IGC 13.5m class discussion

On Jan 28, 8:04*am, Andy wrote:
On Jan 27, 9:39*pm, RRK wrote:



On Jan 26, 4:15*pm, Tim Taylor wrote:

On Jan 26, 11:25*am, T8 wrote:

A new thread, for Rick and John (and me and anyone else):

On Jan 26, 8:56 am, John Cochrane
wrote:

Rick asked about the insane (my opinion) 13.5 meter class, including
the momentous issue of water ballast.

People will race anything they can. *I support that.

I don't support supporting more than about 3 classes at the
international level though. *It's absurdly expensive and just dilutes
the intensity and prestige of the thing. *My own personal view is that
any sort of handicap racing is a waste of time at the international
level. *No handicapping system is truly fair and at that level of
competition arguments of "low cost" and accessibility really don't
wash. *So I'd toss all the handicapped comps. *Oh, and I'd prohibit
motor gliders... or at least restrict them to one of those three
classes. *Have I offended everyone yet?

My three: open (pure glider), 18m (motor permitted), 15m (pure
glider). *Feel free to explain to me why this would not be sufficient.

So: you guys want to race lawn darts or handicapped club class or 2-
seaters, have a ball. *But I object strenuously to sanctioning so many
classes for international comps.

I realize these comments fall outside the current igc agenda. *What
the igc should realize is that their willful deafness on this issue of
class proliferation hasn't caused general acceptance.

-Evan Ludeman */ T8

Evan,

I mostly agree with you, with slightly different classes that should
be supported by the US.

First the US should refuse to join the IGC in the “we have never met a
class we won’t approve” syndrome. *The US should NOT recognize the
13.5 meter class and should not support it at all. *We should also
ignore the new 20 meter class as it does not bring anything new to the
table that is not already represented in the current open class.

From just a numbers standpoint the US should support 15M, 18M and Club
class in the future. *Why these three:

15M and Standard class are essentially one class in performance and
price. *There is no reason to support two classes here and the
representation at the last few Standard Class Nationals says this is a
dying breed. *The 15M continues to be the strongest and best
represented class in the US.

The open class should be allowed to die or at least no longer be
support by US funds because there are too few pilots flying in the
class to make it viable and the competition level does not provide
“World Class” pilots to represent the US. *The era of pushing the
boundaries of soaring by making bigger gliders is mostly over. *The
average pilot is not going to fly a 30M glider and the places you can
safely fly one is limited. *The performance difference over a good 15
to 20M glider is minimal.

The 18M class is here to stay, but could be lumped with the 20M and
called one class. *It is the ideal class for Motorgliders that have
too high a wingloading at 15M.

The Club Class has the potential to be a very strong class if the US
is to embrace it like the rest of the World. *It is the one class that
allows pilots on an average income to race on a fairly even field.
The US needs to start scoring the Club Class as a separate group in
the Sports Class Nationals and to call speed tasks for the pilots
rather than just TAT’s.

If the US made these changes we might be able to focus the limited
resources to truly support the US Team and the competition level would
increase the quality of the pilots representing the US in the World
Championships.

15m, 18m & Club Class in Worlds and
15m, 18m, L/D Up to 1/43 *Sports *in USA
please
Pw-5 pilot

Maybe everyone is missing the point. *Isn't the vote on whether to
allow disposable ballast in an already existing 13.5m class?

http://www.fai.org/gliding/system/fi...finition_13_5m...

Andy

Yes, but... There is the following related item on the IGC agenda:

13. Strategy for the future management of FAI sanctioned competitions
(Eric Mozer/Brian Spreckley/Dick Bradley)

From what I understand the intention actually is to have an open
discussion on the report that will be provided. At least a couple of
us have been suggesting to look at possibly having an agenda item for
further important dicussion topics that might be of interest for many
of us, it is a work in progress to see if we'll be adding additional
item(s) for discussion.

