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#51
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
What with the sucky weather, the woeful education and
inbreeding, the outcome would be identical in either case. Evidently I must add the term delusional to my list... John Carlyle And there I was thinking soaring attracted only the nicest people. Delusional, indeed! Ray Cornay |
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 24, 11:44 am, Ray Jay wrote:
What with the sucky weather, the woeful education and inbreeding, the outcome would be identical in either case. Evidently I must add the term delusional to my list... John Carlyle And there I was thinking soaring attracted only the nicest people. Delusional, indeed! Ray Cornay I've done you a favor, then - I've introduced you to reality. You can thank me later, after you're better adjusted. -John |
#53
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 18, 6:53*pm, "John Godfrey (QT)"
Now it may be true that handicaps need more work to keep the playing field level, but I believe that the new approach moves us from excluding some of our best pilots based on finances and becomes much more inclusive. John Godfrey (QT) US Rules Committee John, I think that statement really gets at the heart of the competitive issue and is what many of the folks who fly Club Class gliders know - handicaps don't (and can't) ever work over the range of performance that we allow in the Sports Class. If we can come to grips with that one fact, then I think the debate becomes more logical or at least can be made more constructive. I believe it's a fact that a lot of Europeans figured out years ago, and they've moved forward from that point. There have been multiple efforts in the past to make handicapping "better" to accomodate a wide range of gliders. Who can forget wind- capping? But, all this does is make the rules more complicated and opens up further complications as we dig deeper into the factors affecting competition (inter-thermal-distance-capping?). So, the sooner we abandon the idea that it's possible for a 201 Libelle to compete fairly against an ASG-29 across the wide range of conditions encountered in a typical soaring contest, the sooner we can have a clear-headed discussion about Club Class. Respectfully, Erik Mann |
#54
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team Selection Policy Changes
I'm actually very pleased to see more discussion and hopefully some reality set in for contest flying that allows the less "affluent" or those who simply enjoy soaring is some less than "state-of-the art" 100K plus gliders have a place to compete fairly. I started years ago with sponsoring at the local regional contest a "sports class" prize for the highest finishing "club class glider" at the event. The rule for the prize was simple.....the winner had to be flying a "non-current" design sailplane...If the model was still in current production then it didn't qualify for the prize.. The problem as I saw it was there was no way that any handicap would allow a K6 to compete even with a handicap with an ASW27 or Ventus 2..you can take all the arguments that put the old or the new glider at an advantage but they just don't let competitors fly in the same class on an even scale..It was for this simple reason that all the POST tasks were created and all the modified versions of POST tasks..before we started putting "golf" handicaps into soaring.(I've never figured out how golf got to be so popular when someone who stinks at the game can be given enough advantage to beat a good player and they still call it "competition".we did this to soaring...so gone from Sports call were called tasks, it was impossible to call a contest with fixed turnpoints that a Nimbus 4 and a Cirrus would be able to complete without an under or over call of the task. The point is there was never a reason to create a contest task for a 1-26 and a Nimbus to compete in...for the very low performance gliders like the 1-26 and the Pw5's they already had their own class, and for that matter their own championships...for the guys with the big fancy open class gliders there already was an open class...those that "choose" to buy the very latest (($$$$)) 15M or standard class gliders didn't "need" to fly in sports class either...they "bought" the glider they wanted and in front of them was the class created for them.nuff said.the only ones that didn't have a class that was truly their own were those 1,000's of owners of lower cost, past generation racing class gliders, from Libelle's to ASW20's and the like.....these were could handicap and still have fixed course called contest tasks....throw away the past 10-15 years of mathematically trying to win a contest and let the best pilot win in his chosen machine... Doesn't anyone miss the good old days of having a CD call out 3-4 turnpoints all in sequence and see who can do the very best job of getting around the same course, making their own decisions and letting luck and great math skills play out in the casino's rather than in a soaring contest? The days of seeing your competition on his way home after making a left turn over the IP not miles from it, and knowing he flew the same course that I did but did it better were encouraging and kept it fun, at leas for me..I think for others as well. I have not flown even a regional contest