Potential Club Class (US Sports Class) World Team Selection Policy 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

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

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

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

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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

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.

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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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

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

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