FAI, soaring and Olympic Games

You are right, Eric. Bad example. I should be smart enough to not talk
about sports that I am not really familiar with. Nonetheless, that is how
my very experienced friend explained it to me.
-Bob Korves

"Eric Greenwell" wrote in message
...
Bob Korves wrote:
I have a friend who raced all sorts of things -- 50cc Grand Prix
motorcycles, Formula V, CanAm, etc.

His observation, which is perhaps counterintuitive, was that the tighter
rules a class has, the more expensive it is to win. For instance, he
said
that with Formula V, a class designed to be simple and cheap, if you
don't
have a chassis dynamometer you cannot win.

Bad example: Formula V is MUCHMUCHMUCH cheaper than CanAm cars! You
can't even buy an engine for a CanAm car for the price of a Formula V.
Sheez! They use PLENTY of dyno time in that class. You don't need to own
a dyno to do well in Formula V, just rent some time on one, or take it
to a track during the testing period and use some simple instrumentation
to accomplish the same thing. Because of the restrictive rules, spending
a lot of money gains you very little, unlike the less limited classes
where spending a lot of money gains you quite a bit.

Unless the rules have changed dramatically since I raced Formula V (in
which case they would no longer be very restrictive rules), it's a
relatively cheap class because the cars are light and low powered, so
the engine and tires hold up well. The small size of the cars and the
high minimum weight requirement makes makes their construction simple
and cheap.

The rules are too tight to win
otherwise.

You can spend a pile of money, but in Formula V, one properly done pass
using the "draft" behind another car totally outweighs that money. Been
there, done that, watched it happen many times.

With CanAm, which had bigger and faster cars but was a wide open
class WRT rules, cleverness in design could easily win the day without
huge
expense.

Absolute nonsense. The cost of a quality team to come up with this
"cleverness in design" is enormous, and the cost of maintaining these
cars that truly live on the edge of destruction each race is enormous.
Check the decals on a CanAm car and Formula V to see the kind of
sponsorship it takes to field one of those cars competitively. Millions!
There is simply no comparison with Formula V. I think you have totally
misunderstood the situation.
(snip)
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

In article ,
"Paul" wrote:

Hows this for a format.

84 gliders release a set distance and height from the venue all at the same
time.
They final glide to the finish line which is on the boundary fence. Extra
bonus points for using ground effect for the last three kilometres. Tall
trees and power lines for added skill test.
They can either land straight through or pull up for a dodgy circuit, then
attempt to land next to their trailers which are lined up down one side of
the runway with tops up and fuse dollys in place. Trailers are spaced six
meters apart. Their 3 man/women crews then have to clear them off the runway
or if the pilot is skillfull enough he boots on some rudder and tries to
park on the fuse dolly. Extra points for this. Then as pilot extracts
himself the crew set to work derigging the glider and storing in the
trailer. The winner is the one whos trailer top is down the fastest from the
release time and has the least penaltys. Penaltys are for hitting other
crews while landing and groundlooping.

Good crowd appeal. Everything happens within sight of the stands. Don't need
soarable weather so could be a winter games event as well. ( Ice lake would
really turn up the excitment ) Team event as well as individual. It is the
best part of the whole contest thing as far as spectator appeal goes.

I saw this once at the German nationals and its very entertaining.

Especially for those with glider repair businesses! ;-)

-- Bruce

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

I am a gliding fanatic, but I think that the most suitable air sport for
the Olympic Games is parachuting.

Robert

While I've never flown one myself, I wonder if hanggliding/parasailing would
make more Olympic friendly sport vs my beloved hardwinged soaring. Better TV
close-ups of thinner competitors faces/bodies, more colorful equipment, more
muscles used for control and landing, more percieved danger, more creative
options for required preliminaries events and room for individual expression.

Noting the influx of retired hang gliding pilots into our form of soaring...the
best way to promote soaring at the Olympics is to play our best card which may
be our hanggliding brothers. The media already preferences their images over
ours, go with it.

LT

LarSwan wrote:
I am a gliding fanatic, but I think that the most suitable air sport for
the Olympic Games is parachuting.

Robert


While I've never flown one myself, I wonder if hanggliding/parasailing would
make more Olympic friendly sport vs my beloved hardwinged soaring. Better TV
close-ups of thinner competitors faces/bodies, more colorful equipment, more
muscles used for control and landing, more percieved danger, more creative
options for required preliminaries events and room for individual expression.

And a downhill event.