in many years....to be honest, under the current rules really don't care if I do again, but if given the opportunity to without all the math and what if's I could see myself jumping in again.... or we can once again have another years worth of new rules and changes to the trigonometry to decide who did the best at the contest. respectfully Tim Mara "Papa3" wrote in message ... On Sep 18, 6:53 pm, "John Godfrey (QT)" Now it may be true that handicaps need more work to keep the playing field level, but I believe that the new approach moves us from excluding some of our best pilots based on finances and becomes much more inclusive. John Godfrey (QT) US Rules Committee John, I think that statement really gets at the heart of the competitive issue and is what many of the folks who fly Club Class gliders know - handicaps don't (and can't) ever work over the range of performance that we allow in the Sports Class. If we can come to grips with that one fact, then I think the debate becomes more logical or at least can be made more constructive. I believe it's a fact that a lot of Europeans figured out years ago, and they've moved forward from that point. There have been multiple efforts in the past to make handicapping "better" to accomodate a wide range of gliders. Who can forget wind- capping? But, all this does is make the rules more complicated and opens up further complications as we dig deeper into the factors affecting competition (inter-thermal-distance-capping?). So, the sooner we abandon the idea that it's possible for a 201 Libelle to compete fairly against an ASG-29 across the wide range of conditions encountered in a typical soaring contest, the sooner we can have a clear-headed discussion about Club Class. Respectfully, Erik Mann __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5478 (20100925) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5478 (20100925) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com |
#55
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 25, 7:22*am, Papa3 wrote:
On Sep 18, 6:53*pm, "John Godfrey (QT)" Now it may be true that handicaps need more work to keep the playing field level, but I believe that the new approach moves us from excluding some of our best pilots based on finances and becomes much more inclusive. John Godfrey (QT) US Rules Committee John, I think that statement really gets at the heart of the competitive issue and is what many of the folks who fly Club Class gliders know - handicaps don't (and can't) ever work over the range of performance that we allow in the Sports Class. * If we can come to grips with that one fact, then I think the debate becomes more logical or at least can be made more constructive. * I believe it's a fact that a lot of Europeans figured out years ago, and they've moved forward from that point. There have been multiple efforts in the past to make handicapping "better" to accomodate a wide range of gliders. *Who can forget wind- capping? *But, all this does is make the rules more complicated and opens up further complications as we dig deeper into the factors affecting competition (inter-thermal-distance-capping?). So, the sooner we abandon the idea that it's possible for a 201 Libelle to compete fairly against an ASG-29 across the wide range of conditions encountered in a typical soaring contest, the sooner we can have a clear-headed discussion about Club Class. Respectfully, Erik Mann It's a matter of degree isn't it? I remember way back when that people said an ASW-19 (much less a Libelle) couldn't compete with a Discus when the Discus first came out. Any time you have two gliders that come from different molds you will find that one is better suited for certain conditions (or all conditions) than another. Handicaps are imperfect and not aways 100% fair, but so are weather conditions, task types, task calls, portions of the rules. If you put a fine enough point on it we'd all be in our own one-ship class. The question is do handicaps ensure that the better pilots end up in roughly the right place on the scoresheet most of the time? If the answer is 'no' then we should do away with handicapping altogether. Having competed against a number of pilots flying both Club Class and non-club class gliders over a significant number of contest days I believe that the handicap system works well enough to include current generation Std and 15M gliders in selection for Club Class for the WGC. I think 18M class is a marginal call if the contest has a lot of challenging weather. Overall I've seen Twin Astir's beat Duos, ASW-24s beat Ventus 2's. I do strongly disagree with your comment Tim that it is a good idea to try to build the club Class at the expense of Sports Class. My personal view it that such a path sacrifices significant opportunities to bring new competition pilots into the sport in order to benefit of a small number of pilots. The last Sports Class Nationals had 8 two- seat gliders competing - most with pilots new to competition in at least one of the seats. It's a question of numbers. If Club Class can put up solid numbers of national caliber pilots then it is a legitimate way to pick a team. If it can also bring significant numbers of new pilots into racing then it is worth investing in. If it becomes another World Class benefitting a very small number of pilots then it is not worth investing in. The experience to-date has been mostly the latter. The approach to me is simple - put the onus on pilots flying Club Class gliders to build the class. Open WGC selection up as described in the selection committee proposal - but only until such time as Club Class gets their numbers up. Create sub-scoring of Club Class gliders within Sports Class so it is absolutely transparent how Club Class pilots are faring within the larger Sports Class. Then the Club Class' future is totally within the control of Club Class pilots, but we still have a way of selecting WGC team members from a competitive process. 9B |
