gliders in the past did
not translate to good results at the WGC. If I am wrong on this point
please correct me. It seems the current rules worked very well
selecting a top pilot to represent US in WGC.

Another point to consider is that maybe there is a different reason
for our Team not showing their best at WGC since the same problem
exists in other classes.

I hope the decision to change the rules of selection is going to be
reconsidered. I think it would be wise to give it some more time
especially since economic conditions of the last couple of years are
not conductive to large contest participation.

I no longer have any personal interest in this discussion since I no
longer fly a Club Class glider. The reason I speak up is because I
think proper recognition of this class is the only way to bring young
people to serious contest flying especially considering poor economy
we have. Let's look at the makeup of pilots in our contests. Who is
going to be flying in 10+ years?