Hi Ross,
Nice logical analysis.
There are more 15 m gliders than that if you
count Mosquito, PIK 20 and Mini Nimbus. The
performance difference is not great anyway
and with handicapping it doesn't matter. Not
that Ventus A and B's are unbeatable without
handicaps for mini Nimbii :-).(Waikerie Nationals 1981)
If water ballast makes Sports Class "just for
fun" the solution is obvious. Water is a pain anyway.
The Wil Schuemann article Jim linked to bears a
little more scrutiny. Ballast was originally
intended to make gliders go better on really good
days - to break records. It is a stupid arms race when used in contests.
If you are going to ballast just use it to bring
everyone to the same flying weight in the limited
span classes. The heaviest pilot+ glider sets the
weight. As Wil mentions there are lots of
advantages to flying lighter. Availability of suitable tugs is just one.
Wil didn't mention one thing though - if you ban
water the next generation of gliders will have
really high aspect ratio wings and have high wing
loadings - like a heavier Duckhawk. This may not be all bad.
Adam, you really, really don't want 80 to 90
glider contests. I've flown in a few and a 65
glider one class (US Nationals 15m Uvalde
1986) They are frightening. Risk of midairs goes
up as the SQUARE of the number of gliders and
Flarm won't help. The risk is in crowded gaggles
especially before the start. That's apart from the launching issues etc.
Apart from a couple of exciting occasions where
the pack arrived back all at once, once on track there were few problems.
Which brings me to: why was the finish line at
the recent Waikerie Club and Sports Nationals at
3km radius AT THE GROUND? One glider got badly
damaged where this was a likely contributor. One
suggestion I heard was 500m over the top of the
airfield would be good. 1500 feet would be good
also. Some spectator interest then too.
I haven't thought of any problems with this.
Mike
At 06:26 PM 2/02/2014, you wrote:
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Hi Adam
Firstly, congratulations on asking the hard
questions. You have clearly put some thought
into it and you are passionate about your
sport. I will be very interested to hear/see
other pilots point of view on your
suggestions. My opinion differs from yours
however, but nothing in this email should be
construed as criticism of or disagreement with
your ideas but simply as my personal point of
view and I strongly encourage you to continue
thinking outside the box on these ideas.
As a current Standard Class Nationals competitor
and former Chair of the NCC, I have grappled
with a number of the points you raise and have
discussed a number of the solutions you propose
with both the NCC and Sports Committee members
during my past tenure and so I hope to be able
to clearly express an informed view for you.
Just to get some perspective on how the GFA
funding should be spent. First thing to say is
that the GFA exists to serve the entire gliding
community in Australia. It is this broad
community who pay the bulk of the money that
funds the GFA. Of this broad community there
are a minority who choose to participate in
Gliding Competitions. These competitors pay an
additional levy to GFA (part of the competition
fee) which goes to support the International
Competitors and usually there is an additional
cost to competitors to pay for enough tugs to
arrive to run the comp effectively. Of this
minority of gliding competitors there is quite a
small group that are eligible/interested/able to
compete Internationally. Of the entire GFA
community there are only about ten or 12
competitors selected to compete internationally.
National Gliding Competitions and International Teams Selection:
The National Gliding Competitions are held each
year in order to establish who are the best
*competition glider pilots* in the
country. These competitions have nothing at all
to do with International Team
Selection. Coincidentally, at the moment the
ITC does however use the results from these
competitions as a convenient benchmark to assist
in selecting the International Teams.
"Gliding in Australia is oversubscribed with competitions":
Hooray!! It is no coincidence that the
competition scene has grown from being almost
non-existent a few short years ago, to now being
almost oversubscribed (a very healthy and good
situation). The introduction of handicaps and
the honing of the rules to eliminate inequities
and set a level playing field, along with a
strong push for formal Cross Country Coaching
and encouraging the Junior Gliding movement, has
resulted in the current very healthy competition scene.
