Does USA need a Club Class?

Stewart Kissel wrote:
But then I fall into the category of non-racer making
suggestions for something I don't participate in....so
I will refrain from further ideas....

Of course, the key to keeping all racing viable sport in US, is to make
sure that we don't end up with a bunch of classes (or rules) that end up
killing any interest amongst those pilots who haven't tried racing. So
I, for one (a "semi-racer", as I only do one or two contests per year),
think the ideas that you and other "non-racers" (even M B ;^) come up
with are every bit as valuable as those from "racers"...

Marc

Stewart Kissel wrote:
OOOHHH...I think you may be onto something here JJ...

A class for ras posters only? Or maybe Kennedy assassination
conspiracy believers? Lots of possibilities....

In response to the other parallel thread....my last
post may have been unclear...I am not suggesting more
entries allowed per contest...rather races being set
up for the most contestants...ie a 50 contestant National
Club Class vs a 15 contestant Open Class Nat...

It may not be as poor a use of resources at it first seems, because
low-participation classes like Open Class Nationals are usually run
concurrently with another class; for example, this year the Open Class
Nationals will overlap the Region 8 regional contest, so the same
towplanes, facilities, contest director, etc., are used.

Way in the past, I suggested we have handicapping similar to what is now
the Club Class, but use it for the Standard and 15 meter classes so
older gliders (within, say, 10% of the newest and best) would still be
competitive. Not much interest at the time!

While I like the Club Class concept, I suspect having one would not
increase the contest participation, but would reduce the Sports Class
participation as some pilots shifted to the Club Class. It would be a
great survey question, I think!


But then I fall into the category of non-racer making
suggestions for something I don't participate in....so
I will refrain from further ideas....

In the '80s, when I was an SSA director, I thought it was a weakness of
our contest system that it did seek out the opinions of those that WERE
NOT racing. It is still a weakness. I hope that a way will be found to
include people that might become racers so their opinions can also help
guide the rules committee. In other words, make increasing participation
a goal of the rules, not just pleasing the pilots ALREADY racing.

--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Wasn't Kimo single-seat ground attack? I recall him touting the
advanatages of dumb bombs on 60 Minutes (over the Maverick). That would
make him a defacto bomb aimer, no? Looks like you need one more layer
of insulation, JJ.

John Sinclair wrote:
How about a Ex-military, over 70, class? Oops, that
would include 7V and KS. OK, how about Rerited military,
over 70? No that still leaves KS. OK, now I got it................
Retired military bomb-aimers, over 70, class? Bet I
just found a class I can win.
:) JJ

The Club Class and 2-seater class works in europe because
there is a
bunch of those ships available (from the neumerous
clubs) In the US our
ships are 98% privately owned and one can enter sports
class where you
can 'fly what you brung'.
JJ

I think that the term 'Club Class' is slightly misleading.
Certainly in the UK the vast majority of 'club class'
competing gliders are not club owned. I would say that
in the UK Club Class Nationals 85-90% of the gliders
are privately owned (if not more). Thus, it is not
popular in Europe because there are no private owners.
I rather think that it is popular because it allows
people to get into a class which can be competed in
at World level for a fraction of the cost of new gliders.


As for whether the US needs a club class, I suspect
the sports class satisfies most of the objectives.


Owain

we don't need another class...we just need to fix the one we have.....

I proposed years ago that we modify the Sports class "more or less" to the
very successful European Club Class (they actually have two versions there
for standard class gliders and 15 meter gliders called the "racing class)
My (and others) suggestion was to eliminate gliders from the Sports class
that already had a "competitive" class of their own....
Doing this I suggested the sports class would 'disallow" any "current
production" competition glider or variation thereof, from Sports class
competition.
Meaning..if you have a "racing" glider that is of a series currently being
produced you'd have to fly it in the respective class it was designed for
(15M, Standard, open and yes, world class) . If you have a glider that has
been surpassed by more competitive models from the manufacturer,then it
could be handicapped and allowed into sports class... The main idea with
this was to allow closer handicapping and allow older gliders (lower cost)
to fly with their pilots competitively and let them fly in called tasks
rather than having to design new scoring systems to meet the broadest array
of handicaps.
The other change to sports class I suggested was that no one would be
allowed to fly in a sports class "National" contest, that had not
participated in a Sports class regional contest within the preceding 3
years, thus keeping the class "pure" .....since it seems pilots who
otherwise snub their noses at sports class seem to rush top attend only when
there is a title at stake....and then of course as we see it today, show up
in droves to fly their latest ship...
I never got any flack from these proposals except of course from those who
were already fling the latest and greatest ships......but even most of them
admitted in the past it would be beneficial to promoting the sports class
and would allow owners on lesser budgets with older gliders a place to
compete where they could more or less evenly match themselves and their
ships and bring more into the sport or glider racing..which can't be bad for
any of us...
anyway.my 2c are there again.....
tim

--
Wings & Wheels
www.wingsandwheels.com



wrote in message
oups.com...