Noting the influx of retired hang gliding pilots into our form of soaring...the
best way to promote soaring at the Olympics is to play our best card which may
be our hanggliding brothers. The media already preferences their images over
ours, go with it.

Nice to imagine gliders in the Olympics, but I suspect you're right.

Shawn

Paul wrote:

Hows this for a format.

84 gliders release a set distance and height from the venue all at the
same time.
They final glide to the finish line which is on the boundary fence. Extra
bonus points for using ground effect for the last three kilometres. Tall
trees and power lines for added skill test.
They can either land straight through or pull up for a dodgy circuit, then
attempt to land next to their trailers which are lined up down one side of
the runway with tops up and fuse dollys in place. Trailers are spaced six
meters apart. Their 3 man/women crews then have to clear them off the
runway or if the pilot is skillfull enough he boots on some rudder and
tries to park on the fuse dolly. Extra points for this. Then as pilot
extracts himself the crew set to work derigging the glider and storing in
the trailer. The winner is the one whos trailer top is down the fastest
from the release time and has the least penaltys. Penaltys are for hitting
other crews while landing and groundlooping.

Good crowd appeal. Everything happens within sight of the stands. Don't
need soarable weather so could be a winter games event as well. ( Ice lake
would really turn up the excitment ) Team event as well as individual. It
is the best part of the whole contest thing as far as spectator appeal
goes.

I saw this once at the German nationals and its very entertaining.


Backwards trailer races are great fun as well.

--
Soar the big sky
The real name on the left is richard

It is more "media friendly". That is what counts, nothing more nothing less.

Robert

iPilot wrote:
Please, give a bit reasoning. For me, it seems that parachuting events involve mostly some
jundgement by the judges to get scored and thus are not directly measurable in minutes, seconds,
kilometers or whatever units available.



"Robert Danewid" wrote in message
...

I am a gliding fanatic, but I think that the most suitable air sport for
the Olympic Games is parachuting.

Robert

iPilot wrote:

It's been under discussion for several times, but I want to bring it up again.

There have been several pro's and con's towards soaring in Olympics, but nobody argues that it'd
rise the popularity of the sport. So it is important for soaring community. Therefore my

question is

following:

Wich way is soaring worse than sailing?

None of the cities that have organised Olympic games in the past would have any geographic

troubles

on organising soaring competitions (Moscow had troubles with organising sailing competition

which

had to be held in Tallinn - 900 km away).
None of the latest summer games that I remember have had such miserable weather that the

competition

would have to be left unheld.

The main argument against soaring is the fact that equipment can make a difference here. Well.

Here

is the challenge for igc. They have to face that their first trial of monoclass failed and they

have

to try again. This time with relatively high-performing, yet still not expencive standard or 15m
class design.

As a matter of fact I don't believe that sailing deserves to have 9 different classes on

Olympics

and soaring none. I personally think that FAI has failed bigtime to find the concensus amongst

all

air sports to get air sports represented on Olympic games. It shall be the biggest argument

towards

Olympic Commety - there's no air sports in Olympics nowadays. And the most suitable sport would

be

soaring because it's competitive, not so dependent on equipment and directly measurable. Making
soaring TV-friendly shall not be a problem as well today. And with racing tasks only allowed on
olympics it shall be understandable for general public as well.

How can we do it?

Regards,
Kaido

I'm not so sure about that. If this is the only thing that counts we would have all sorts of car
racing, american wrestling etc. kind of sports on games. Nothing like that.

"Robert Danewid" wrote in message
...
It is more "media friendly". That is what counts, nothing more nothing less.

Robert

iPilot wrote:
Please, give a bit reasoning. For me, it seems that parachuting events involve mostly some
jundgement by the judges to get scored and thus are not directly measurable in minutes, seconds,
kilometers or whatever units available.



"Robert Danewid" wrote in message
...

I am a gliding fanatic, but I think that the most suitable air sport for
the Olympic Games is parachuting.

Robert

iPilot wrote:

It's been under discussion for several times, but I want to bring it up again.

There have been several pro's and con's towards soaring in Olympics, but nobody argues that
it'd
rise the popularity of the sport. So it is important for soaring community. Therefore my

question is

following:

Wich way is soaring worse than sailing?

None of the cities that have organised Olympic games in the past would have any geographic

troubles

on organising soaring competitions (Moscow had troubles with organising sailing competition

which

had to be held in Tallinn - 900 km away).
None of the latest summer games that I remember have had such miserable weather that the

competition

would have to be left unheld.

The main argument against soaring is the fact that equipment can make a difference here. Well.

