German Club class championship calls a +500KM task!

Check out the website for the German 2009 Club Class Championships!
Sorry it is in German but a translator will let you see the important
info. The impressive 504KM task at 95kmh in a Libelle.
http://www.lsv-schwarzwald.de/pages/dmwinzeln2009.php/

Bob

Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

On May 28, 6:27*am, Bob wrote:
Check out the website for the German 2009 Club Class Championships!
Sorry it is in German but a translator will let you see the important
info. The impressive 504KM task at 95kmh in a Libelle.http://www.lsv-schwarzwald.de/pages/dmwinzeln2009.php/

Bob

On May 28, 6:48*am, wrote:
Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

Impressive - Tim's example rightly takes the wind out of the argument
that the US needs a separate Club Class based on the belief that Club
Class gliders can't go out on "big boy" tasks.

9B

"Andy" wrote in message
:

On May 28, 6:48 am, wrote:
Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

Impressive - Tim's example rightly takes the wind out of the argument
that the US needs a separate Club Class based on the belief that Club
Class gliders can't go out on "big boy" tasks.

9B

Andy, I don't follow your logic at all. Seems to me that it conversely
provides the reasons that we do need a separate class.

No one who has pushed for a separate club class here in the USA have
done so because they think that vintage or club class gliders cannot do
long, fast flights. The problem is that heretofore in the USA if you
had a ship that is less than the latest, then your only option is to fly
in Sports Class if you want to have a chance to be competitive. In
Sports Class, because of the usually very wide performance capabilities
of the entrants, the CD would have to call "Do It Yourself" tasks (MATs,
TAT's with very large circles, or in earlier days PST's [as the late
Bill Bartell called "Piece of Sh*t Tasks]). Hence, the contestants are
basically "on their on"... not on an assigned task. With a separate
Club Class with similar performance characteristics, the CD can indeed
call an Assigned Task where you do have "real racing".

Larry

On May 29, 2:19*am, Andy wrote:
On May 28, 6:48*am, wrote:

Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

Impressive - Tim's example rightly takes the wind out of the argument
that the US needs a separate Club Class based on the belief that Club
Class gliders can't go out on "big boy" tasks.

9B

9B,

I disagree. Those of us who support a Club Class in America aren't
concerned about the length of the task called. Heck no. What we want
is the ability to call Racing Tasks (also called Assigned Tasks)
instead of just Turn Area Tasks and Modified Assigned Tasks. We also
want a group of gliders more closely matched in performance. And, we
would like to get a handle on the assignment of handicaps. Since many
other countries already fly Club Class, I think they are using an IGC
based system of assigning handicaps. Is it any better than the Carl
Herald (sp?) system (and modified Carl Herald numbers) that we now
use? I hope so. And maybe we here in the US can start using the IGC
handicaps for future Club Class races.

I flew in the First United States Club Class Race in Cordele, Georgia
just a couple of weeks back and it was real fun to line up on the grid
and not see a bunch of ASW-27's, Duo Discii, Ventus V2's, Discus D2's,
JS1's, 304s', Diana's, etc in our class. The weather cooperated one
day for a real assigned task to be called. Hallelujah!
Unfortunately, the Cordele weather of legend didn't show up and the
three other days we flew, we had Turn Area Tasks. But at least our
CD, Sam Giltner, kept the circles small which gave us more of a chance
to stay and race together rather than spreading us out over many
square miles that really big circles can do.

I'm not concerned about "big boy" tasks. Of course, any of my friends
who might be tasked to come get me might have a bit more concern...

Sincerely,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

On May 29, 10:05*am, rlovinggood wrote:
On May 29, 2:19*am, Andy wrote:

On May 28, 6:48*am, wrote:

Back at the 2006 Club Class Worlds in Vinon France we went on a 498km
assigned task, in thunderstorms, and I think I pushed my Libelle
around at @ 113kmh - and that only gave me 5th or 6th on the day.
Still - shows that "old" gliders can certainly go out on long,
assigned tasks like the "FAI" classes.

Tim EY

Impressive - Tim's example rightly takes the wind out of the argument
that the US needs a separate Club Class based on the belief that Club
Class gliders can't go out on "big boy" tasks.