I have been doing a bit of homework as part of this process and wanted
to know some hard facts. Here some interesting statistics I came up
with after some research that might give some food for thought:

WGC 2010 Prievidza
Total: 27 countries, 106 participants
Club: 25 countries, 47 participants
Standard: 23 countries, 46 participants
World: 7 countries, 13 participants
Average team size (pilots): 3.9

WGC 2010 Szeged
Total: 33 countries, 143 participants
15m: 28 countries, 49 participants
18m: 30 countries, 51 participants
Open: 25 countries, 43 participants
Average team size (pilots): 4.3

WGCs 2010 Combined
Total: 34 countries, 249 participants
Average team size (pilots): 7.3

7 countries fielded teams in all WGC 2010 classes
16 countries fielded teams in all WGC 2010 classes ignoring World
Class
0 classes had participation from all WGC 2010 participating countries

~39 countries are with 2010 scores in the OLC

58 countries are represented in the IGC
98 countries are affiliated one way or another with the FAI
12+ FAI countries with gliding activity are not represented in the IGC
2+ FAI countries not represented in the IGC are interested or in the
process of starting up gliding activity
3+ non-FAI countries have gliding activity

~75 countries should be of interest to the IGC

58.6% equal to 34 out of 58 IGC countries participated in the WGCs
2010
~46.6% equal to 34 out of 73 countries with known gliding activity
participated in the WGCs 2010
34.7% equal to 34 out of 98 FAI countries participated in the WGCs
2010

~3.4% equal to ~2 of 58 IGC countries have indivdual National Gliding
Championships in all FAI classes
~17.2% equal to ~10 of 58 IGC countries have individual National
Gliding Championships in all FAI classes except World Class

This means that 82.8% equal to 48 out of 58 IGC countries are not
capable of fielding individual National Gliding Championships in all
FAI classes and are combining classes likely using in almost all cases
handicap systems, many of them homebrewn. The US might soon join this
group due to the increasing challenge of holding national
championships with sufficient participation in all classes... As a
tidbit, e.g. in Argentina (a much smaller gliding community than the
US) the rules require 15 participating pilots in a class to have a
valid national championship, the last one for World Class had to be
canceled due to not having sufficient pilots. The last US Standard &
Open Nationals had 10 and 8 scoring US pilots...

2 continents have FAI Continental Championships
1 continent has FAI Continental Championships with all FAI classes
1 continent has FAI Continental Championships using two handicapped
classes via FAI waiver

South America started having continental championships in 2008, the
first continent outside Europe to do so. Because of the equipment
available the South American continental championships are currently
flown in two handicapped classes, the two held until now using the
homebrewn Argentinian handicap system with an FAI waiver from what I
know (both were held in Argentina)...

Markus Graeber
Aeroclub de Colombia/Albuquerque Soaring Club
IGC Delegate Colombia

On Jan 28, 9:36*am, Markus Graeber wrote:
...
~3.4% equal to ~2 of 58 IGC countries have indivdual National Gliding
Championships in all FAI classes
~17.2% equal to ~10 of 58 IGC countries have individual National
Gliding Championships in all FAI classes except World Class

This means that 82.8% equal to 48 out of 58 IGC countries are not
capable of fielding individual National Gliding Championships in all
FAI classes and are combining classes likely using in almost all cases
handicap systems, many of them homebrewn.

The 82.8% is ignoring the World Class which is pretty much history
anyway, if you include World Class it is a whopping 96.6%. Now if you
add the 13.5m class as a replacement class for World Class you
probably end up somewhere inbetween those 2 numbers assuming it will
be at least a bit more popular than the World Class. All these numbers
are not yet including the new 20m class that is being introduced on
the World Champoinship level...

Markus

On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:37:52 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Experienced Sparrow Hawk pilots one
man rig without a 800 dollar one man rigger.

For the $44.000 you currently have to pay for a Sparrowhawk you can
buy a really nice ASW-20 and at least 15 one-man riggers of $800
each...



There are seveal really neat gliders that will
be able to fly in the 13.5 meter class. Think of all the time,
effort, and money that has been spent designing and building these
gliders.

If you have not tried it, don't ____ _____ __.