MC wrote:
Any thoughts on the idea of creating a Club Class similar to the
model used
in Europe?

Mike

We got one, its called Sports Class. My God, we now have something like
8 classes, the last thing we need is ANOTHER CLASS.
JJ

Tim Mara wrote:
we don't need another class...we just need to fix the one we
have.....

I proposed years ago that we modify the Sports class "more or less"
to the
very successful European Club Class (they actually have two versions
there
for standard class gliders and 15 meter gliders called the "racing
class)
My (and others) suggestion was to eliminate gliders from the Sports
class
that already had a "competitive" class of their own....
Doing this I suggested the sports class would 'disallow" any "current

production" competition glider or variation thereof, from Sports
class
competition.
Meaning..if you have a "racing" glider that is of a series currently
being
produced you'd have to fly it in the respective class it was designed
for
(15M, Standard, open and yes, world class) . If you have a glider
that has
been surpassed by more competitive models from the manufacturer,then
it
could be handicapped and allowed into sports class... The main idea
with
this was to allow closer handicapping and allow older gliders (lower
cost)
to fly with their pilots competitively and let them fly in called
tasks
rather than having to design new scoring systems to meet the broadest
array
of handicaps.
The other change to sports class I suggested was that no one would be

allowed to fly in a sports class "National" contest, that had not
participated in a Sports class regional contest within the preceding
3
years, thus keeping the class "pure" .....since it seems pilots who
otherwise snub their noses at sports class seem to rush top attend
only when
there is a title at stake....and then of course as we see it today,
show up
in droves to fly their latest ship...
I never got any flack from these proposals except of course from
those who
were already fling the latest and greatest ships......but even most
of them
admitted in the past it would be beneficial to promoting the sports
class
and would allow owners on lesser budgets with older gliders a place
to
compete where they could more or less evenly match themselves and
their
ships and bring more into the sport or glider racing..which can't be
bad for
any of us...
anyway.my 2c are there again.....
tim

--
Wings & Wheels
www.wingsandwheels.com


Can't argue with any of that, Tim, but where are you going to draw the
line? The V1's and 20's are still quite potent machines. How about the
Genesis, its out of production. I do like your proposal to only allow
real sports pilots to compete, but then it wouldn't be all that hard to
log a sports regionals every 3 years just to keep ones options open.
What I see is a lot of local pilots will fly sports nats when they are
close and the other nationals when they are close. That's what I do and
kind-a like it that way.

JJ

I recommended that the CH handicaps simply
be squared for Sports class.

The PW-2 with 2.15 becomes 4.62
The Nimbus 3DM with .75 becomes .56

1-26 1.62 2.62
2-33 1.84 3.38
L-13 1.46 2.13
G103 1.15 1.32
ASW20 0.90 0.81

So the Nimbus would need to go 8.2 times faster (or
further or whatever) to beat the PW-2 driver.

This would favor the lower performance ships. Really,
isn't the importance of Sports Class to make it distinct?
I think squaring the handicap would make it much more
insteresting and distinct.

And the PW-2 guy doing a 30km task vs. the Nimbus guy
with
a 250km task sounds like a real race to me!

And a 2-33 vs an ASW-20 SHOULD get about a 4:1 advantage,
instead of a 2:1 advantage.

I'd like to see this scoring at our fun meet coming
up...

As far as the other classes, I'm not sure how the
'standard' class has lived so long. Also, every contest
seems to be a 'seniors' contest anyway, so dunno about
that
one :P

A 2-place contest class? Sports and open-unlimited
should be enough for this.

Finally, who cares about motorglider class? For the
flying portion of the contest, isn't it just the 'fixed
ballast' class?
These guys say 'it's just a glider' so I'd like to
see it just treated that way. I'm aware of the subtlety
of 'landouts' but I
think there is an elegant way to even the playing field
for this
(some penalty for landout, doubled for engine use).

So those are four I'm not so sure about.

Sports, 15 meter, and open-unlimited seem to be the
three
real viable ones. With the squared handicap, lowest
performers
will tend to Sports, the tilters and flappers that
qualify will
go 15-meter, and the sexy big glass in open.