9B

9B,

I disagree. *Those of us who support a Club Class in America aren't
concerned about the length of the task called. *Heck no. *What we want
is the ability to call Racing Tasks (also called Assigned Tasks)
instead of just Turn Area Tasks and Modified Assigned Tasks. *We also
want a group of gliders more closely matched in performance. *And, we
would like to get a handle on the assignment of handicaps. *Since many
other countries already fly Club Class, I think they are using an IGC
based system of assigning handicaps. *Is it any better than the Carl
Herald (sp?) system (and modified Carl Herald numbers) that we now
use? *I hope so. *And maybe we here in the US can start using the IGC
handicaps for future Club Class races.

I flew in the First United States Club Class Race in Cordele, Georgia
just a couple of weeks back and it was real fun to line up on the grid
and not see a bunch of ASW-27's, Duo Discii, Ventus V2's, Discus D2's,
JS1's, 304s', Diana's, etc in our class. *The weather cooperated one
day for a real assigned task to be called. *Hallelujah!
Unfortunately, the Cordele weather of legend didn't show up and the
three other days we flew, we had Turn Area Tasks. *But at least our
CD, Sam Giltner, kept the circles small which gave us more of a chance
to stay and race together rather than spreading us out over many
square miles that really big circles can do.

I'm not concerned about "big boy" tasks. *Of course, any of my friends
who might be tasked to come get me might have a bit more concern...

Sincerely,
Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

I'll second all that. Having flown in the same contest, it was really
cool to share thermals all the way around the course.
At one point I think there were 6 gliders (out of 17) all in one
thermal out on course. At the end we all ended up
in adjacent fields (since only about 5 made it around thanks to a big
cloud shadow shooting most of us down).

The contest ended up being much more competitive than sports class
contests I've flown. Being that it was
the first in the US it took on something of a "national competition"
character, and it attracted pilots
from all across the country and Canada too. Many mentioned 15+ hour
drives to get to the contest.

Sports class still has its place. It might be a better venue for
someone starting out to have easier tasks
to fly. If our assigned task had been called as a 3 turn MAT a larger
number of pilots may have made it back
after 1 or 2 turnpoints because that would have been less challenging,
but where's the point in that when
you're trying to call a strong challenge for everyone?

-- Matt

*Hence, the contestants are
basically "on their on"... not on an assigned task. *With a separate
Club Class with similar performance characteristics, the CD can indeed
call an Assigned Task where you do have "real racing".

I don't want to get in to the big club class argument, but let's not
put too much stake in assigned tasks.

First, none of the other classes -- standard, 15, 18, open -- fly
assigned tasks that often anymore. I haven't been to a contest in 10
years that had more than one assigned task. Unless you get a different
pool of CDs, don't count on that to be much different in club class.

Second, you can achieve an "assigned task" in the MAT structure by
simply calling a lot of turnpoints. I don't know why this is not done
more often but it should be. You get all the joys of assigned task
racing -- start gate roulette, big gaggle flying, everyone on the same
course, leeching, watching your buddies go by, and so forth. But after
X hours everyone gets to go home rather than land out the bottom 25%
of the fleet.

There are lots of good reasons for a club class in the US, and a few
cautionary reasons against it, but "so we can fly assigned tasks"
doesn't seem all that pressing given the above two points.

John Cochrane BB

On May 29, 4:14*pm, John Cochrane
wrote:
**Hence, the contestants are

basically "on their on"... not on an assigned task. *With a separate
Club Class with similar performance characteristics, the CD can indeed
call an Assigned Task where you do have "real racing".

I don't want to get in to the big club class argument, but let's not
put too much stake in assigned tasks.

First, none of the other classes -- standard, 15, 18, open -- fly
assigned tasks that often anymore. I haven't been to a contest in 10
years that had more than one assigned task. Unless you get a different
pool of CDs, don't count on that to be much different in club class.

