Why a One Design airplane? After 3 or 4 years of intense racing in the new 60" span slope racing class, the amount of racers began to drop off. Even the Unlimited class of slope racing has seen a major decline in the last few years. After racing both 60 class and Unlimited slope events for the past 6 years, Charlie (Richardson) and I began to talk about why more people don’t race.

Now obviously slope racing is a small niche in a microscopic sport (game?) and because of the limited amount of suitable sites to fly, it will never be a big part of the overall soaring competition scene. We can both remember the heavily attended International Slope Races and the World class competition we had in ‘93, ‘94, and, ‘95 in the 60" class TPG racing series.(average of 20 top pilots for each race) After questioning racing pilots and novices interested in getting into racing what the main draw back to slope racing was at any level, the overwhelming reply was COST!

The second most popular gripe was the increasing arms race in the design of the planes themselves.To win the ISR Unlimited race you now need the latest F3B style plane and be willing to risk it to the slope gods. The 60 span class was founded by Charlie and I to get more people into racing at a lower cost. This idea worked great for a while. The Renegade was the first production racing plane for the class and most of the experts were racing composite editions which were much faster then anything out at the time. It got to a point where the top 10 experts all had Renegades that were virtually identical. The racing was extremely intense because no one had a plane advantage. All you could do was keep your plane true, pick the right ballast, and program that radio to your liking. It was a heady time for racing.After a while other designs began to show up on the scene. The Whip, the Harris Nelson Spyder, and a few other pricey composite ships. The only problem was that people were destroying these expensive machines at an alarming rate. I totaled 5 Carbon Renegades in one season. (still a record!)I know this unavoidable carnage began to discourage people, even those with deep pockets. Many club members wanting to race just could not justify the cost involved. The last few years of racing decline are directly due to this quandary. The concept of one design has worked extremely well in many machine sports and I knew it would work for sailplane racing as well. So to give local 60" slope racing a much needed boost, the One Design class was born.

The concept is simple. A sub $100.00 kit plane that is 80-90% as fast as an unlimited 60" plane; a rigid design spec to eliminate design experimentation; a plane that flies with minimal low tech radio gear; a plane that can take abuse and encourages design durability; a plane made with basic glider technology; a plane speed equalized by limiting airfoil and minimum and maximum weights; a plane anyone can afford to race without the worry of destroying something expensive; a glider that pits pilot against pilot, not plane design against plane design.

This concept will be tested this year during the Gulls slope racing season. I will be flying one! A FUN 1 that is!! Kit prices will be included in the next post. Questions? email me at pnatona@cts.com