Performance World Class design proposal

I don't believe that monoclass as a principle has failed. It is PW-5 which
failed. And it failed because it doesn't stand the competition on glider
market.



"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:58 GMT, "Gldcomp"
wrote:

Applied to Soaring, where a possible "Olympic Class" may still happen one
day, the L/D DOES NOT MATTER.
As it happens with other olympic equipment, the design has to be made
PUBLIC
and available to a central organizing body.
It has to be manufacturable in any part of the world at a reasonable
cost.
External shapes and CGs have to be ABSOLUTELY the same.

... which is unfortunately precisely the concept that already failed
with the PW-5.


Bye
Andreas

(Patrick Edwards) writes:

This is a great topic.

I do like the idea of a class designed around a set of parameters but
I am not in favor of a one design class.
It's too bad that cost is a factor, otherwise it would make sense for
each of us to have a glider for different occasions.
When the World Class was announced I was in favor of multiple
designers competing to meet the parameters set by OSTIV.

Talking to the sailors would be a good idea I think. `One Design' can
mean several things:

A set of design parameters that closely define the craft.

A single design that must be followed within very close limits and no
variation is allowed to be built in.

One, or a very few, aproved builders of boats and only boats built by
them are able to be entered. All mods are totally verbootten. Every so
often builder bid from rights to build for the class.

Also, for Worlds or Olympics it is not unusual for a single batch of
hulls and rigging to be done, with the compeditors getting one by
lot. After they are sold off, thus pumping new ships into the class,
and normally saving the buyers some $$ over a from scratch.



--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.

In article , iPilot
writes
Racing with PW-5's on Olympics is more like racing with Optimist class of
sailboats. We're working to get the Laser done. Or at least Dragon.

How about the IGC Club Class, which already exists and can embrace the
soaring equivalent of Optimist, Dragon and Laser because it is not just
"one design" but compensates over a small performance bracket by
handicapping according to glider performance. You can certainly have a
viable IGC Club Class competition with PW5, Russia, K6, Skylarks and
gliders of similar performance. The organisers simply set the
performance bracket a bit lower than is normally done for Club Class
competitions (which rather sums up why the PW5 has not caught the
imagination of the world gliding movement).

It would appear that the world gliding movement is either too small or
too fragmented to embrace a successful one-design class. It might have
succeeded in the 1940 Olympics (which did not happen for obvious
reasons) with Hans Jacobs' great design, the Meise (also known as the
Olympia), but things have moved on since then. The Standard Class of
the 1950s was a great step forward in making gliders of reasonable cost
viable in competition up to the world level. It also spawned that fine
design the K6 and others. But it did not attempt to be a one-design
class and maybe that is why not only succeeded but is still with us
today. Is there a moral here that we should heed?

--

Ian Strachan
Lasham Gliding Centre

Club Class will never make it to Olympics becuse of the coeficent system and
the fact that technical differences can still make the difference.


"Ian Strachan" wrote in message
...
In article , iPilot
writes
Racing with PW-5's on Olympics is more like racing with Optimist class of
sailboats. We're working to get the Laser done. Or at least Dragon.

How about the IGC Club Class, which already exists and can embrace the
soaring equivalent of Optimist, Dragon and Laser because it is not just
"one design" but compensates over a small performance bracket by
handicapping according to glider performance. You can certainly have a
viable IGC Club Class competition with PW5, Russia, K6, Skylarks and
gliders of similar performance. The organisers simply set the
performance bracket a bit lower than is normally done for Club Class
competitions (which rather sums up why the PW5 has not caught the
imagination of the world gliding movement).

It would appear that the world gliding movement is either too small or
too fragmented to embrace a successful one-design class. It might have
succeeded in the 1940 Olympics (which did not happen for obvious
reasons) with Hans Jacobs' great design, the Meise (also known as the
Olympia), but things have moved on since then. The Standard Class of
the 1950s was a great step forward in making gliders of reasonable cost
viable in competition up to the world level. It also spawned that fine
design the K6 and others. But it did not attempt to be a one-design
class and maybe that is why not only succeeded but is still with us
today. Is there a moral here that we should heed?

--

Ian Strachan
Lasham Gliding Centre

"iPilot" wrote in message
...
Club Class will never make it to Olympics becuse of the coeficent system
and
the fact that technical differences can still make the difference.

Correct.

Nothing in the olympics has any form of handicapping because it has to be a
strictly athlete agains athlete kind of thing.

A simple handicap system like the German will benefit some gliders in weak
weather and others in strong weather.
Certain Handicaps systems, such as the Brazilian one, do compensate for the
effects of weather by applying a "Thermal Index" to the final handicap,
which is extracted from the first glider to complete the task.

But it still is nearly impossible to compensate for longer wingspans having
the freedom to search for the strongest thermals while the "short wings"
have to take more thermal, including weak ones.