Pair Flying at National Championships:
The idea of implementing rules and processes
into the National Competitions that are focussed
solely on team selection or pair flying training
has been discussed for many years and is not
supported at all by the greater competition
pilot community and rightly so. Of the 52 weeks
of each year there are only two weeks that do
not allow pair flying, they are the two weeks of
National Competition. The competitions do not
exist to serve the needs of the dozen or so
elite International Competitors and nor should they.
Combining Classes:
The 15m Racing Class and the Open Class have
long been the least well represented classes. I
personally think this is a great shame and don't
really understand why that is the case. When
competition organisers are forced to combine 15m
and Standard and 18m and Open, nobody is really
happy about it. It is not a solution which will
see those two classes grow in their own right.
In fact quite the opposite. The 15m flapped
guys don't like being whipped by unflapped LS8's
as occurred at the Kingaroy MultiClass Nationals
and the Open Class guys hate getting whipped by
the 18m gliders, but it is the inevitable
outcome when you combine these classes in
Australia. There are two ways in which the
current situation can be changed for the better.
One is expensive and requires Australian
competitors go out and buy more competitive and
state of the art gliders. (Diana, ASG29-15m, EB29, Quintus etc).
The second and better way is that we devise a
solution that encourages more 15m flapped and
Open Class gliders to turn up to a National Comp
so they can have their own class.
There is no shortage of 15m Flapped gliders in Australia already (88 total):-
15m Racing Class (Flapped):
· 24 x ASW-20
· 20 x ASW-27
· 11 x LS-6
· 11 x 15m Ventus (A/B)
· 22 x LS3
Similarly there are 32 Open Class gliders in Australia currently:-
Open Class:
· 3 x JS1 C
· 1 x Quintus
· 6 x ASH-25
· 4 x ASH-31
· 15 x Nimbus 3/4 (all types)
· 3 ASW-22
Having just one Big Nationals:
The only people that need more than 2 weeks a
year to compete are those that compete in more
than one national competition. This is again
back to the minority ruling the majority. Not required.
The vast majority of Club Class competitors only
compete at Club Class. There is a small minority
who fly ASW-20 or similar machines that also
compete in Multi Class. No-one else can do
it. Sports Class is an Australian anachronism,
(that we all love!!) but is not really a valid
competition and is even worse now that it is
ballasted. That is, a JS1-C or an ASG-29 fully
ballasted will eat everything else alive no
matter how you handicap them, so it is now more
just for fun than anything else really.
The extra stretch in the logistics required to
run a competition with 80 or more competitors is
quite significant. Talk to any recent Comps
Director and organising committee and listen to their responses.
Thanks for reading this far.
Cheers, ROSS
_________________________________________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Adam Woolley
Sent: Sunday, 2 February 2014 10:44 AM
To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
Subject: [Aus-soaring] The nationals: a proposal
G'day All,
What do you think of the below?
Keen to hear from those who aren't going for
team selection, would you still turn up to the
team selection years (or to the nationals that
allowed pair flying every other year)?
Also from non-comp pilots, how would you feel
about the GFA spending money on the tug ferry fees?
& from people who are generally in the
organisation of comps, would this be better or worse for you or your club?
What are other advantages & disadvantages that
I've forgotten about? Or points I've made, but over looked or got incorrect?
Other?
Cheers,
WPP
As you're all aware, gliding in Australia is
oversubscribed with competitions, as well as the
team selection process being far to onerous. I
have a simple solution to all this.
At the recent Waikerie Club & Sports Class
Nationals, it was seen that it's easily possible
& safe to task wet & dry gliders together - using start lines.
I propose that we hold one nationals every
biannual year, which will house all classes -
except 20m class. Run using the GFA national rules as it is now.
I propose we combine STD & 15m class together &
run a '15m performance' class, then award the
highest placed STD & Racing class glider/pilot
as the national champion - for history sake. Why
run it as a combined class? It's not as much fun
flying against 7 other competitors, when you
could be challenging yourself against 30 plus others!