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 25, 12:32*pm, Andy wrote:
On Sep 25, 7:22*am, Papa3 wrote: On Sep 18, 6:53*pm, "John Godfrey (QT)" Now it may be true that handicaps need more work to keep the playing field level, but I believe that the new approach moves us from excluding some of our best pilots based on finances and becomes much more inclusive. John Godfrey (QT) US Rules Committee John, I think that statement really gets at the heart of the competitive issue and is what many of the folks who fly Club Class gliders know - handicaps don't (and can't) ever work over the range of performance that we allow in the Sports Class. * If we can come to grips with that one fact, then I think the debate becomes more logical or at least can be made more constructive. * I believe it's a fact that a lot of Europeans figured out years ago, and they've moved forward from that point. There have been multiple efforts in the past to make handicapping "better" to accomodate a wide range of gliders. *Who can forget wind- capping? *But, all this does is make the rules more complicated and opens up further complications as we dig deeper into the factors affecting competition (inter-thermal-distance-capping?). So, the sooner we abandon the idea that it's possible for a 201 Libelle to compete fairly against an ASG-29 across the wide range of conditions encountered in a typical soaring contest, the sooner we can have a clear-headed discussion about Club Class. Respectfully, Erik Mann It's a matter of degree isn't it? I remember way back when that people said an ASW-19 (much less a Libelle) couldn't compete with a Discus when the Discus first came out. *Any time you have two gliders that come from different molds you will find that one is better suited for certain conditions (or all conditions) than another. Handicaps are imperfect and not aways 100% fair, but so are weather conditions, task types, task calls, portions of the rules. *If you put a fine enough point on it we'd all be in our own one-ship class. The question is do handicaps ensure that the better pilots end up in roughly the right place on the scoresheet most of the time? *If the answer is 'no' then we should do away with handicapping altogether. Having competed against a number of pilots flying both Club Class and non-club class gliders over a significant number of contest days I believe that the handicap system works well enough to include current generation Std and 15M gliders in selection for Club Class for the WGC. I think 18M class is a marginal call if the contest has a lot of challenging weather. Overall I've seen Twin Astir's beat Duos, ASW-24s beat Ventus 2's. I do strongly disagree with your comment Tim that it is a good idea to try to build the club Class at the expense of Sports Class. My personal view it that such a path sacrifices significant opportunities to bring new competition pilots into the sport in order to benefit of a small number of pilots. *The last Sports Class Nationals had 8 two- seat gliders competing - most with pilots new to competition in at least one of the seats. It's a question of numbers. If Club Class can put up solid numbers of national caliber pilots then it is a legitimate way to pick a team. If it can also bring significant numbers of new pilots into racing then it is worth investing in. *If it becomes another World Class benefitting a very small number of pilots then it is not worth investing in. *The experience to-date has been mostly the latter. The approach to me is simple - put the onus on pilots flying Club Class gliders to build the class. Open WGC selection up as described in the selection committee proposal - but only until such time as Club Class gets their numbers up. Create sub-scoring of Club Class gliders within Sports Class so it is absolutely transparent how Club Class pilots are faring within the larger Sports Class. Then the Club Class' future is totally within the control of Club Class pilots, but we still have a way of selecting WGC team members from a competitive process. 9B Andy, maybe handicaps work in very strong conditions you have in the West, but they do not work (for such range of gliders) in the East where sometimes we fly a task at just over 3000 feet and often no more than 4500 feet. This is the reality, the handicaps do not work over such wide range of gliders. |
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team Selection Policy Changes