I think every successful multiclass contest has at
least two of these three classes, right? The rest
seem to be very 'specialty' classes. Nothing wrong
with that, except it gets a little harder to get throngs
motivated for so many 'class' competitions

At 17:00 04 April 2005, wrote:

Tim Mara wrote:
we don't need another class...we just need to fix
the one we
have.....

I proposed years ago that we modify the Sports class
'more or less'
to the
very successful European Club Class (they actually
have two versions
there
for standard class gliders and 15 meter gliders called
the 'racing
class)
My (and others) suggestion was to eliminate gliders
from the Sports
class
that already had a 'competitive' class of their own....
Doing this I suggested the sports class would 'disallow'
any 'current

production' competition glider or variation thereof,
from Sports
class
competition.
Meaning..if you have a 'racing' glider that is of
a series currently
being
produced you'd have to fly it in the respective class
it was designed
for
(15M, Standard, open and yes, world class) . If you
have a glider
that has
been surpassed by more competitive models from the
manufacturer,then
it
could be handicapped and allowed into sports class...
The main idea
with
this was to allow closer handicapping and allow older
gliders (lower
cost)
to fly with their pilots competitively and let them
fly in called
tasks
rather than having to design new scoring systems to
meet the broadest
array
of handicaps.
The other change to sports class I suggested was that
no one would be

allowed to fly in a sports class 'National' contest,
that had not
participated in a Sports class regional contest within
the preceding
3
years, thus keeping the class 'pure' .....since it
seems pilots who
otherwise snub their noses at sports class seem to
rush top attend
only when
there is a title at stake....and then of course as
we see it today,
show up
in droves to fly their latest ship...
I never got any flack from these proposals except
of course from
those who
were already fling the latest and greatest ships......but
even most
of them
admitted in the past it would be beneficial to promoting
the sports
class
and would allow owners on lesser budgets with older
gliders a place
to
compete where they could more or less evenly match
themselves and
their
ships and bring more into the sport or glider racing..which
can't be
bad for
any of us...
anyway.my 2c are there again.....
tim

--
Wings & Wheels
www.wingsandwheels.com


Can't argue with any of that, Tim, but where are you
going to draw the
line? The V1's and 20's are still quite potent machines.
How about the
Genesis, its out of production. I do like your proposal
to only allow
real sports pilots to compete, but then it wouldn't
be all that hard to
log a sports regionals every 3 years just to keep ones
options open.
What I see is a lot of local pilots will fly sports
nats when they are
close and the other nationals when they are close.
That's what I do and
kind-a like it that way.

JJ


Mark J. Boyd

Can't argue with any of that, Tim, but where are you going to draw the
line? The V1's and 20's are still quite potent machines. How about the
Genesis, its out of production. I do like your proposal to only allow
real sports pilots to compete, but then it wouldn't be all that hard to
log a sports regionals every 3 years just to keep ones options open.
What I see is a lot of local pilots will fly sports nats when they are
close and the other nationals when they are close. That's what I do and
kind-a like it that way.

JJ


Obviously the rules committee could have "some" hand in this...and of course
they would have, but it've pretty obvious to anyone who watches the results
what gliders are competing in the FAI classes and which ones are no longer
showing up there....
It was justa very few seasons ago when the 15M class was filled with
ASW20's, LS6's and Ventus........but look now....if you see even one or 2
there it's a suprise......so where are they now??? sitting at a club when
the contest is nearby?? that's actually the point...in part )
as for flyinga regional to fly a national.that seems a no brainer to
me.....and many others
tim

the problem with this handicapping is that you still have PW5's and Nimbus's
in the same class......you can never properly handicap such a
field......and, there already is a class for the PW5 (World class) and one
for the Nimbus (Open class) and 126's have their own class too.....
a small restriction to who can fly what will go a long way towards allowing
everyone to fly a 100K, 200K or 300K on the same day....and, like the FAI
classes, even see another glider during the day. Not simply fly alone and to
wherever and have no clue how they are doing, or learn by following others
of "like" performance
tim
"M B" wrote in message
...
I recommended that the CH handicaps simply
be squared for Sports class.

The PW-2 with 2.15 becomes 4.62
The Nimbus 3DM with .75 becomes .56

1-26 1.62 2.62
2-33 1.84 3.38
L-13 1.46 2.13
G103 1.15 1.32
ASW20 0.90 0.81

So the Nimbus would need to go 8.2 times faster (or
further or whatever) to beat the PW-2 driver.

This would favor the lower performance ships. Really,
isn't the importance of Sports Class to make it distinct?
I think squaring the handicap would make it much more
insteresting and distinct.

