Future of 15m

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 12:47:41 PM UTC-8, John Foster wrote:
With the rise in popularity of 18m soaring, what do you guys think will be the future of 15m? Are there enough advantages of 15m over 18m for it to continue to have a strong place in competition? It seems most manufacturers are now making 18m sailplanes, that can be converted to 15m, but they primarily start or come as 18m now. Thoughts?

One indication would be the number of pilots attending US Nationals.

Overall participation is slowly declining for a whole host of reasons I won't get into. The relative level of participation and rate of decline varies a lot by class.

18M - Currently the best-attended FAI nationals with an average participation of 25 pilots over the past 5 years and participation gradually declining by about 1 pilot every 7 years since 1997. Participation had been good the last couple of years, but a lot of short term variation is related to site selection and idiosyncratic factors.

15M - Second most popular class with 23 pilots attending a Nationals on average over 5 years with a more rapid decline of around 1.7 pilots per year. 15/18 gliders ought to keep the 15M Nationals going for awhile as pilots tend to elect to do either 15 or 18 based on geographic proximity (not many people drive across the country for a contest anymore).

Open - Contracted to a dedicated 10-20 pilots attending Nationals, depending on venue (13 average). The emergence of 18/21M gliders may help sustain Open. On average participation has fallen by about one pilot per 3-4 years.

Standard - Lowest participation and steepest 20-year decline. 10 pilots on average (12 if you don't count the goose-egg at Hobbs in 2014). Standard has lost 2 pilots per year on average since 1997, but has been flat at right around the minimum number required for a valid contest since 2009.

Here are some charts to show the actual data:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-v...59xCUDFrF9pdYu

Hope that helps.

Andy Blackburn (9B) - on behalf of the Contest Rules Committee