Second, you can achieve an "assigned task" in the MAT structure by
simply calling a lot of turnpoints. *I don't know why this is not done
more often but it should be. You get all the joys of assigned task
racing -- start gate roulette, big gaggle flying, everyone on the same
course, leeching, watching your buddies go by, and so forth. But after
X hours everyone gets to go home rather than land out the bottom 25%
of the fleet.

There are lots of good reasons for a club class in the US, and a few
cautionary reasons against it, but "so we can fly assigned tasks"
doesn't seem all that pressing given the above two points.

John Cochrane BB

Well, I agree, but only to a point. It really is handy with sports
class
where you have a wide disparity of performance. I also agree that it
isn't called much any more, but I think there's a lot of people
that regret that trend. If the performance range of the ships is
fairly limited then the only reason to leave out turnpoints
compared to other competitors is because of lack of skill.
Also, if you look at what's being called in world club class
competitions a great many, if not the actual majority, of the
tasks called are assigned tasks, so we're ill preparing our team
members with how we're calling our contests.

I'll throw in one more point -- club class is the natural endpoint
to strong competitors who've learned the trade in sports class
(unless they can afford a latest generation racing plane). It
should also help encourage clubs to acquire the older generation
of planes and make them available to their members for
cross country and contest flying.

-- Matt

Just some stats from the last 2 Club Class WGCs:

WGC Rieti 2008 - http://wgcrieti.it/

Day 1 Racing Task 282.2 km - 2:30 h
Day 2 Racing Task 189.4 km - 1:44 h
Day 3 Racing Task 342.9 km - 3:38 h
Day 4 Speed Task 184.6/411.3 km 3:00 h - 3:03 h/347.0 km
Day 5 Racing Task 315.4 km - 3:10 h
Day 6 Speed Task 262.5/470.2 km 3:00 h - 3:01 h/362.1 km
Day 7 Speed Task 182.6/446.3 km 3:00 h - 2:58 h/345.6 km
Day 8 Racing Task 386.1 km - 4:02 h
Day 9 Racing Task 277.9 km - 2:54 h
Day 10 Speed Task 131.4/289.2 km 2:30 h - 2:29 h/255.3 km
Day 11 Racing Task 335.6 km - 3:00 h

Racing Task vs Speed Task 7:4


WGC Vinon-sur-Verdon 2006 - http://www.wgc2006.fr/

Day 1 Speed Task 168.4/367.1 km 1:30 h - 1:44 h/202.2 km
Day 2 Speed Task 172.8/350.1 km 1:45 h - 1:46 h/205.6 km
Day 3 Racing Task 291.5 km - 3:06 h
Day 4 Racing Task 405.4 km - 4:01 h
Day 5 Racing Task 406.6 km - 4:09 h
Day 6 Racing Task 376.0 km - 3:16 h
Day 7 Speed Task 223.3/426.8 km 2:45 h - 2:45 h/332.5 km
Day 8 Racing Task 498.8 km - 5:25 h
Day 9 Racing Task 315.1 km - 2:49 h
Day 10 Racing Task 328.3 km - 3:00 H
Day 11 Speed Task 311.3/620.2 km 3:00 h - 3:24 h/363.3 km

Racing Task vs Speed Task 7:4

Racing Task is international speak for Assigned Tasks, Speed Tasks for
international speak for Turn Area Tasks. The reason why the tasks in
Rieti were a little shorter than in Vinon is most likely the result of
the task area around Rieti being significantly more restricted than in
the French Alps around Vinon.

So if the US were finally to get serious about properly prepping and
selecting Pilots for Club Class WGCs Assigned Tasks should be the norm
and not the exception, tasks on a good day should be in the 300 to 500
km range with flight times possibly getting close to 5h on a booming
day... And then there is the issue of team flying being illegal in the
US while having been developed to an art especially by the Germans,
British and French...

Markus Graeber

One more quick note, the task for day 3 at the German Club Class
champs (today) was another Racing Task (Assigned Task) of 410.6 km,
completed by the winner in a Std. Libelle in 05:11:28 h @ 79,11 kph,
as mentioned in the initial post Day 2's Racing Task of 504.5 km was
also won by a Libelle in 05:16:20 h @ 95,68 kph. Would love to see
that in the US in a Club Class championship...

Markus Graeber