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Time for Separate 18m Records?



 
 
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  #31  
Old April 22nd 20, 05:19 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Roy B.
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Default Time for Separate 18m Records?

OK - But moving past the diversion to a motor glider/sustainer discussion, it remains the case that the FAI and many countries hold a separate championship for 18 meter gliders. If the class deserves its own championship - why not it's own record category?
ROY

  #32  
Old April 22nd 20, 07:05 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Time for Separate 18m Records?

On Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 6:34:22 PM UTC-4, wrote:
“13.5m is just historical burden of massively failed class that should have no record category or competition class”

Well thats a slap in the face to all us guys flying them! Stick you ass in one of these short wing birds and set a record before you condemn the whole class.

If guys are worried that state, national, and world records are no longer attainable without oudles of money or super ships look at the 13 meter record lists, there are many areas where a person of meager means can chase records specially at the state level..

Dan
Holder of 6 13n records


Dan: you are making the assumption that 13.5m gliders are affordable. Some low-performance models are, but as the expensive, higher-performance ones become more common, it will be more difficult to set even state records in a low-performance glider. E.g., I was all hot to set 13.5m state records in my 12.6m Russia AC4, but then a fellow club member bought a Mini-LAK, with "full-size" 13.5m wings, flaps, ballast etc, which has (according to the official handicaps) a 25% performance advantage. So now I think I'll concentrate on Sports Class records.

In any case, the whole point (to me) is to challenge myself to go farther faster. In states where the official records (in some class) are sparse, trying for them is one way to do that. I fly in a small state. In larger states with more established records that is a much higher bar, simply given the history of other pilots' achievements. Witness the "reset the records" thread. So one is limited to other ways to measure ones' exploits against others, e.g., OLC.
  #33  
Old April 22nd 20, 08:19 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
jfitch
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Default Time for Separate 18m Records?

On Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 9:19:06 AM UTC-7, Roy B. wrote:
OK - But moving past the diversion to a motor glider/sustainer discussion, it remains the case that the FAI and many countries hold a separate championship for 18 meter gliders. If the class deserves its own championship - why not it's own record category?
ROY


I've no problem with a separate 18m record class. If it is done due to a perceived disparity in performance, I'd assert that the difference between 15 and 18m is less than that between other differentiators (for example, glider age). Price classes would flatten that disparity, as it would in the 13.5m class.

I'll agree it is incongruous to have separate classes for contests but not for records.
  #34  
Old April 23rd 20, 05:26 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
5Z
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Default Time for Separate 18m Records?

On Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 5:46:47 PM UTC-7, Roy B. wrote:

The difference arises when you are far from home and faced with a decision that might put you on the
ground. The fellow with the motor has a tool that makes that decision much less consequential. This is
why I believe that the records should be different categories.


So I flew a ASW-20B for about 15 years, then upgraded to ASH-26E in 2001. Flew each for about 1500 hours and many long flights with a number of records in each. A few years ago I traded the ASH-26E for a ASW-27b. Essentially the same glider performance-wise.

My wife and I work full time, but she retired near the time I switched gliders. As a nurse, she couldn't take a Monday off due to a long retrieve on Sunday. Before 2001, we did have a few late retrieves and got home just in time to take a shower and go to work after an all night drive. Ugh!

I compare the ASH-26E to a 1-26 (in which I even did diamond goal). In the 1-26, the crew is generally a few minutes away after landing out. A bad day is when the glider landed on one side of an obstacle and access requires driving several hours to get to the field that was only a mile away. in the motorglider, a bad day is the engine failing to start, landing in a nice field, and waiting hours for the crew to arrive. A good day is the crew catching the wing on landing the 1-26 -or- the engine starts and I can motor home, or climb back into the good air.

Best I can tell, I've taken the same "risks" the last few years without the motor as I did when I had the '26E. I almost never needed the engine to get home, and now I still almost never land out. The difference is that now I know we can just take our time with the retrieve and I can always take Monday off, or just go in to work late. I've had to relight a couple times, and have landed a few miles outbound. Those would have been fixed by a motor.

What if I could fly the way we did at the Hilton Ranch? Fly hard and after a land out, just wait for the helicopter to come get me. Then a crew will get the the glider and have it ready to fly the next morning. OK, so the one time I landed out, they sent a towplane :-)

You can buy a lot of aero retrieves for the cost of a motor. Or a decent motorhome to spend the night in at the landout location. :-)

So yeah, a motorglider provides a lot of convenience. But a lot of $$, a full time crew, and spare time does too.

5Z
 




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