Problem of any less-than-15m class is that noone is interested in such
a glider in the countries where soaring is poular (German, Austria,
France, UK, et cetera), therefore - as Markus Graeber pointed out -
participation in an international contest in such a class is always
going to be poor. No manufacturer is ever going to design a glider
that offers less performance than current club-class ships.



What I always wonder about:
Since most of these gliders are concentrated in the US, why don't you
simply organize your own contest and ignore the IGC classes?

One of the most popular competitions in Germany is the "Pokal der
alten Langohren", a competition for obsolete open class ships like
ASW-17 and Nimbus 2. Since a couple of years we have competitions for
obsolete 15m-class ships, Ka-8, the French have an ASK-13
competition...



Andreas

I support the creation of the new 13.5 meter class. *In the past 11
summers I have flown a glider with less than a 13.5 meter span more
than 1200 hours and 30, 000 miles cross country. *Having been involved
in soaring off and on for over fifty years, I have also flown gliders
with spans of 15 to 19 meters about the same amount of time and miles.

There some pretty neat things about short wing gliders. *They tend to
be lighter and easier to rig than larger gliders. *This is nice for
older flyers and their older helpers. Just picking up the tail of many
of our 30 year gliders to put on a tail dolly can result in a hernia
for a 63 year old flyer. Moving the lighter gliders around on the
ground is easier. *For example getting a PW-5 or Sparrow Hawk off of a
busy GA airport runway is a snap. *Experienced Sparrow Hawk pilots one
man rig without a *800 dollar one man rigger.

Short wings increase the number of safe land out places. *I have
landed the short wings in about ten places that would have totaled a
15 or 18 meter glider. *The lower landing energy and speed of a
lighter glider is also a plus.

To me all gliders are pretty slow moving. *The sensations in small or
large gliders are about the same, the main difference is the speed on
the score sheet. *We all seem to try to return to our starting place
at the end of the day anyway.

I left soaring in 1978. *I had a Standard Libelle which I loved but
was not (in my mind) competitive. *I decided to do something different
and started racing sail boats. *I noticed that the less expensive and
smaller the boat the more fun and comradship in the fleet. *I do not
know why that is the case, but that is my opinion. *In soaring the
last ten years, it seems to me that the people really having the most
fun are the 1-26 ers.

I do not see that continuing to have a place for short wing gliders to
race and set records really takes anything away from any other class.
I think it is especialy neat that the class is being opened up gliders
other than the PW-5. *There are seveal really neat gliders that will
be able to fly in the 13.5 meter class. *Think of all the time,
effort, and money that has been spent designing and building these
gliders.

If you have not tried it, don't ____ *_____ __.

Bill Snead
6W

Bill:

Your points are well taken, and my comments were not one of the usual
anti-PW5 rants on r.a.s.

The main point is that your PW5 -- or any other light weight, easy to
fly, easy to rig and inexepensive glider -- will not last long in 13.5
meter class. You will not have a place to race the glider you like so
much, or any other like it.

The PW5 is already not the highest performing 13.5 meter glider. And
the minute anyone produces a modern 13.5 meter glider whose design is
optimized for performance, you're really toast. That's true whether or
not they allow ballast. An optimized no-ballast glider with a modern
wing, aerodynamic fuselage, and high wingloading will easily
outperform the PW5.

The outcome of this class is inevitable.There will be one worlds with
a mix of gliders. In the next one, only the highest performing
existing glider will show up. (russia? sparrowhawk? silent? I haven't
kept up.) and all the others will again have no place to race.

The minute a new glider is designed for world level competition in
this class, retire all of the above from racing. The new glider will
look like a scaled down ASW27. (Or maybe a scaled up version of those
monster RC models we've seen on r.a.s. lately). It will cost nearly as
much too. It will be relatively useless as an easy to fly, assemble,
etc. club glider.

We've been through all this before. The IGC split standard class in
two, so that existing flapped (Pik 20) and unflapped (Standard cirrus)
gliders would each have a home. In 3 years new gliders came out
(Discus, ventus, 19,20) optimized to each classes' rules, and those
existing gliders were all obsolete. Until club came along.