I do strongly disagree with your comment Tim that it is a good idea to try to build the club Class at the expense of Sports Class. My personal view it that such a path sacrifices significant opportunities to bring new competition pilots into the sport in order to benefit of a small number of pilots. The last Sports Class Nationals had 8 two- seat gliders competing - most with pilots new to competition in at least one of the seats. I don't think the potential is for a "small number of pilots" there are certainly far more glider pilots and gliders that do not participate than there are total number of pilots of all categories that fly contests. If you are looking only to satisfy those who are already flying contest then leave it as it is, these guys are apparently happy enough with status as it is....if you are looking at broading interest in contest flying then it's apparent that every year changing the rules, tweaking handicaps and having more of the same discussions isn't working. It's a question of numbers. If Club Class can put up solid numbers of national caliber pilots then it is a legitimate way to pick a team. If it can also bring significant numbers of new pilots into racing then it is worth investing in. If it becomes another World Class benefitting a very small number of pilots then it is not worth investing in. The experience to-date has been mostly the latter. 9B not everyone is concerned that the end to all contest is to crown the next world team....I dare to suggest that relatively few of even the current partisipants have a chance or even care that there is a potential to be on a world team....we're speaking of the sport of flying gliders and doing something that actually in the scheme of all things is there to creat an interest in fun....soaring contest are the social event for all of soaring, for what it's worth, the "fly-in" for glider pilots tim __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5479 (20100925) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com |
#58
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 25, 10:36*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
I do strongly disagree with your comment Tim that it is a good idea to try to build the club Class at the expense of Sports Class. My personal view it that such a path sacrifices significant opportunities to bring new competition pilots into the sport in order to benefit of a small number of pilots. *The last Sports Class Nationals had 8 two- seat gliders competing - most with pilots new to competition in at least one of the seats. I don't think the potential is for a "small number of pilots" there are certainly far more glider pilots and gliders that do not participate than there are total number of pilots of all categories that fly contests. If you are looking only to satisfy those who are already flying contest then leave it as it is, these guys are apparently happy enough with status as it is....if you are looking at broading interest in contest flying then it's apparent that every year changing the rules, tweaking handicaps and having more of the same discussions isn't working. It's a question of numbers. If Club Class can put up solid numbers of national caliber pilots then it is a legitimate way to pick a team. If it can also bring significant numbers of new pilots into racing then it is worth investing in. *If it becomes another World Class benefitting a very small number of pilots then it is not worth investing in. *The experience to-date has been mostly the latter. 9B not everyone is concerned that the end to all contest is to crown the next world team....I dare to suggest that relatively few of even the current partisipants have a chance or even care that there is a potential to be on a world team....we're speaking of the sport of flying gliders and doing something that actually in the scheme of all things is there to creat an interest in fun....soaring contest are the social event for all of soaring, for what it's worth, the "fly-in" for glider pilots tim |
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 25, 10:36*am, "Tim Mara" wrote:
I do strongly disagree with your comment Tim that it is a good idea to try to build the club Class at the expense of Sports Class. My personal view it that such a path sacrifices significant opportunities to bring new competition pilots into the sport in order to benefit of a small number of pilots. *The last Sports Class Nationals had 8 two- seat gliders competing - most with pilots new to competition in at least one of the seats. I don't think the potential is for a "small number of pilots" there are certainly far more glider pilots and gliders that do not participate than there are total number of pilots of all categories that fly contests. If you are looking only to satisfy those who are already flying contest then leave it as it is, these guys are apparently happy enough with status as it is....if you are looking at broading interest in contest flying then it's apparent that every year changing the rules, tweaking handicaps and having more of the same discussions isn't working. It's a question of numbers. If Club Class can put up solid numbers of national caliber pilots then it is a legitimate way to pick a team. If it can also bring significant numbers of new pilots into racing then it is worth investing in. *If it becomes another World Class benefitting a very small number of pilots then it is not worth investing in. *The experience to-date has been mostly the latter. 