Editors’ Note: Thanks to Gary Osoba for providing a link to his original post regarding this topic in a comment to our interview with Oscar Goudriaan. The Café staff believes that Gary’s analysis is quite interesting and throught-provoking and deserves a more prominent place on the Café, so we’ve reproduced his commentary here.

With all the drama in the 2012 WGC Open Class, here’s how the various designs compared by total average points, followed by the total number of ships flown through the end of the contest (for calculating statistical variance):

11427   JS-1C (4)
11316   Concordia (1)
11240   EB-29 (2)
11089   Quintus (7)
11069   Antares 23 (1)
10339   Nimbus 4 (2)
9977   EB-28 (4)
8962   ASH-25 (1) Another damaged and withdrew
7631   ASW-22BL

I did not include powered models as separate designs since the ships were all in high ballast most of the contest. Obviously, designs with  only 1 or 2 gliders in the contest can vary statistically much more, i.e. it might not be a good idea to bet against 4 or 5 Concordia’s. The Antares 23 and Quintus share the same wing, and should be very similar in performance. Pilots in the top two designs above were essentially learning to fly them during the contest, and that may be true for several of the other pilot/ship combinations. I did not have the opportunity to speak with many of the pilots.

The numbers are for this contest only, and its conditions, flown by the respective pilots, etc., etc. Further disclaimer- I do not have an affiliation with any of the makers, nor have I owned a glider produced by any of them. Just the numbers.

An interesting design revolution is going on here. Feel free to correct if I got anything wrong.

Best Regards,

Gary Osoba