Change and effect... and a cause!

[WHIP23 at aol.com]

Hi Eric

I'm, currently, not sponsored and available to test this theory.  Contact me 
off line with sponsorships.  Cash will also be accepted.  Sorry, but I just 
couldn't resist.

Bob

n a message dated 8/9/03 9:13:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
Eric.Henderson at gartner.com writes:

> I think we accept statements like " There was a judging bias towards 4-c's 
> that made 2-c's redundant",  far too readily.
>   
> I can recall giving a YS 1.20 pilot in D-1 a heck of a good run for his 
> money for a whole season with a Conquest and a Hanno. They guy flew better than I 
> did but I did not experience that his set up was any better. My buddy 
> Charlie Watt beat 24 pilots in Sportsman (402) with the same config. the year 
> before. 
>  
> What I think happened was that pilots who were good also tended to be 
> committed and naturally migrated their investments to the more current and newly 
> available equipment. The net result being that they were at the top with the 
> old and were again at the top with the "new". The rest of us following in the 
> "comet's' tail in the hope that we would also become winners.
>   
> I don't think my flying was ever improved by the latest overpowered brute of 
> a pattern plane.  It never got me in the winners circle without, a) learning 
> to be a judge first, b)slowly applying pieces of education over gallons of 
> burnt fuel. c) Moving up before it got stale.. I can't find a correlation in 
> results to powerplants. Better planes made a difference but not without a ton 
> of left-hand(Rudder) education and practice. 
>  
> I ran the OS1.40 RX for a season in 1997/1998. There was some prejudice that 
> you always get from folks with a lot of money invested in 4-c's but cannot 
> say that I saw prejudice in the scores I got. I flew very average and very 
> rudder clumsy and was scored accordingly. I believe that judges find it hard to 
> downgrade just because of a plane design or a motor. A plane that can't do 
> the maneuvers is much more likely to incur negativism.
>   
> If  a pilot was winning with a .61 powered Jekyll and was left in the dust 
> by everyone moving to 1.20's. I could say that we hurt them.  If a not so 
> successful pilot was left behind and could not afford the new equipment we will 
> never know if the new equipment would have made them more competitive or just 
> left them with their prior status quo.  
>   
> The real "devil" is not equipment changes but open or background 
> sponsorship. Professional, or pseudo professional pilots, with heavy financial support 
> cause changes in our sport. We, the great unsponsored, never seem to open our 
> eyes and recognize that we really can't compete with them!  Perhaps they 
> should have their own class to fly in. In a way the TOC fulfilled that roll for 
> many years. (It deviated a bit when the planes became large and very loud). 
>  
> Pro-Am - If the professionals were separated from the amateurs, even by as 
> little as a class within the class, then private-pilot-entries could have a 
> way to the top that was not blocked by the big bucks! This years FAI finals 
> were dominated by radio-team-pilots  It read JR - Futaba - JR - Futaba -J R - 
> Futaba - JR - Futaba (I'm not picking on the radio suppliers. It could just as 
> easily be fuel or engines or planes or whatever). 
>  
> The point is that the amateur is completely emasculated in our sport and you 
> are sentenced to follow or fade irregardless of how good a pilot you may 
> be!.  Nite all...
>   
> Eric.
>   
> 

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