9B not everyone is concerned that the end to all contest is to crown the next world team....I dare to suggest that relatively few of even the current partisipants have a chance or even care that there is a potential to be on a world team....we're speaking of the sport of flying gliders and doing something that actually in the scheme of all things is there to creat an interest in fun....soaring contest are the social event for all of soaring, for what it's worth, the "fly-in" for glider pilots Agreed. This thread started, however, as a discussion about a proposed change in WGC team selection criteria for Club Class. If it's all about fun then the proposed change in WGC team selection should be a non-issue for most pilots. I'd be quite happy to score Club Class as a subset of Sports Class until such time that Club Class has grown enough to stand on its own (that IS the proposition being put forward after all, that Club Class will grow significantly). Then it might be worth the tradeoff of leaving Duos and Arcuses and DG-1000s and Nimbus 2s and 3s and Grob Twins and ASK-21s and Russias and Ka-8s without a class to fly in at a number of regionals because there are too few of them. If you look at the actual numbers at regionals you find that the total number of Sports/Club Class gliders often number around 5-8, more or less evenly divided between Club and non-Club Class gliders. Dividing it in two without generating significant growth would be ill-advised. So, how do we prove that Club Class will grow without taking the fun out by forcing large-scalle reshuffling of classes? (e.g. forcing everyone fly Sports, or Open or 18M to try to get to enough competitors to make a class). My suggestion, above, would be to score and recognize the best scoring Club Class glider within Sports Class, then you can prove the theory rather than just talk about it. No one is going to make permanent changes to the rules without evidence that the rationale for the change is valid. The rationale here is if we separate out Club Class it will grow significantly. I am not sure what you mean when you say rule changes decrease interest in flying contests. I'm sure many people resisted introduction of GPS, new task types that no longer require a ground crew, end of worm-burner finishes at zero feet, loss of redline starts and introduction of Sports Class. But I would argue that all these changes increased, rather than decreased interest in contest flying. If we took your suggestion to end the tweaking of handicaps by eliminating them then all those non-FAI or old generation gliders would have to fly in Std, 15M, 18M or Open. I think that would be less fun overall. There is no point to handicaps if you have to stick with them despite evidence that they are off - these days it seems we only correct handicaps for the occasional glider type that doesn't fly often in competition. What we have right now is too few pilots flying across too many classes - it creates problems for organizers - decreases fun for competitors (IMO) and makes competitions less competitive. If adding classes doesn't increase the ranks of competition pilots it weakens the argument to do it in the first place. 9B |
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Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team SelectionPolicy Changes
On Sep 25, 12:32*pm, Andy
It's a matter of degree isn't it? I remember way back when that people said an ASW-19 (much less a Libelle) couldn't compete with a Discus when the Discus first came out. *Any time you have two gliders that come from different molds you will find that one is better suited for certain conditions (or all conditions) than another. Handicaps are imperfect and not aways 100% fair, but so are weather conditions, task types, task calls, portions of the rules. *If you put a fine enough point on it we'd all be in our own one-ship class. The question is do handicaps ensure that the better pilots end up in roughly the right place on the scoresheet most of the time? *If the answer is 'no' then we should do away with handicapping altogether. 9B Of course it's a matter of degree. But, when you have a 50:1 glider (40:1 at 80kts) competing against a 35:1 glider (20:1 at 80kts), then you really aren't flying the same race. It's not about speed at that point... it's about being able to cross a 20 mile blue hole from 4,000 feet or fight a 20kt headwind. Since the FAI has already created a pretty reasonable range of performance in the Club Class, why re- invent that wheel? As far as the best pilots winning, I think we can point to many cases where potentially winning pilots flying lower performance ships were unable to compete tasks on weak days when good pilots flying current ships were able to get around. I think the Elmira Sports Class Nationals were a great example. I have nothing but respect and admiration for John Seymour - I count him as a friend. . But, I know of at least 2 or 3 pilots in that contest who, if not his equal, are certainly close enough to be nipping at his heals on any given day. Those pilots chose to abandon their regular ships and fly lower performing ships. They could barely get out of the start gate on two of the days and ended up finishing well down on the scoresheet - far below their usual placing in the top 5 of competitive regionals or even nationals. In summary, if the working band is low, the thermals are widely spaced, or the wind is blowing, no amount of speed handicapping will help if you're sitting in a farmer's field. P3 |
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