And the PW-2 guy doing a 30km task vs. the Nimbus guy
with
a 250km task sounds like a real race to me!

And a 2-33 vs an ASW-20 SHOULD get about a 4:1 advantage,
instead of a 2:1 advantage.

I'd like to see this scoring at our fun meet coming
up...

As far as the other classes, I'm not sure how the
'standard' class has lived so long. Also, every contest
seems to be a 'seniors' contest anyway, so dunno about
that
one :P

A 2-place contest class? Sports and open-unlimited
should be enough for this.

Finally, who cares about motorglider class? For the
flying portion of the contest, isn't it just the 'fixed
ballast' class?
These guys say 'it's just a glider' so I'd like to
see it just treated that way. I'm aware of the subtlety
of 'landouts' but I
think there is an elegant way to even the playing field
for this
(some penalty for landout, doubled for engine use).

So those are four I'm not so sure about.

Sports, 15 meter, and open-unlimited seem to be the
three
real viable ones. With the squared handicap, lowest
performers
will tend to Sports, the tilters and flappers that
qualify will
go 15-meter, and the sexy big glass in open.

I think every successful multiclass contest has at
least two of these three classes, right? The rest
seem to be very 'specialty' classes. Nothing wrong
with that, except it gets a little harder to get throngs
motivated for so many 'class' competitions

At 17:00 04 April 2005, wrote:

Tim Mara wrote:
we don't need another class...we just need to fix
the one we
have.....

I proposed years ago that we modify the Sports class
'more or less'
to the
very successful European Club Class (they actually
have two versions
there
for standard class gliders and 15 meter gliders called
the 'racing
class)
My (and others) suggestion was to eliminate gliders
from the Sports
class
that already had a 'competitive' class of their own....
Doing this I suggested the sports class would 'disallow'
any 'current

production' competition glider or variation thereof,
from Sports
class
competition.
Meaning..if you have a 'racing' glider that is of
a series currently
being
produced you'd have to fly it in the respective class
it was designed
for
(15M, Standard, open and yes, world class) . If you
have a glider
that has
been surpassed by more competitive models from the
manufacturer,then
it
could be handicapped and allowed into sports class...
The main idea
with
this was to allow closer handicapping and allow older
gliders (lower
cost)
to fly with their pilots competitively and let them
fly in called
tasks
rather than having to design new scoring systems to
meet the broadest
array
of handicaps.
The other change to sports class I suggested was that
no one would be

allowed to fly in a sports class 'National' contest,
that had not
participated in a Sports class regional contest within
the preceding
3
years, thus keeping the class 'pure' .....since it
seems pilots who
otherwise snub their noses at sports class seem to
rush top attend
only when
there is a title at stake....and then of course as
we see it today,
show up
in droves to fly their latest ship...
I never got any flack from these proposals except
of course from
those who
were already fling the latest and greatest ships......but
even most
of them
admitted in the past it would be beneficial to promoting
the sports
class
and would allow owners on lesser budgets with older
gliders a place
to
compete where they could more or less evenly match
themselves and
their
ships and bring more into the sport or glider racing..which
can't be
bad for
any of us...
anyway.my 2c are there again.....
tim

--
Wings & Wheels
www.wingsandwheels.com


Can't argue with any of that, Tim, but where are you
going to draw the
line? The V1's and 20's are still quite potent machines.
How about the
Genesis, its out of production. I do like your proposal
to only allow
real sports pilots to compete, but then it wouldn't
be all that hard to
log a sports regionals every 3 years just to keep ones
options open.
What I see is a lot of local pilots will fly sports
nats when they are
close and the other nationals when they are close.
That's what I do and
kind-a like it that way.

JJ


Mark J. Boyd

1) Standard
... 10) 1-26
All these have a Nationals. So, JJ missed a few.

Technically, the 1-26 Association makes it own rules for its (international)
Championships, not SSA, let alone FAI, although I take the broader sense of
"we" and "having" a Nationals, in which case you might even go on to Vintage
(VSA), Aerobatics (IAC/EAA) or Intercollegiate (CSA -- ask me about it)...
I really only bring this up to point out that, by contrast, SSA does have an
official Nationals scheme for FAI-inspired X/C soaring classes...

11) Juniors (including Rudy Mozer Champion trophy)
12) Women
with "the" Nationals being a pseudo-contest of best scores obtained at ANY
SSA-sanctioned Nationals (past Junior Champions have done their thing in
World Class, Sports, 15m, Std...).

--JHC