So where are you going to race a PW5 in a few years? You'll be toast
in 13.5 meter class. The club class is growing and they won't let you
in. Sports class is either going to die out, or become a ridiculous
class combining only PW5 and Nimbus 4. And that's only in the US.
There is no sports in the rest of the world.

The only answer to keep YOU racing in YOUR PW5 is a handicapped class
for lower performance gliders. I would think you'd be leading the
charge.

John Cochrane

Maybe everyone is missing the point. *Isn't the vote on whether to
allow disposable ballast in an already existing 13.5m class?

http://www.fai.org/gliding/system/fi...finition_13_5m...

Andy

Yes, but when they ask, "should we put roses or tulips on the coffin?"
it's certainly worth asking, "well, ok, tulips, but do you really have
to shoot the patient?"

John Cochrane

Interesting thread!



One class design lawn-dart racing is already established in the USA.......
1-26 (Why buy a PW-5 in the first place?)

Most likely to succeed if declared "the" World's one-class design racing
glider.......ASW-27 (dry) (Sexy, light wings, outstanding performance for
badge flying, recreational flying when not racing.) In fact, due to its
popularity here in the USA many regional 15m contests were essentially a one
class design contest. Cost of ownership decreasing due to the
proliferating 18m class ASG-29's



Distill racing into 3 classes: (There are choices to make here according
to the competitor's preference....but it all comes out in the wash. Take
your pick)-------


1) Open/18m (wing loading or wing span?)

2) Standard/15m (flaps or no flaps? No biggee, really! Flaps in wrong
setting = hindrance.

3) Club Class (Don't show up to race with a very low 1-26/pw-5 or very high
performance Nimbus 4/ASW-22 glider! Wanna race club/handicapped?.....buy
the right glider.

Emphasis: Less numerous classes with larger numbers of competitors per
class!! = More FUN! (Thank You John Cochrane)



That said......Anybody for the first USA high-performance one class design
national race using dry ASW-27's ? Held at, say...... Caesar Creek? ;-)
(no, I don't own one)


J4
18m/LS-10

On Jan 28, 11:29*am, "John" wrote:
Interesting thread!

One class design lawn-dart racing *is already established in the USA........
1-26 * (Why buy a PW-5 in the first place?)

Most likely to succeed if declared "the" World's one-class design racing
glider.......ASW-27 (dry) *(Sexy, light wings, outstanding performance for
badge flying, recreational flying when not racing.) * *In fact, due to its
popularity here in the USA many regional 15m contests were essentially a one
class design contest. * Cost of ownership decreasing due to the
proliferating 18m class ASG-29's

Distill racing into 3 classes: * *(There are choices to make here according
to the competitor's preference....but it all comes out in the wash. *Take
your pick)-------

1) Open/18m * *(wing loading or wing span?)

2) Standard/15m *(flaps or no flaps? *No biggee, really! * Flaps in wrong
setting = hindrance.

3) Club Class *(Don't show up to race with a very low 1-26/pw-5 or very high
performance Nimbus 4/ASW-22 glider! * *Wanna race club/handicapped?......buy
the right glider.

Emphasis: *Less numerous classes with larger numbers of competitors per
class!! *= More FUN! * *(Thank You John Cochrane)

That said......Anybody for the first USA high-performance one class design
national race using dry ASW-27's ? * Held at, say...... Caesar Creek? * ;-)
(no, I don't own one)

J4
18m/LS-10


Why to reinvent the wheel?
Club Class A as defined by FAI, up to Worlds
Club Class B as flown in Europe. up to Nationals

Club B includes all low performance gliders and most Trainers.
(ASK-21, PW-6, Grob, Puchacz, Blanik? and others).
Overall, lots of fun and great intro to sport. Good practice before
20m two sit competitions.
GR8

On Jan 28, 10:05*am, John Cochrane
wrote:
So where are you going to race a PW5 in a few years? You'll be toast
in 13.5 meter class. The club class is growing and they won't let you
in.

