Short cuts

On Wednesday, January 10, 2018 at 1:10:09 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Clint, I feel the advent of sustainers, while great for recreational flying, has changed the complexion of setting records and racing. Sustainers provide a safety net which results in guys being able to take chances they normally would not take when flying a conventional glider. No one can tell me that guys fly a course in a sustainer the same as a non motor equiped machine.

They are given a built in advantage in searching for lift and traversing areas of having "iffy" conditions. They should be placed in their own catagory in records and in racing.

This very issue was discussed in the 1950's by the SSA rules committee, you can find their discussions in the archived records. I believe the first big discussion was in 1955. At that time they ruled against allowing motorized gliders to race with conventionals for these very reasons.

Dan

Excluding the motor guys because "they're not like us" may make some people feel better but it forces them to either go away or form their own group. Neither option does participation much good.
We need all the participants we can get.
UH

Oh Charles I'm surely not into any more fragmentation of our ranks. We are few enough already, I'm just bringing up the point that having a sustainer does change the dynamic. At the most I'd put an asterisk next to any records they set. As for racing I think within the next decade or so all of the competition ships will probably be sustainers so the discrepancy will actually solve itself.

Well Bob I hear ya there, however with the price tag of sustainer equiped ships, I know there will always be a bunch of us conventional sailplane fliers doing our thing and needing a tow "up the hill".

On 1/10/2018 12:35 PM, wrote:
On Wednesday, January 10, 2018 at 1:10:09 PM UTC-5,
wrote:
Snip...

This very issue [motorgliders] was discussed in the 1950's by the SSA
rules committee, you can find their discussions in the archived records.
I believe the first big discussion was in 1955. At that time they ruled
against allowing motorized gliders to race with conventionals for these
very reasons.


Excluding the motor guys because "they're not like us" may make some
people feel better but it forces them to either go away or form their own
group. Neither option does participation much good. We need all the
participants we can get.
Jeez, it must be winter...here I go trying to convey nuance on RAS.

A part of me struggles to (understand? buy into?) the logic noted by UH. I
understand the general concern involving 'going somewhere else in order to
participate' and the 'need [for] all the participants we can get.' I also
understand the community of 'racing sailplane pilots' is a subset of
'sailplane pilots,' and in that sense a (not entirely informal) subset of SSA.
I'm unconvinced 'racing balkanization' as a concern adequately applies here,
since it's arguably been happening ever since 'the movement' morphed into (for
example) open/15-meter-span classes...continuing until today.

Grouping (associating) seems inherently human, and as far back as the 1830s,
de Tocqueville noted Americans seemed particularly prone to doing so; I
suspect were he capable of observing and commenting today, he wouldn't change
this particular observation. My point: IMO there's nothing inherently 'bad'
with (sub-)associations. As a general approach, it continues to serve EAA
well, f'r'example. FWIW, SSA has historically been reluctant to 'universally
embrace' all aspects of soaring flight, case in point being hang-gliding in
the 1970s.

'U.S. motorglider guys' formed their own association beneath SSA's umbrella
pretty early on. They must not have felt 'forced away' Perhaps it happened
simply because sufficient groundswell within their ranks existed? Something
else...?

I understand the 'infrastructure-based' arguments *for* 'racing
consolidation', e.g. attracting contest organizers in the face of declining
overall participation makes proliferating contest classes problematic. The
'marketplace of ideas' seems to be responding to that these days with various
combined-class contests, and to-date I've not come across any obvious
groundswell that's a bad thing, or that it's an approach driving potential
participants away. If anything, the opposite is true.

Me not/never being a contest pilot, I completely understand and agree with
UH's ending assertion. I'm not so sure I agree with some of the intervening
logic leading to where 'the contest scene' is today. Example? I'm unconvinced
it's an 'either/or situation' as is so often posited in discussions of this sort.

Bob W.

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