Contest Class Development for Future Success - The Case fordeveloping the Handicapped Classes

Money is an easy scapegoat but not the root of the problem. Look around and see where people spend discretionary cash. Skiing, car racing, RVs, drones, computers, the list is long. People have the cash they choose to spend it elsewhere.

If each club just ate the fees to scholarship a kid it would not help very much and be super low risk to the organization since very few would take up on the offer.

Racing classes are similar. Yes travel is a huge expense for contests. Changing classes isn’t s fix. Maybe changing he format is the way to go.. GPS opens a huge possibility for tasking yet the rules are completely attached to the camera era. Contests have not changed much since the 60s and 70s. Many sports have multiple disciplines within and give out a championship to each discipline.

For example biathlon has a sprint, pursuit, mass start, individual, and s few relays. Why not emulate this with soaring contests. Set a short, med, and long task.. what about a MAT and OLC style task with one winner for each. The current format punishes a bad day. Change it up and try something else on the racing scene. If the sport is dying where is the risk in taking a chance?

Adding classes has been done for years and is diluting things and has also not brought more into the sport. Aviation has an image problem not a money problem.

On Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 4:45:59 AM UTC-6, wrote:
Money is an easy scapegoat but not the root of the problem. Look around and see where people spend discretionary cash. Skiing, car racing, RVs, drones, computers, the list is long. People have the cash they choose to spend it elsewhere.

If each club just ate the fees to scholarship a kid it would not help very much and be super low risk to the organization since very few would take up on the offer.

Racing classes are similar. Yes travel is a huge expense for contests. Changing classes isn’t s fix. Maybe changing he format is the way to go. GPS opens a huge possibility for tasking yet the rules are completely attached to the camera era. Contests have not changed much since the 60s and 70s. Many sports have multiple disciplines within and give out a championship to each discipline.

For example biathlon has a sprint, pursuit, mass start, individual, and s few relays. Why not emulate this with soaring contests. Set a short, med, and long task.. what about a MAT and OLC style task with one winner for each. The current format punishes a bad day. Change it up and try something else on the racing scene. If the sport is dying where is the risk in taking a chance?

Adding classes has been done for years and is diluting things and has also not brought more into the sport. Aviation has an image problem not a money problem.

The sport is dying because of a general lack of interest in aviation. The interest in aviation is dying, in large part, due to expense, or perceived expense. There are ways to make it more affordable, but initial capital outlay for a club is still a very large amount of money.

Same with sailing ⛵�

On Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 9:03:32 PM UTC-4, ripacheco1967 wrote:
Same with sailing ⛵�

Sailing offers some parallels but it has vastly more people participating worldwide than soaring. For example the Royal Yachting Association estimates that about 151,000 people participated in small sailboat racing in 2011 in the UK alone.

I found sailing at a local club level is cheaper, easier and safer than gliding. And they use either strict one-design classes or handicaps to level the playing field for racing. No need to buy the latest tech to have fun and be competitive.

The current situation in world gliding is analagous to ocean yacht racing: rich old men in super ships out of sight over the horizon.

Sailplane racing only needs three classes:
1. High Rollers - any glider less than five years old.
2. Regular Class - any glider between five and thirty five years old.
3. Junk Class - all gliders 35 years old.

snip
The sport is dying because of a general lack of interest in aviation. The interest in aviation is dying, in large part, due to expense, or perceived expense. There are ways to make it more affordable, but initial capital outlay for a club is still a very large amount of money.

I would venture that the ubiquity of so called "smart phones" has done a
lot to cause lack of interest in anything beyond the plastic appendage.

--
Dan, 5J

On Thursday, May 23, 2019 at 8:29:36 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
snip
The sport is dying because of a general lack of interest in aviation. The interest in aviation is dying, in large part, due to expense, or perceived expense. There are ways to make it more affordable, but initial capital outlay for a club is still a very large amount of money.

I would venture that the ubiquity of so called "smart phones" has done a
lot to cause lack of interest in anything beyond the plastic appendage.

--
Dan, 5J
Agreed!