Volume 40 No 4 Aug-Sept 1989.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

YOUR LETIERS
in S&G makes the whole magazine worth buying.
To go as far as suggesting that I wrile a
column in S&G confirms yol,l have never rnel
me. If you knew the hours spenllhumbing
through Roget'.s Tllesatltus just to compose
somewhat pompous letters (even then the
point 01 which people miss) t' would be the last
person you would have volunteered.
So please Platypus, keep on writing. From a
purely selfish point of view, I'd hate to be the
subject of the last paragraph of the last
Platypus column - not a nice way to go down
in histOry!
SIMON PARKER, clo 'WoIds GC.
(The good news Simon is that Platypus has
promised to make a grand appearance from
time 10 time, just to sort us all out. Eo)
WORLD CLASS SAILPLANE
[)ear Editor,
I write to urge the Executive. the Competitions'
Committee, and· everyone else, to
create the positive climate of opinion necessary
to support the .concept of the World Class
sailplane. In line with the gliding tradition
which requires that people put bac~ in as
much as they take, Qut, this is a chance for the
competition community 10 help the majority by
promQting the idea that it is OK for less than
the ultimate perlormance to be Oonsidered for
"everyman's glider" in return for affordable
costs.
The distortion of the market in glider design
caused by the domination of com'petitive flying,
to the extent that the sport may well be dying
slowly, was well remark,ad upOr,) at the BGA
Weekend, but it has been visibly coming for a
long time to anyone who looked. Ann Welch
marked it as having begun at Marla, 1970 ­
"glider perlormance ,now exceeded that
actually needed to pr0vide top competition flying
... a heretical concept; except 10 those
pilots or countries which could no longer
afford to go in to win". What is all ,this continued
technological advance doing except to
make gliders more expensive
Nearly 40 years in the high-tech world of
advanced military aircraft has taught me tnat
the best is the enemy 01 the good. Technological
advance in glider design is both inevitable
and desirable, but It ought to be directed to
necessary rather than ultimately achie\