Just to be clear, the reason the Club Class is keeping to a restricted
handicap range and specified gliders within that range is that it
makes for better handicapped racing. Its a well proven concept (except
here in the US) and draws from a LARGE number of relatively affordable
gliders worldwide ( and could from @ 1100+ just on the US register).

I know that the PW is very competitive against ships like the Libelle
- I know because pilots at PW Worlds waxed me with their PW's. But you
can not task the current Club Class ships with a PW on assigned tasks
(which many pilots still love and want to fly) and expect both to get
a "fair shake."

A Club Class "B" is an excellent idea to keep these ships racing - but
what are the raw numbers of potential gliders in a "B" Club Class? and
how many would turn up at a contest? We have an idea but we simply
don't know. But like with IGC Club Class here in the US, if we want to
explore the concept, we need to run the contests. Then let the chips
fall where the interest is actually generated.

Tim McAllister EY

On Jan 28, 4:55*pm, Tim wrote:
On Jan 28, 10:05*am, John Cochrane
wrote:

So where are you going to race a PW5 in a few years? You'll be toast
in 13.5 meter class. The club class is growing and they won't let you
in.

Just to be clear, the reason the Club Class is keeping to a restricted
handicap range and specified gliders within that range is that it
makes for better handicapped racing. Its a well proven concept (except
here in the US) and draws from a LARGE number of relatively affordable
gliders worldwide ( and could from @ 1100+ just on the US register).

I know that the PW is very competitive against ships like the Libelle
- I know because pilots at PW Worlds waxed me with their PW's. But you
can not task the current Club Class ships with a PW on assigned tasks
(which many pilots still love and want to fly) and expect both to get
a "fair shake."

A Club Class "B" is an excellent idea to keep these ships racing - but
what are the raw numbers of potential gliders in a "B" Club Class? and
how many would turn up at a contest? We have an idea but we simply
don't know. But like with IGC Club Class here in the US, if we want to
explore the concept, we need to run the contests. Then let the chips
fall where the interest is actually generated.

Tim McAllister EY

I am embarrassed. I thought the new 13.5 meter class was to be
handicapped. I should have been better informed before making a
comment.

Bill Snead
6W

On Jan 28, 6:05*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
I support the creation of the new 13.5 meter class. *In the past 11
summers I have flown a glider with less than a 13.5 meter span more
than 1200 hours and 30, 000 miles cross country. *Having been involved
in soaring off and on for over fifty years, I have also flown gliders
with spans of 15 to 19 meters about the same amount of time and miles.

There some pretty neat things about short wing gliders. *They tend to
be lighter and easier to rig than larger gliders. *This is nice for
older flyers and their older helpers. Just picking up the tail of many
of our 30 year gliders to put on a tail dolly can result in a hernia
for a 63 year old flyer. Moving the lighter gliders around on the
ground is easier. *For example getting a PW-5 or Sparrow Hawk off of a
busy GA airport runway is a snap. *Experienced Sparrow Hawk pilots one
man rig without a *800 dollar one man rigger.

Short wings increase the number of safe land out places. *I have
landed the short wings in about ten places that would have totaled a
15 or 18 meter glider. *The lower landing energy and speed of a
lighter glider is also a plus.

To me all gliders are pretty slow moving. *The sensations in small or
large gliders are about the same, the main difference is the speed on
the score sheet. *We all seem to try to return to our starting place
at the end of the day anyway.

I left soaring in 1978. *I had a Standard Libelle which I loved but
was not (in my mind) competitive. *I decided to do something different
and started racing sail boats. *I noticed that the less expensive and
smaller the boat the more fun and comradship in the fleet. *I do not
know why that is the case, but that is my opinion. *In soaring the
last ten years, it seems to me that the people really having the most
fun are the 1-26 ers.

I do not see that continuing to have a place for short wing gliders to
race and set records really takes anything away from any other class.
I think it is especialy neat that the class is being opened up gliders
other than the PW-5. *There are seveal really neat gliders that will
be able to fly in the 13.5 meter class. *Think of all the time,
effort, and money that has been spent designing and building these
gliders.

If you have not tried it, don't ____ *_____ __.