The same could be said for 18m & Open Class,
combine them (as they often are) as an 'Open'
Class. The only difference here, the 18m
gliders/pilots would have to declare what class
they were going for the national champion title in.
Alternatively, have the 18m & Open Class
separate - & only combine them should the Open
entries be not enough to make its own class
outright. Again though, is competing against 7 other gliders that much fun?
Club would be run as it is now. Simple.
How many competitors would this attract at a
site? Probably 80-90 odd gliders. That's crazy I
hear you say. Not really, in years gone past
they used to get those numbers (& more!) & managed.
Gliding is shrinking. The only clubs that are
running nationals now are big clubs, & are all
at sites where they can handle such numbers. So the site isn't the issue.
The tugs are an issue. Or are they? Simple
solution. If GFA want to see their sport &
population grow, they'll put their money where
their mouth is! Pay at least 2/3's of the tug
ferry costs for the competitors. Done. It'd be
no different to what it is now in SA where we have to pay large tug levies.
This idea/proposal. Run it every biannual year,
with every other year running as a team
selection competition, let's call it the 'open'
comp for now. This 'Open' comp would be run
exactly as the nationals is, except 'pair' flying would be allowed.
Note! I didn't say team flying, team flying to
me could result with multiple gliders flying
around in a 6 ship gaggle every day to improve
their chances of winning. So only pairs would be
allowed, teams would be extremely frowned upon.
Note! If & when a solo pilot wins the 'Open'
comp - they'd still be eligible to make the
team. Though I'll leave the team selection
guidelines to the ITC in this proposal.
Would the people still turn up to this 'Open'
comp if they're not interested in team
selection? I think so. As it's still an
organised 2wk gliding event to go flying with
their mates. Maybe more would turn up than
normal, as they'd be able to fly alongside their
'pair' flying mate - & not get shot down as they would now!
Alternatively. Run a nationals every year,
however only every other year will be used for
selection - & this particular year, 'pair' flying would be allowed. Easy.
Why leave 20m class out? We want this class to
grow. It wouldn't grow as fast as it could if it
were included at the nats/open comp. Just run it
at a State champs every year, with only the team
selection year as the one that counts.
Advantages of having only one big 2wk competition a year...
* It's only 2wks out of your precious 4wks a year annual leave.
* Only one lot of organisation people get put
out every year. Clubs & the organisation less likely to get burnt out.
* State comps, regattas & coaching events will
grow: as people will have an extra 2wks a year to spend how ever they choose.
* If you're only after team selection, then in
the 'off' years, the pilot could go to the
European Gliding Championships, or other
European nationals to get vital experience in
helping AUS become a world leader in gliding.
* More people in towns. Greater support from
councils. Greater chance of major sponsorship
(GFA should pay for a dedicated sponsorship &
advertiser of the event - leaving this up to
clubs is never going to work, as it hasn't up to
now. Ultimately we don't know what we're doing,
& we just don't have the man power or time to do
it now). Greater exposure for gliding in general.
* Potentially attract more international
competitors due to the amount of numbers &
likely better competition in each class. Which
as a result will make our pilots better. We
could advertise it like the 'World Cup' that the
paragliders have. Advertisers & media can spin up & promote it!
* God forbid, pilots could spend their other
2wks a year having a regular holiday with their family or friends!!
Disadvantages...
* It's a risk to try it, due unknown amount of
competitors that would turn up. I think, what
we're doing now isn't working (for AUS
international results), why not try something
new! WA State comps saw great success with
numbers growing once they combined into one big
class (Don Woodward said he 'raced' one other
competitor in 15m class one year before they
changed the format, that's definitely no fun!).
* Tugs. This can be fixed if GFA put their hand
into their pockets to help their/our sport grow.
Regards,
Adam Woolley
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