Practice Regiment

[Rick Wallace]

Great question, Ed! 

 

First, a note about coaching and 'study aids'  - screen shots at
http://www.angelfire.com/nj3/rixplanes/scoring_analysis__coaching_aids.htm
-- if anyone wants the real sheets/ powerpoints shown I can send / post. 

 

*Coaches  / coaching* -- Besides being a great T-shirt shopper and contest
morale booster, Kathy is willing to come to most of my practice sessions
during the week - I made her a set of sequence diagrams in Power point -
showing the geometry for each maneuver - and diagram sets for both flight
directions. She watches the flight and marks problem areas in each maneuver,
then after each flight we go over her notes. 

 

*Study aids* - Though people say that contest scores don't matter, a couple
years ago I started tracking my raw scores by contest /by round/ by judge
(no names- just the data) in an Excel spreadsheet, and color coding by those
scores - 

0=magenta / 5= red/ 6=orange/ 7=yellow / 8=blue / 9=green / 10 (rrrriiight!)
= dark green

and  with high-K maneuvers highlighted in bold, italics, underline or some
combination. 

At the beginning of a season there's been lots of red/ orange / yellow. and
that gives a place to start - the target being to make the sheet turn blue
or green. 

Easy to pick up trends for a problem maneuver (vertical column of yellow) or
a bad round (rows of yellow/ red) . and the ZEROS stick out like a sore
thumb. 

 

So now to the base question. 

I've been lucky enough to be able to get out during the week, as well as on
weekends - 

 

First flight is as for contest from centered takeoff to exiting the box.
Then for the rest of that tank, either practice the stinkers, w/ preceding
and succeeding maneuvers, or re-fly the whole thing if nothing stuck out
(and if the coach didn't laugh too hard at something in particular) 

Then after EACH flight, go over maneuver by maneuver w/ the coach and what
she saw.

**She is also the one who spots long term trends I hadn't caught, like
"You're always coming out of left-side turnarounds in a slight climb" 

 

After the first flight, usually fly an entire pattern w/ either focus on the
previous flight's problems, or on the high-payoff maneuvers from the score
analysis sheet - the ones w/ high K and bad colors. 

3-4 flights / reviews - when there's time, esp early in the season - is
about a max session for us most afternoons. 

 

** Laughter or the "What the h3ll was that?! " comments from Kathy usually
indicate it's time for a break. 

 

When I'm out alone, there's often considerable time w/ the stick plane
between flights figuring out why that maneuver was funny, and why I ended up
in so tight after this other one. (usually the answer's 'wings level', btw) 

 

Long post - hope it helps - 

 

Rick 

AMA89045

NSRCA 2972

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: discussion-request at nsrca.org [mailto:discussion-request at nsrca.org] On
Behalf Of Ed Miller
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:12 PM
To: discussion at nsrca.org
Subject: Practice Regiment

 

Ok, the list is far too quiet so it's time to stir the pot....actually I'm
looking for advice. Although practice makes perfect, he who burns the most
fuel wins...etc, realistically what you all of you do to get the most from
your practice sessions ??? Especially those that have a 24/7 lives and are
at times lucky to get to the field once a week ?? My personal situation the
last few years is unfortunately fly very little, get to the contest a day
early, get a few flights in ( complete sequence in both directions ) and
then do my best during competition. Got lucky and did well up through
Advanced but that sure isn't going to cut it in Masters, especially in
District 1. I was toying with breaking the sequence up in half or thirds to
practice or ?? I'm listening...Ed M.

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