In other words, no Handicap system is perfect and they do not work with
olympic sports.

I think that's a theoretical discussion.
The biggest market for sailplanes is in Europe, and it's exactly there where
the idea of a monoclass or a PW5 doesn't interest anybody - at least nobody
who has money to put on the table (be it private owners or clusbs).
Soaring in the rest of the world is just not big enough that anybody could
make a decent living by making monoclass gliders.

And in these conditions, talking about an Olympic Class with an event every
4 years ?! ...

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"iPilot" a écrit dans le message de
...
I don't believe that monoclass as a principle has failed. It is PW-5 which
failed. And it failed because it doesn't stand the competition on glider
market.



"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:58 GMT, "Gldcomp"
wrote:

Applied to Soaring, where a possible "Olympic Class" may still happen
one
day, the L/D DOES NOT MATTER.
As it happens with other olympic equipment, the design has to be made
PUBLIC
and available to a central organizing body.
It has to be manufacturable in any part of the world at a reasonable
cost.
External shapes and CGs have to be ABSOLUTELY the same.

... which is unfortunately precisely the concept that already failed
with the PW-5.


Bye
Andreas

Gerhard. You should look at the Bob's webpage (www.hpaircraft.com) about the work he's doing on HP
24. I personally know a person wh's self educated in aerodynamics and who's building a modern
version of the Horten 3 (different seating position, different profiles, stiffer construction) and
there's and Australian (or NZ?) group of people who are building a short-tailed glider. All of them
are amateurs and afaik, none of them is learned aerodynamics in school.

About the Performance World Class. If the outer shape of the glider is defined precisely enough,
anyone can build a copy without aerodynamical analysis - only construction has to be engineered.


Regards,
Kaido



"Gerhard Wesp" wrote in message ...
Bob Kuykendall wrote:
Eric, you know I disagree that these are huge expenses. I continue to
believe that with modern softwares, and using modern
commercially-available composite products, that sailplane development
is within the grasp of a conscientious amateur.

I disagree. IMHO, sailplane development is an extremely complex task
far out of reach of anybody without some very sound aeronautical
engineering education. And not only that, it also requires a good deal
of experience---read: your first design will not necessarily be the best
one. :-)

That said, I'm open to be proven wrong by counter-examples. Anybody
knows any?

Cheers
-Gerhard

Once more. The reason, why PW5 failed was the fact that it's performance per money spent was dismal.
But the fact that it still got sold somewhat, talks that there is an interest towards monoclass.

If, for example we declare LS-4 a monoclass it'd have a huge number of gliders available already on
the market plus additional production.

And when it's good for a FINN sailor to buy a $20 000 boat for a one competition in 4 years, why it
shall be bad for a LS-4 pilot. National pride is going to open many currently closed pockets forl
gliding.



"Bert Willing" wrote in message
...
I think that's a theoretical discussion.
The biggest market for sailplanes is in Europe, and it's exactly there where
the idea of a monoclass or a PW5 doesn't interest anybody - at least nobody
who has money to put on the table (be it private owners or clusbs).
Soaring in the rest of the world is just not big enough that anybody could
make a decent living by making monoclass gliders.

And in these conditions, talking about an Olympic Class with an event every
4 years ?! ...

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 "TW"


"iPilot" a écrit dans le message de
...
I don't believe that monoclass as a principle has failed. It is PW-5 which
failed. And it failed because it doesn't stand the competition on glider
market.



"Andreas Maurer" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 02:06:58 GMT, "Gldcomp"
wrote:

Applied to Soaring, where a possible "Olympic Class" may still happen
one
day, the L/D DOES NOT MATTER.
As it happens with other olympic equipment, the design has to be made
PUBLIC
and available to a central organizing body.
It has to be manufacturable in any part of the world at a reasonable
cost.
External shapes and CGs have to be ABSOLUTELY the same.

... which is unfortunately precisely the concept that already failed
with the PW-5.


Bye
Andreas

In article , Gldcomp
writes

Nothing in the olympics has any form of handicapping because it has to be a
strictly athlete agains athlete kind of thing.

OK, if that is so, it's probably the Standard and/or 15 metre class, if
the IGC want to try and get into the Olympics in the future.

The main barrier to new sports getting in seems to be the Olympic
organisation itself. I understand that the President and General
Secretary of FAI have made presentations about air sports to IOC
meetings, particularly on parachuting. The International Parachuting
Commission of FAI have wanted to get into the Olympics for some years
now.

--
Ian Strachan
Lasham Gliding Centre
UK

iPilot wrote:

Racing with PW-5's on Olympics is more like racing with Optimist class of
sailboats. We're working to get the Laser done. Or at least Dragon.


Another difference with the Laser is that, as far as I remember, it was not
designed for Olympics, just as a modern sailboat with good performance and
state of the art design operated by a single person. The success of the design
later made it an Olympic class, not the opposite.