Clear

I very much appreciate that Vicki, Steve and Gerolf wrote in (Moyes factory in Botany, Australia)

They wrote above:

Whether the Oz Report tries to compare top shelf gliders with top shelf gliders of different manufacturers, or tries to create an artificial standard configuration you still inevitably compare apples with oranges.

It is indeed, as I pointed out a couple of times, hard to "create" an apples to apples comparison.  But what I did do in one case (http://ozreport.com/12.061#6) is just take the "basic" model as defined by each manufacturer and compare the basic models against each other.  I didn't "create" these configurations, the manufacturers did.  Of course, they may or may not all be apples, and Vicki, Steve and Gerolf argue that they are not.

Even if they are all apples, they are undoubtedly different varieties of apples, so they buyer has to decide what tastes good to them.

I initially failed to "correctly" compare what I hoped were apples to apples (http://ozreport.com/12.060#7) when I chose a comparison that contained in one case (Wills Wing T2C) some obvious options that weren't in the same configuration from Moyes, for example.  I tried to make up for that by publishing the more "correct" comparison with similar options in both the Moyes RS and the Wills Wing T2C (http://ozreport.com/12.061#6).  Of course, Vicki, Steve and Gerolf argue that even after these changes one still can't have a valid comparison.

As I pointed out earlier, the buyer can take the information/price lists that I published in the original articles (http://ozreport.com/12.060) and subsequently make their own "comparisons," whether they be apples, oranges or grapefruits.  They can also include the benefits that they see from each configuration (although it is often difficult to tell from the manufacturer's literature, the value of each available option).  Let them do their own cost/benefit calculations, I say.

Unlike costs, benefits are often intangible or at least difficult to measure, but that doesn't make them any less real that prices.  The Moyes folks definitely have a claim to have the highest performance gliders available (as do the Aeros and Icaro folks, as pilots flying their gliders have won Worlds Championships), but we can never be absolutely certain that it is the glider and not the pilot.  This is why we have the competitions.

I say, if you have bragging rights, then by all means use 'em.  Moyes had the top three spots in the Worlds in 2007 and Jonny Durand Jr.  (flying a Moyes RS 3.5) won every contest that he entered in Australia this last season.

In the end, Vicki, Steve, and Gerolf are arguing (in extremis) that nothing compares to a Moyes glider (except maybe a Icaro Z9 and an Aeros Combat L) and therefore these price comparisons are pretty irrelevant and to highlight them only serves to confuse the issue and the reader.  Perhaps.  I would love to have "hard data" about "performance." Unfortunately, as long as we have the pilot hanging out in the relative wind and so much depends on "handling" which is very pilot specific, we are not likely to have such data.

Am I looking for the keys under the streetlight because that's where the light is?  I would love to hear from Oz Report readers who know what they are talking about.

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