Future of 15m

With the rise in popularity of 18m soaring, what do you guys think will be the future of 15m? Are there enough advantages of 15m over 18m for it to continue to have a strong place in competition? It seems most manufacturers are now making 18m sailplanes, that can be converted to 15m, but they primarily start or come as 18m now. Thoughts?

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 12:47:41 PM UTC-8, John Foster wrote:
With the rise in popularity of 18m soaring, what do you guys think will be the future of 15m? Are there enough advantages of 15m over 18m for it to continue to have a strong place in competition? It seems most manufacturers are now making 18m sailplanes, that can be converted to 15m, but they primarily start or come as 18m now. Thoughts?

One indication would be the number of pilots attending US Nationals.

Overall participation is slowly declining for a whole host of reasons I won't get into. The relative level of participation and rate of decline varies a lot by class.

18M - Currently the best-attended FAI nationals with an average participation of 25 pilots over the past 5 years and participation gradually declining by about 1 pilot every 7 years since 1997. Participation had been good the last couple of years, but a lot of short term variation is related to site selection and idiosyncratic factors.

15M - Second most popular class with 23 pilots attending a Nationals on average over 5 years with a more rapid decline of around 1.7 pilots per year. 15/18 gliders ought to keep the 15M Nationals going for awhile as pilots tend to elect to do either 15 or 18 based on geographic proximity (not many people drive across the country for a contest anymore).

Open - Contracted to a dedicated 10-20 pilots attending Nationals, depending on venue (13 average). The emergence of 18/21M gliders may help sustain Open. On average participation has fallen by about one pilot per 3-4 years.

Standard - Lowest participation and steepest 20-year decline. 10 pilots on average (12 if you don't count the goose-egg at Hobbs in 2014). Standard has lost 2 pilots per year on average since 1997, but has been flat at right around the minimum number required for a valid contest since 2009.

Here are some charts to show the actual data:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-v...59xCUDFrF9pdYu

Hope that helps.

Andy Blackburn (9B) - on behalf of the Contest Rules Committee

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 5:05:49 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 12:47:41 PM UTC-8, John Foster wrote:
With the rise in popularity of 18m soaring, what do you guys think will be the future of 15m? Are there enough advantages of 15m over 18m for it to continue to have a strong place in competition? It seems most manufacturers are now making 18m sailplanes, that can be converted to 15m, but they primarily start or come as 18m now. Thoughts?

One indication would be the number of pilots attending US Nationals.

Overall participation is slowly declining for a whole host of reasons I won't get into. The relative level of participation and rate of decline varies a lot by class.

18M - Currently the best-attended FAI nationals with an average participation of 25 pilots over the past 5 years and participation gradually declining by about 1 pilot every 7 years since 1997. Participation had been good the last couple of years, but a lot of short term variation is related to site selection and idiosyncratic factors.

15M - Second most popular class with 23 pilots attending a Nationals on average over 5 years with a more rapid decline of around 1.7 pilots per year.. 15/18 gliders ought to keep the 15M Nationals going for awhile as pilots tend to elect to do either 15 or 18 based on geographic proximity (not many people drive across the country for a contest anymore).

Open - Contracted to a dedicated 10-20 pilots attending Nationals, depending on venue (13 average). The emergence of 18/21M gliders may help sustain Open. On average participation has fallen by about one pilot per 3-4 years..

Standard - Lowest participation and steepest 20-year decline. 10 pilots on average (12 if you don't count the goose-egg at Hobbs in 2014). Standard has lost 2 pilots per year on average since 1997, but has been flat at right around the minimum number required for a valid contest since 2009.

Here are some charts to show the actual data:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-v...59xCUDFrF9pdYu

Hope that helps.

Andy Blackburn (9B) - on behalf of the Contest Rules Committee

Andy,
I think we have to go beyond Nationals to address this properly. Harder to do as you need to map glider to native class for all the regionals.

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 2:38:59 PM UTC-8, John Godfrey (QT) wrote:
Andy,
I think we have to go beyond Nationals to address this properly. Harder to do as you need to map glider to native class for all the regionals.

Yeah, that's more work that I was willing to do. Nationals participation is an okay leading indicator.

The other thing to think about is you can always fly Sports and there are occasionally mixed FAI contests. Generally, organizers don't want to turn pilots away so I wouldn't be too concerned that anyone is going to pull the plug on 15M anytime soon.