Bill Snead
6W

Bill:

Your points are well taken, and my comments were not one of the usual
anti-PW5 rants on r.a.s.

The main point is that your PW5 -- or any other light weight, easy to
fly, easy to rig and inexepensive glider -- will not last long in 13.5
meter class. You will not have a place to race the glider you like so
much, or any other like it.

The PW5 is already not the highest performing 13.5 meter glider. And
the minute anyone produces a modern 13.5 meter glider whose design is
optimized for performance, you're really toast. That's true whether or
not they allow ballast. An optimized no-ballast glider with a modern
wing, aerodynamic fuselage, and high wingloading will easily
outperform the PW5.

The outcome of this class is inevitable.There will be one worlds with
a mix of gliders. In the next one, only the highest performing
existing glider will show up. (russia? sparrowhawk? silent? I haven't
kept up.) and all the others will again have no place to race.

The minute a new glider is designed for world level competition in
this class, retire all of the above from racing. The new glider will
look like a scaled down ASW27. (Or maybe a scaled up version of those
monster RC models we've seen on r.a.s. lately). It will cost nearly as
much too. It will be relatively useless as an easy to fly, assemble,
etc. club glider.

We've been through all this before. The IGC split standard class in
two, so that existing flapped (Pik 20) and unflapped (Standard cirrus)
gliders would each have a home. In 3 years new gliders came out
(Discus, ventus, 19,20) optimized to each classes' rules, and those
existing gliders were all obsolete. Until club came along.

So where are you going to race a PW5 in a few years? You'll be toast
in 13.5 meter class. The club class is growing and they won't let you
in. Sports class is either going to die out, or become a ridiculous
class combining only PW5 and Nimbus 4. And that's only in the US.
There is no sports in the rest of the world.

The only answer to keep YOU racing in YOUR PW5 is a handicapped class
for lower performance gliders. I would think you'd be leading the
charge.

John Cochrane

I have to agree with John, the 13.5m class only makes sense as a
handicapped class.

Going through the history of the decision in the IGC, if my memory
serves me right, a number of things took place:

The initial push was for a new ultralight class. This plea was then
conveniently mixed with the problem of what to do with the failed
World Class. When the vote was brought forth for the creation of the
13.5m class, the question of allowing handicaps or not was tagged onto
the decision with the recommending group suggesting that handicaps
should apply. However, there was discussion on whether this would
stifle innovation and in the end the argument for innovation and no-
handicaps won the day. It is very possible to speculate that the IGC
was not ready for the particulars of this and that proper reflection
on the issues did not take place.

To start with, the 13.5m class has its origins in the need to further
the development of the sport. Here were all these people flying
ultralight gliders in various nations and what the IGC rightly felt
was the need to give these people a competitive home and encourage
them to develop their numbers rather than see them drift towards other
air sports.

The benefits of an ultralight glider are that it costs less and in
most cases can be fairly light and easy to operate. Of course when it
is light and easy to operate it is not high performance.

While the argument for innovation is good, in this situation it means
that the person who wants to win this class will develop a
specialized, exotic material, high-wing-loading glider, which will
neither be cheaper than current high-performance gliders, nor will it
be simple to operate. Visions of finding the perfect recipe and then
making thousands of these, therefore bringing down the price can be
discounted -- we already have the World Class experience.

So what will happen is that we will end up with this highly
specialized expensive machine that will turn up at the comps and we
can forget the people in these cheap convenient machines we made the
class for in the first place.

And in the end, do we really want innovation in the 13.5m class? For
the past years we have seen absolutely no innovation in standard
class. The Diana is so good that some people prefer to ban it rather
than develop a new glider to beat it. Where we see innovation is the
very active18 meter and of course open class. If we want innovation in
the shorter wingspan classes, why not develop a special class for 15
or 18 meter boundary layer suction wings and see short wingspans fly
with the performance of open class or better?

So the main question I feel we must address is this: can we look at
the decision to take out the handicaps in new light and see if we can
revisit it? The IGC has to seriously consider this before it goes down
the path of creating another failed class.

Alexander Georgas