Here

is the challenge for igc. They have to face that their first trial of monoclass failed and they

have

to try again. This time with relatively high-performing, yet still not expencive standard or
15m
class design.

As a matter of fact I don't believe that sailing deserves to have 9 different classes on

Olympics

and soaring none. I personally think that FAI has failed bigtime to find the concensus amongst

all

air sports to get air sports represented on Olympic games. It shall be the biggest argument

towards

Olympic Commety - there's no air sports in Olympics nowadays. And the most suitable sport would

be

soaring because it's competitive, not so dependent on equipment and directly measurable. Making
soaring TV-friendly shall not be a problem as well today. And with racing tasks only allowed on
olympics it shall be understandable for general public as well.

How can we do it?

Regards,
Kaido

Why couldn't gliding have a grand prix style start where the start line
opens at a certain time and all speeds are calculated from that start time -
just like sail boar racing?

There is no reason why gliders or support aircraft could not transmit live
video.

Why are glider pilots so keen to list technical reasons why broadcasting our
sport might be difficult rather than looking for solutions?

Anyone who watched the sailng at the olympics would have seen that with
boats taking in different directions, it was just about anyones guess as to
who was leading whom untill they rounded their waypoints (markers). I don't
hear many sailors detailing why they sport is not suitable for broadcast.



"Tony Verhulst" wrote in message
...

There have been several pro's and con's towards soaring in Olympics, but
nobody argues that it'd
rise the popularity of the sport. So it is important for soaring
community. Therefore my question is
following:

Wich way is soaring worse than sailing?

Because in sailing, you can "park" a bunch of boats, with the requisite
TV crews, along the couse line. People will be able to watch the event -
not so in soaring. Yes, I'm aware of the proposals to transmit GPS
coordinates of the competitors to be displayed in some fashion. It ain't
the same, IMHO.

For other would be Olympic events, see:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=5746437

Tony V.
http://home.comcast.net/~verhulst/SOARING



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.735 / Virus Database: 489 - Release Date: 06/08/2004

Are the differences between current model 15 meter ships really so great
that they don't constitute a 'single class'? It seems to me that this is
the fallacy that is tripping us up and pushed the sport into developing the
PW5 WCG. When the differences are so minor--this one's .05% better on the
run; this one a .0237% better climber--why not just declare them for
purposes of the sport to be a single class and 'run whatcha brung' w/out
handicapping?

Who defines the sport? The people in it or the Olympics folks? If it is in
our power let's make the change and have Olympic racers in sleek modern
ships.

I think the combination of tiny in-ship, wingtip or tail mounted camers
combined with helicopters outside the turnpoints and gps transmitters could
make for great TV.

Note: I was a co-owner of a PW5 for 3-4 years and now fly a 27 yr. old
Glasflugel design.


"Tony" wrote in message
...
Why couldn't gliding have a grand prix style start where the start line
opens at a certain time and all speeds are calculated from that start
time -
just like sail boar racing?

There is no reason why gliders or support aircraft could not transmit live
video.

Why are glider pilots so keen to list technical reasons why broadcasting
our
sport might be difficult rather than looking for solutions?

Anyone who watched the sailng at the olympics would have seen that with
boats taking in different directions, it was just about anyones guess as
to
who was leading whom untill they rounded their waypoints (markers). I
don't
hear many sailors detailing why they sport is not suitable for broadcast.



"Tony Verhulst" wrote in message
...

There have been several pro's and con's towards soaring in Olympics,
but
nobody argues that it'd
rise the popularity of the sport. So it is important for soaring
community. Therefore my question is
following:

Wich way is soaring worse than sailing?

Because in sailing, you can "park" a bunch of boats, with the requisite
TV crews, along the couse line. People will be able to watch the event -
not so in soaring. Yes, I'm aware of the proposals to transmit GPS
coordinates of the competitors to be displayed in some fashion. It ain't
the same, IMHO.

For other would be Olympic events, see:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=5746437

Tony V.
http://home.comcast.net/~verhulst/SOARING



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.735 / Virus Database: 489 - Release Date: 06/08/2004

Tony,

You've described what was once called the "shotgun" start, as
practiced at the 15M Nationals in Chester SC, 1988. All I can say is
Yikes!!! Scariest thing I've ever done in a sailplane. Sixty gliders
flying at 100+ knots at cloudbase in a confined area. Close second to
that was the implosion finish back in the days when you were penalized
for being overtime on a POST. Gliders arriving at the finish line from
all points on the compass at the same time. I understand the people on
the ground loved it! Glider demolition derby.