Last year, the average PRL score for competitors at FAI Nationals was 94 for 18M, 92 for Open, 91 for standard and 90 for 15M, so high-quality pilots continue to fly all classes at the Nationals level at least.

Lots of very good 15M gliders out there - Standard too.

9B

I fly a 29, never flown a 27 but I can tell you what you get in a 29 that you do not get in a 27. A 29 has wings that are 50 pounds heavier per side! So add in the extra 100 pounds in wing weight, throw in $50,000 mix it together and you get a 4-5% increase in performance. I do love the 29, but if I had a modern 15 meter, I would not look to "upgrade", unless of course I was going open class! As far as racing there is top flight competition in 15 meters from regional level through WGC level.



On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 8:40:30 PM UTC-8, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 2:38:59 PM UTC-8, John Godfrey (QT) wrote:
Andy,
I think we have to go beyond Nationals to address this properly. Harder to do as you need to map glider to native class for all the regionals.

Yeah, that's more work that I was willing to do. Nationals participation is an okay leading indicator.

The other thing to think about is you can always fly Sports and there are occasionally mixed FAI contests. Generally, organizers don't want to turn pilots away so I wouldn't be too concerned that anyone is going to pull the plug on 15M anytime soon.

Last year, the average PRL score for competitors at FAI Nationals was 94 for 18M, 92 for Open, 91 for standard and 90 for 15M, so high-quality pilots continue to fly all classes at the Nationals level at least.

Lots of very good 15M gliders out there - Standard too.

9B

Sounds like for competitive soaring to endure in the US, there needs to be a significant push to get more people involved. Sounds like there needs to be more focus on young people, getting them involved from an early age.

I'm from MT, and there is apparently only 1 soaring club in the state, and it is a solid 4hr drive from where I live. And from what I'm told, they are not very active, if at all. Yet there is an airport 1 mile from my house with a whole fleet of Piper Pawnees (used mostly for wildland firefighting). Not a whole lot of money locally, but the place would make for stunning soaring!

On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 3:47:41 PM UTC-5, John Foster wrote:
With the rise in popularity of 18m soaring, what do you guys think will be the future of 15m? Are there enough advantages of 15m over 18m for it to continue to have a strong place in competition? It seems most manufacturers are now making 18m sailplanes, that can be converted to 15m, but they primarily start or come as 18m now. Thoughts?

15 Meter class has lots of competitive gliders at what many see as reasonable cost. Values are pretty stable.
My opinion is that they give a great deal of performance while being convenient to own and fly. Assembling my '29 takes almost twice as long and is a lot more effort than my '27 was. It also cost me 66% more than my '27 and the hull portion of my insurance is proportionately higher.
The 18's built now have 2 piece wings to make the trailers shorter and the weight and bulk of the wings less. The break point can easily be put where it is practical to provide compromise 15M tips. The bigger span has the benefit of keeping span loading reasonable when the engine that 80% of new buyers want is installed.
When asked the question I always suggest 15 vs 18 from a balanced perspective.
That said, I love my '29.
With the large number of good ships available at reasonable(your view may differ) cost, I expect 15M will be around a long time.
FWIW
UH

There are many places where I have flown cross-country where landing out in a 15m ship is a much easier proposition than anything 18m or larger. Many desert or farm strips are designed for crop-dusters or Cessnas. Here in the desert Southwest, conditions are also strong most of the time so that there are few benefits of longer wings.

If you want longer wings, better get a (reliable) engine!

Mike

Yes, reliable engines: that would be nice. Unfortunately no
motor gliders have Honda engines; second best might be a
Stemme with a proper 4 stroke?
However the Stemme (S10) is something of a heavy weight
with handling to match: enjoyable yes, capable yes, but if you
could choose to fly a modern 15m or the Stemme you'd choose
the 15m if handling pleasure mattered to you.
I hope the 15m class has a future; I think it's one problem is
wing loading when an engine is on board - hence all the
18m/20m/21m/25m stuff with engines. So you just need to be
a purist and fly "proper" gliders, I used to do this and it is
great up until the moment you have to put your sparkly new
$100K+ carbon fibre ship into an unknown field or some dirt
strip in the middle of a desert. Then you can suddenly
understand why most of those new German ships are bought
with engines.....

As any owner will tell you: there is no such thing as a reliable
motor glider, absolutely all their engines can be guaranteed to
work sometimes, often when you actually need them

Dave