Dear Harry I have the greatest respect for you and for your achievements and generosity towards the gliding movement over the years and I am sure this view is shared by the majority of us.
Thank you for your email below and thank you for your submission to the NCC re the handicaps between 18m and Open class. Your paper was indeed taken into account by the Handicap Committee when they reviewed the handicaps for this coming season and as you have acknowledged some changes have been made to address this issue as a result. Whether or not I personally believe that a V2 is comparable to an ASG29 or a JS1 is largely irrelevant as I don’t fly any of them and I have no influence over the Handicap Committee decisions. My comments were very much tongue in cheek anyway. What I do know is that the Handicap Committee take their role extremely seriously and invest a great deal of time, experience and effort, into ensuring the handicaps they produce are in line with world standards and are aligned towards the soaring conditions found in Australia. I have seen at first hand just how seriously they undertake their responsibilities and we are privileged to be able to call on such a dedicated and experienced group. With regards to your comments about 18m class handicaps being all the same, it is largely correct, the HPH304/18m and LAK-17/18m have a 0.01 advantage but I assume you are referring to the V2CX/ASG29/JS1/LS10/DG808 which all have the same handicap. They in fact have the highest handicap possible in multiclass, equivalent to the Nimbus 4DM and ASW22BLE. To drop the V2CX down by 0.01 to an equivalent handicap to the HPH304/LAK-17 would not be an accurate depiction of its performance. I will regard your last 4 questions as somewhat rhetorical. Regards, ROSS From: aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net [mailto:aus-soaring-boun...@lists.internode.on.net] On Behalf Of harry medlicott Sent: Thursday, 18 August 2011 10:08 AM To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia. Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Handicaps Hi Ross and others, I have always, whether in sport or in business, been very reluctant to pursue a course from which I will personally benefit. However now, with my eightieth birthday well and truly in sight feel that reccomendations as to handicaps can be made without anyone pointing the finger and shouting self interest. Possibly offending my friends has also been a consideration. If you truly believe that the V2 is comparable with the ASG 29 and probably the Js1 then you are about the only one in the world wide gliding community to think that way. Even Schempp Hirth who make them recognise the act and made a V2 with a different A fuselage and market it as their competion glider. See You give a 4% difference between the gliders. Published sink rate data shows a 6% advantage to the ASG 29 at high speed fully ballasted. Australia has only a small pool of pilots with the skills, gliders, financial support and testosterone to compete internationally. You could count them on your fingers whereas western europe has 30 times more pilots than us and vastly more of international standard. Look at the results of european competitions and you will see which gliders are best and by how much. I made a submission last year relating to handicaps which is attached. The first part dealt with open class and that the latest 18 metre gliders, flying with wing loadings of up to 55 kg.per sq metre were more than a match for older open class gliders restricted to about 45 kg. per sq. metre, particularly as most competition days are flown in the strong part of the day. This made the older design open class gliders uncompetitive and could well damage the future of open class, particularly as it appeared that pilots with overseas aspirations were entering open class to better their chances of team selection. I note some handicap changes have been made to address this problem. In 18 metre class virtually all the gliders likely to compete have been given the same handicap. Is the intention to make 18 metre a non handicapped class? If pilots feel they have a diminished chance of succeeding due to handicapping abnormalities surely that will affect competition entries? Is the intention to encourage pilots with aspirations to import the best performing gliders? Is the intention of handicapping to put all competing gliders on an equal footing as far as possible or is it just to give those with a lesser performing glider a bit of hope? Regards, Harry Medlicott ----- Original Message ----- , From: Ross McLean <mailto:ross...@bigpond.net.au> To: 'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.' <mailto:aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 10:44 PM Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Handicaps
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