Spam: Re: new concepts-Pattern is HARD!!! Darn It!

[jim ivey]

Eric
The guys that do stay with pattern for several years end up in the (healthy) class, over crowded and bumping their heads on the ceiling with no place in AMA pattern to go. Maybe we need to expand the masters class to two classes so that you could choose which to fly at a contest. At a small contest maybe we could choose which pattern (class) to fly. This would also cut down the boredom of practicing 1 pattern for 2-3 years. Now the only place to go is FAI, which is not under the umbrella of the NSRCA. It is hard to fly 50 guys twice in 4 hours at the nats besides straining the facility and the judges.

More to talk about.

Jim Ivey

----- Original Message -----
From: Henderson,Eric
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 10:18 AM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: RE: new concepts-Pattern is HARD!!! Darn It!

To answer an off-line Q.

The Nat;s numbers were

Class    2002    2003

402        23        12             
403        20        26
404        50        37
406        27        25

Total    120        100

-----Original Message-----
From: discussion-request at nsrca.org [mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org]On Behalf Of Henderson,Eric
Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 9:51 AM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: RE: new concepts-Pattern is HARD!!! Darn It!


Ref, " Pattern is hard and that does scare the average club schmoe. In an effort to entice newbies into pattern you gotta look for the right guy at the right time. "    

I am in and have been in clubs with 200 and 300 members. Held a pretty low key fun fly and got six entrants and 10 plus for the picnic. Most folks just don't like to compete WITH their aeroplanes. Do rough math and you soon see how small the pool is of potential pattern pilots. Just relying on few great guys to find and cultivate the potential pilots is not a strong formula for success.

The whole point of writing my Monday notes was to prod for ideas to address the three R's of pattern, Recruit , Retain and Rejuvenate. If you can accept that the NSRCA is a Society and not a ruling body, you soon get into what the society should be doing. Many of us give thousands of personal hours to encouraging others. But what do we have in the form of tools to help us reach out.

It is very easy to get completely wrapped up in what it takes to run contests and keep track of rules changes and needs etc, but without NSRCA promotion and recruitment efforts we go the way of the Dodo bird!


Twenty or less at local contests that used to be 30 -40. A hundred at the Nat's where the only "healthy' class was Masters. That scares me!

Regards,

Eric.  
    
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